Booked first trip to Coz... what to expect?

[unregistered19]

Hello everyone!

Booked my first trip to Coz. I've been diving since I was 13 (became DM at 18), but stopped for about 7 years whilst I pursued my studies here in Canada. A trip to Cancun last October saw the girlfriend getting certified, and a re-sparking of my love for being underwater.

Currently scheduled to be in Coz from April 9 - 14, and then over to PDC for a few days of relaxing. Potentially a couple of cenotes dives over there if my girlfriend and her equally-new friend has a decent grasp on buoyancy control. We're staying at the Casa Mexicana on Coz, and likely to be diving with Tres Pelicanos.

A few questions...

1. What are my options for shore diving from around where I'll be staying? We get to Coz at about 3pm, so it would be nice to get a dive in there as a check-out dive and to help my buddies out with trim.
2. What should I expect for diving / photography? I grew up diving Sipidan, Mabul, Layang Layang (oh the good old days of Layang...), Bali, and many weekend trips to Puerto Galera. Most of my previous photography was macro-focused (and film too, using a Nikon F100, thus not having many photos still accessible these days). I'll now be diving with a new Sony RX100 setup. How would the diving of Coz compare to what I know? Cancun was really rather dreary and rather boring.
3. Any recommendations for safe cenotes dive ops / recommendations for particular cenotes?

Since we're such a visual-emphasized community, I'll leave some photos I took way back then (2004) here as a thanks for your responses

 

[Karloss]

I would have to say that your best shot at shore dive from Casa Mexicana would be to make it down to the Blue Angel, which is not that far, and do their shore dive.The price is somewhere around 6.00usd+/- a few.
Not a bad walk but I wouldn't want to do it while hauling dive gear. It is beside the stingray pen and is not a bad dive on top of it. Make your way along the fence and then head up current(take a left) at the corner of the pen. The time of day you are talking about would be great for a dive and then stay for happy hour at the restaurant, I suggest the pollo nachos.

Photo ops are good, both macro and larger. Juvenile this and thats, Edgar at 3P's will find the small stuff, Jorge is good as well. The only negative is that SOME of the dive may be a little to swift for photo ops. The colors are unreal, clear water and as I stated earlier some swift current or very little depending on the day and the sight. Jorge and Edgar are good at working with you buy trying to get you the dive you want. You'll have a great time.

 

[rakay]

First, let me say, awesome pygmies!! I would love to have gotten a shot like that. Most of the time they see me coming and turn away. I have been diving where you grew up and that part of the world is my favorite.
Cozumel- most are drift dives and it can be difficult to photograph. Sometime it is fly by shooting. Other times it can be calm and you will have opportunities to shot. Be sure to take
a safety sausage due to the current. There is macro. I like to find the things in the anemones- shrimp, crab and such. Don't forget to look for the splendid toadfish- it can only be found in Cozumel.
The colors will not be as good as where you grew up. It will be better than Cancun. Cancun is just not good. It's only good to look for whale sharks and to see Jason DeCaires underwater art statues.
My husband dove Dos Ojos. I do not do cenotes. I will have to find out the name of the dive shop.

 

[deepsea21]

Way cool photos! Ah yes... the elusive Christmas Candy Cane Pearhorse. Fantastic! Actually I've no idea what they are called but those look way cool and I am pretty sure they do not reside in Coz. If you are diving with 3P's, Jeanie can hook you up with Cenote dives on the mainland before you depart as some divers on our december trip came from the mainland after some cenote dives to close their trips out in Coz. I've never dove the cenotes but understand they are a great dive experience.

If you arrive in Coz at 3PM, by the time you make it through MX customs, get your bags, get tickets for the Taxi busses (AS SOON AS YOUR BAGS COME OUT THE END OF THE SCANNER TURN RIGHT AND WALK PAST ALL THE PEOPLE CLAIMING TO OFFER TRANSPORTATION AND STRAIGHT TO THE TICKET COUNTER AT THE END WHICH WILL BE ON YOUR LEFT BEHIND GLASS TO PURCHASE YOUR TAXI TICKETS FOR TOWN). The Taxi bus will make several drop-offs in town (you could be 1st or last) and you'll get into your room after all check-in and such by 4:30. You may not be interested in figuring out a shore dive by then. 3P's is your best bet for diving if staying at the Casa... The Casa will have that 30' breakfast buffet loaded every day at 7AM and that gives you 35 minutes to eat before you take the 5 min walk around the block to 3P's for the free transport to the marina that leaves at 7:40.

