I know most of the best ones and love to tell them. (note the gig'em sign in front of the message)
At the risk of re-igniting a 25 year old debate, I wanted to explain my statement on Cozumel vs. the Caymans. I did my first carribean diving with Divi Tiara on the Brac. And I kinda think maybe I got spoiled. Our dives there were perfect. The water was flat, visibility was easily 100+ every day, and we had a current on 1 dive out of 18. Maybe I got spoiled, but being able to dive in and go any way I wanted on the reef and not have to follow a thundering herd of divers is very high on my list of enjoyable dive location characteristics. My experience with coz may have been less than the ideal one, but my reasons for saying I liked the sister islands better are as follows:
1) Crowds:
Cayman Brac - We SAW other dive boats not from our resort twice in 6 days of diving, and that was on the trip to the Bloody Bay Wall at Little Cayman (we did 2 days diving in Little Cayman, and 4 in Cayman Brac). Not once did we share a dive site with boat full of divers, and we never had to sit and wait for another boat to drift away before we could get to where our divemaster wanted to begin our dives. Our average boat load was 10-14 divers on a 42 ft well equipped boat with plenty of room and plenty of speed to get us from one site to the next and back to the dock. We were almost always the first diver on the site that day (except 2 of the bloody bay Wall sites and in many cases were probably the first divers that week. With the lack of currents, we could dive any direction we chose and only had to follow the DM and other divers if we wanted to.
Cozumel - We dove with Dive Paradise. Unless we wanted to pay extra to get on a "fast boat", we were stuck on a 30-36 ft boat with 16-20 divers with very little room to move about, and not enough room to hide from rain squalls. The boats were slow...very slow. The ride to palancar on average took nearly an hour...one way. That didn't include going dock to dock to pick up other divers. Once in the water, you were stuck with your DM and the group you were diving with, and could count on somebody else always having to be at the front of the group to scare away anything interesting to look at before anybody else caught up enough to look at it. More often than not, we were the 2nd or 3rd group of divers on each dive site that day, and finding a sleeping nurse shark or an unmolested stingray in the sand was nothing more than a fantasy.
2) The currents:
Cayman Brac - I like to sit and look at interesting things. I despise the "window shopping" method of diving where you swim (or drift) along and glance for a few seconds at everything until your eyes glaze over. It is not uncommon for me to spend 5-10 minutes of a 45 minute dive inspecting one coral head or hovering and watching cleaning station. With no currents and no thundering herd surrounding me, I was free to do this as long as I pleased.
Cozumel - While I appreciate the "ease" of just floating along and not having to swim, I hated having to find a hole to hide in to try to stop to look at anything. And if I wanted to stay longer than a minute or so watching, I was definitely going to get a dirty look from the DM who had to wait on me and from my buddy if the hidey hole was only big enough for one diver. See my comments above on "the thundering herd" making sure that anything interesting got flashed to death by camera strobes before I got there because I tend not to try to race out in front and be the lead diver in the group.
3) Convenience:
Cayman Brac - The resort and the dive operation are integrated. When we showed up, we put our gear in a bag with a number on it and didnt touch it the rest of the week except to dive with it and rinse it after the dive at the dock. We signed up each night on a dry erase board at the dive shop for which boat we wanted to dive the next day from. Each boat had a listing for what DM, what Capt, and what area they were planning to dive. When we came down in the morning, our gear was on the boat, we got on the boat and went diving. You could also see who else was already signed up and avoid any "problem divers" you had seen on previous dives. Between dives and after diving for the day, our meals were included, the food was fabulous, and we could relax on the beach and enjoy the sunset.
Cozumel - Our hotel was across the street from Dive Paradise and a little over a mile from town. Dive Paradise did not provide anywhere to store our gear and their rinse facility left a lot to be desired. In between dives if we wanted lunch, we had the choice of a mediocre nearby restaurant, a trip into town for lunch, or snacks we purchased. After the dives, we had to drag our gear up the hill to the hotel, try to find a place to hang it all to dry and still be able to shower, and then take a taxi or walk a mile or two to get a decent meal that was not included in the price of our trip. If you wanted any decent beach, you had to take a taxi the other direction several miles. Oh yeah, and the cost of the taxi is not included either.
4) Value:
Cayman Brac - My trip to Cayman Brac in another couple of months will cost me 1199 to include airfare, accomodations, 2 tanks per day of diving, and all meals for 7 nights and 6 days diving. I will probably add a 3rd dive 2 or 3 of those days and might do a night dive (might even be included), which will add about $150-200 to the total.
Cozumel - Knowing that the hotel and the dive op we used last time were not the best available, I priced several 5 and 6 day trips to hotels and dive ops in Coz. What I found was that for 5 days diving in a decent hotel with an in-house dive op that was recommended by several friends, without meals included, I was going to pay about 900-950 dollars for 5 days 2 tank diving, airfare, and transfers. I you add a 6th day of diving, a 3rd tanks for a few days, and the cost of a night dive, and about $150-200 each for meals and taxi rides to restaurants, I would pay about the same to go to Cozumel or Cayman Brac.
I think for many, the lure of Cozumel is the whole experience...the shopping, the culture, the camaraderie of being around friends and having fun. The diving is good (don't think I was trying to say the diving wasn't good), but to me, the diving in Sister Islands is better. I have had friends tell me that Grand Cayman is very much like Cozumel when it comes to crowds, but the sister islands are a different world. I think both places have suffered from their own popularity. The cruise ships coming to Cozumel seriously killed the "sleepy dive town" image it carefully cultivated for 20 or so years. I also have seen airfare from houston skyrocket and hotel prices have gone up a great deal as well as Cozumel has tried to keep up with the high-priced luxury hotels in Cancun. What was once a great value to have good diving in a great atmosphere is now (at least to me) an overcrowded, overly touristy, dive location with at best moderate value for your money. It all depends on what you look for in an experience, but for me, the quality of the diving and the relaxation value of the vacation are key to my enjoyment. I did enjoy my trip to Cozumel very much despite the list of reasons I cited above. But in a dollar for dollar comparison of the enjoyment value I get from the trip, the sister islands win hands down.
TxAgs92
