As always, my experience at Casa del Mar and Jungle Divers was great. So I won’t repeat myself.
We had a couple of meals at Casa del Mar and were surprised by how good they were. Their fajitas were great. Breakfast was ok (but I wasn’t expecting much).
We met up with
@lionfish-eater (David), who introduced us to
La Conchita – a great little gem of a restaurant that served up a wonderful fried snapper. I don’t remember prices, but I think the whole bill was about $30, and that was two orders of fish with sides, chips/salsa, couple of beers and a flan. It’s out of the way, but really good.
La Perlita was recommended by another SB person (who we also got to meet up with),
@BRT (Brian and his wife Sandi and their friend Mark). We got fresh lion fish cooked in garlic butter – oh my goodness, it was delicious. R had a beer, I had a hibiscus water and also a piece of pie. The bill was $52 (a little more than I expected, but a great dinner).
Casa Mission – we’d been told we have to go here, for years. So we went. The gardens are amazing and the atmosphere is relaxing and has a great vibe. There were wandering singers providing some beautiful tunes. The food (don’t hate me) was just ok. Nothing to write home about. I did get a talavera mug in the tequila tasting/souvenir shop though.
Blue Angel – we always look forward to going here, but this time the food and drinks were subpar. I’m not sure we’ll go back. The last time we went the food was good but not great. It might be that it’s not living up to my memories and I’m getting pickier, but it seems to be sliding downhill.
Ernesto’s – we were only able to go there once, for breakfast. Every evening we tried to go there they had already closed. I guess they’re only open for breakfast and lunch now?
Jeanie’s – this is where we met up with Brian (Sandi and Mark) and again with David. I was excited to order breakfast-for-dinner – because I was SURE that I had in the past – and they’re not serving breakfast in the evening. I know I’ve gotten heuvos motuleńos there at night. Oh well. Again, not as impressed as in the past, but it’s convenient (across the street from Mega) and good to meet fellow SBers.
American Airlines – I can’t fault AA on this one – well not for the weather issue. They sent us notifications that bad weather could impact our travel plans and we should look at changing our flights. We ignored them because we’ve ignored them in the past and everything worked out fine. This time we got ‘stuck’ in Cozumel for an extra day. The part that I do put on AA is that when R spoke with a rep they said there was nothing we could do because we were flying on miles, so R booked another night in our room. Then, when it was too late to change anything, I got a call back (I had myself in the queue for a call back) and THIS rep said ‘for another 5,000 miles (per ticket – which we could easily do) I can put you on the flight to MIA today’! So I lost a day of work, and we paid for a hotel, when we could have come home a day earlier. I don’t understand why the rep R spoke with didn’t offer that option. But that was the day we went to La Perlita and caught up on some true R&R. It’s hard to watch dive boats go out without us, but we tried to pretend we were non-diving tourists.
My dive computer showed 79 and 80 degrees. I was wearing a 5mil and 5/3 hood and got a little chilly toward the end of the week on the second dives – but I am generally colder than most others. The currents some days were fairly strong - but had a couple of dive sites where there was very little current. Had one day of rain throughout both dives and during the surface interval. I was happy to have brought my boat coat.
We saw eagle rays and turtles on several days, and even though I find it hard to believe, I encountered several new-to-me critters again. Almost every trip to Cozumel I find something new-to-me. I think my favorite this time were anemone mysids. They are found in corkscrew anemones and are super tiny clear shrimp with red ‘insides’ and black eyes. The red part looks like bits of red thread. I’ll post a few pics to show what I mean. I’m always checking corkscrew anemones for pistol shrimp (snapping shrimp) and Peterson shrimp, so these were a really fun find for me.
The first picture is cropped to show what they look like close up - the second one is a different, uncropped shot, and if you look closely (and are on a laptop) you can see the teeny things.
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