If you do manage to make it to Blue Angel... Don't tell them you are diving the rest of your trip with Tres Pelicanos or they may ask you to immediately leave the property as they have supposedly done to some others. From what I understand there is some bad blood between 3P's and Blue Angel which is none of 3P's doing but some disgruntled staff left Blue Angel for better jobs and better pay with 3P's. Your best bet is once you get situated in the Casa, haul all of your dive gear around the corner to 3P's and hand all that stuff to them to take care of until the day before you leave. My wife is a big UW photo nut and the only piece of equipment she ever carried back to the hotel from a dive was her camera and housing... all else was left with 3P's.

Diving will generally be relaxed drift diving so tell your newer divers to "Go with the flow and let the current do the finning for you". The current can provide a totally relaxed tour depending on your dive location. Macro photography can be tough as there always seems to be a little current pushing you. You can shoot some good macro if you stay in the shallows and tuck down beneath coral heads and pillars and such but Coz is best suited for photographing larger marine life in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, it's not as though you'll be in a washing machine and we have piles of fantastic macro photos but it can be tough to snap the great ones if you are exposed to some current and finning when trying to get that perfect shot.

Cancun Vs: Coz for diving. There is no comaprison. Cancun is for tourists and Cozumel is for divers. Coz resides among the very best diving the Carib has to offer and it is cheap thanks to it being an island of Mexico.

Wish we were going with you but we are on a schedule that provides only 2 weeks in Coz every December! 48 weeks and counting!

 

[mstevens]

1. What are my options for shore diving from around where I'll be staying? We get to Coz at about 3pm, so it would be nice to get a dive in there as a check-out dive and to help my buddies out with trim.

On April 9, sunset is going to be at 7:04 PM, which could be your biggest challenge in accomplishing a shore dive that day without stressing everyone out given a scheduled 3 PM landing. I think 90 minutes from scheduled landing to being in your room as suggested upthread is optimistic and not something on which I'd want to base any important plans.

I can often be in the pool in a bit under an hour after touchdown. However, that's best-case scenario - my usual Friday flight is one of the first of the day so there's nobody in the immigration line ahead of us, I'm typically one of the first off the plane, I don't have checked luggage, I know how to get through the arrivals process fast, the car is in the parking lot and the key's in my bag, the house is 10 minutes from the airport parking lot, and I have some other unfair advantages. That includes a honed 42-second pool preparation routine of:

• open door to house and enter
• close door to house
• drop messenger bag on couch while walking past
• shed articles of clothing haphazardly onto floor while walking through living-room
• grab beer from fridge while traversing kitchen
• open back door
• jump in pool
• open beer
• get fussed at by wife for leaving back door open (but this step doesn't add to my time-to-pool, so stays in the plan).

That'd get me arrested at a hotel or if the house didn't have high walls around the pool due to one crucial time-saving feature of my approach. Apologies to those who've met me for any mental imagery this may induce - best not to think too much about things, I often find.

If another non-citizen can reliably get into the water in less time from touchdown than that, then my hat's off to them (probably, as I said above, strewn on the living-room floor with everything else). I don't think an extra hour or more for a first-time visitor staying at a hotel is in any way an unreasonable expectation.

On my unluckiest days (Saturday in high season sitting in a rear seat...), though, it's occasionally taken me over 3 hours just to get out of the airport!

With a later Saturday arrival and consequent reduced chance of a short immigration line, waiting for checked bags, needing to get your bearings, taking the van (or hiking off the airport grounds to get a taxi), having to check in to a hotel and unpack at least your dive stuff, girlfriend's wanting to shower because she's probably civilized and has been traveling all day, friend's wanting to check the view from the balcony, confronting Mexico's disapproval of public nudity in the lobby and having to head back to the room to get dressed because that step was skipped after the shower as you may just now have realized (and, don't tell my wife, but my girlfriend doesn't get dressed very quickly), then herding the 3 of you to where you could do a shore dive and getting set up, you might not have a ton of daylight left and you probably won't have had much chance to catch your breath since heading down the AirStairs.

Plus, no tacos or beer yet at this point in the process, and that's simply remiss to say the least.

It's vacation. Relax.

2. What should I expect for diving / photography?

Clear water and good light as deep as you'll ever go and survive to return. Deeper first dives are often 30-40 meters, shallower second dives are often in the 20 meter range. My shallowest-ever Cozumel boat dive was 10 meters. There can be significant current, but it's hard to predict. There's plenty to photograph, but sometimes it's hard to stick around without blowing through all your gas fighting the current. Sometimes it isn't even realistically possible.

3. Any recommendations for safe cenotes dive ops / recommendations for particular cenotes?

I like to go to Dos Ojos with Playa Scuba Diving Center (not Scuba Playa or any of the other myriad variations), which has lots of experience at that cenote right from the earliest dives there.

Good buoyancy control is a must for cenotes, and cavern diving even with a cave-certified guide wearing doubles with full redundant regulators (which is required) isn't in my opinion really suitable for beginners.

 

[ReefHound]

The closer shore dive would be Hotel Barracuda, which is easily walkable from Casa Mexicana with dive gear (not tanks). TP would probably give you the tanks but getting them to the dive site would be a problem. You can rent tanks on site at either Blue Angel or Hotel Barracuda (Dive Paradise). If time is short and you really want to get in that shore dive, you could take the shuttle from the airport directly to one of those spots, do your dive, then tacxi back to check into your hotel afterwards.

As stated, drift diving makes macro a challenge. You may have better macro opportunities on the shore dives.

TP does a great job of handling, rinsing, and storing your gear but that will make shore diving difficult. ;-)

 

[fishi]

I've never been down in April, but I hear the current can be a little unruly at times.

 

[lamarpaulski]

Nitrox certification and use is very useful for Cozumel-type diving. Bring a couple decent lights for night diving, swim-thrus and looking under ledges.

I would dive the first day(s) without camera and even ask Tres Pelicanos for an extra guide if you are leading two rookie divers. The often significant current and the group type diving makes it tough to pause to get great shots imho. It's fly-by video and photography often. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcjWzmCp27E) Plus you are bringing less-experienced divers and taking photographs will degrade your buddy role. They will look to you as the leader. Get them acclimated and squared away first.

Having said all that cautionary stuff - it's pretty easy overall, well-organized and safety-conscious and the visibility and majesty of the place is great. Excellent night diving. The town and especially the restaurants are great too. Locals are friendly and the island seems pretty safe by any signs I could detect. I like side-trips to the Mayan ruins on the mainland and the cenotes. A day or so exploring Punta Sur and the other side of Cozumel is cool too. (Don't violate any traffic laws by Punta Sur. I would stay off mopeds too.)

 

[jball]

We just got back from a Coz/Tulum trip over the holidays. This was our first cenote diving and we're hooked. Definitely not for new divers, though. We dove with Lucas, at Easy Chango and had a great experience. Check out the YouTube videos we uploaded to give you a sense of a couple of our cenote dives:

https://youtu.be/OnRT4n62ZRY
https://youtu.be/r4sNYx2UdjQ

 

[sharky60]

I would have to say that your best shot at shore dive from Casa Mexicana would be to make it down to the Blue Angel, which is not that far, and do their shore dive.The price is somewhere around 6.00usd+/- a few.
Not a bad walk but I wouldn't want to do it while hauling dive gear. It is beside the stingray pen and is not a bad dive on top of it. Make your way along the fence and then head up current(take a left) at the corner of the pen. The time of day you are talking about would be great for a dive and then stay for happy hour at the restaurant, I suggest the pollo nachos.

Photo ops are good, both macro and larger. Juvenile this and thats, Edgar at 3P's will find the small stuff, Jorge is good as well. The only negative is that SOME of the dive may be a little to swift for photo ops. The colors are unreal, clear water and as I stated earlier some swift current or very little depending on the day and the sight. Jorge and Edgar are good at working with you buy trying to get you the dive you want. You'll have a great time.

Casa Mexicana is located right in the thick of it downtown & I'm pretty sure there is no shore diving in that area, mostly because of boat traffic.

Yes!! the shore dive at Blue Angel is one of the best on the island. you can spend your entire dive just poking around the "stingray enclosure" right next door. or venture out beyond the cage to the "flats" and explore the many small coral heads and debris scattered about.

I don't think Edgar is with TP any longer, but you will be VERY good hands with Jorge. He's one of my favorite DM's to dive with and a great guy, I don't know the new DM, but if Steve hired him, he must be good.

Photo ops abound, sea horses, pipefish, nudies, blennies, slender file fish, Harlequin shrimp, Banded Coral shrimp and tons of coral and sponge species for the macro.

3 types of sea turtles (Greens, Hawksbills & Loggerheads) can be found, large green morays, various spotted morays, our very own Sharptail eel, mostly nurse sharks, but occasionally bulls & Caribbean reef sharks & rarely hammerheads; several varieties of parrot fish and file fish, our very own Bearded Toadfish, octopus (found a lot on night dives, but can be found during the day), Eagle rays, Southern stingrays, Electric rays & Yellow Spotted stingrays make up our ray collections, and again some spectacular coral and sponge formations for the wide angles. ... short list.

I'm not a cenote diver, so can't help you there. I'd check with TP and see who they recommend.