Johnoly
Contributor
- Messages
- 4,555
- Reaction score
- 6,588
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
Took a short trip down to Cozumel to dive with Christi at Blue XT Sea diving and stayed at a beachside condo on the far south side. Conditions were really warm and nice.
Stayed at Residencia's Reef which is way way south of town. There are so many different types of places to stay in Coz, in town, out of town, beachside, inland, and hotel, house, etc, etc. You just need to decide how you spend your weekends normally, how you like to dine, then it's easy to find an area with options. This trip required some quiet reflection time with someone's help, to organize my thoughts.. Residencia's Reef (RR)is just off the famous San Francisco Beach dive site. It is 500 feet from 2 huge day party venues so if you want to socialize, it's easy. Those same places along with the next door nice restaurants, are an easy stroll for anything you want to eat, drink, get a beach side massage, rent a dive tank or just dig your feet into the wide sandy natural beach and chill under the cool breeze shade. The night time moonlit beach strolls for miles are pretty nice too.
Everything from dirt cheap studio units up to 4 bedrooms is available. I had a work associate who owns a unit and I paid some maintenance fees along with doing some bathroom repairs that he needed done for a min-cost short time visit. RR is really nice with both a quiet pool and also a waterflow pool. Snorkeling and shore diving are right out front, but it's really a check out dive although I found a bunch of skates and juvi's in the rocks out front. There is a pier and I wasn't charge a pickup fee. I had a $30/day jeep cause I wanted to visit some other Coz residents and places so I dove with D2D's Christi at Blue XT Sea. She knows how I dive, my history and likes that I show up early and never cancel no matter what.
1st dive right out of the box is to the 3 digit deep rippin currents of Barracuda reef. 3 knots and another dive boat was at the same site with some divers using 12 foot long stay in place helper gear with their BC's totally inflated. Our divers knew how to HIDE behind a rock or sponge and let the eddy swirls push you forward, hide so the eagle rays couldn't see you ,and it was easy to take pictures. The other guys looked like hooked bait fish in mid water and the eagle rays stayed right in front of us the whole time and ignored them. Stalking technique is critical to getting close.
More:
Zoooooommmmmmm
Getting divers in the background shot
Loved the 1st dive so much, we pushed a couple of clicks north along the wall and found 8 eagle rays again. Barracuda Reef can be right in the ship lanes. Having a nice 5 foot, 8 inch wide surface maker buoy while hanging at 30 feet as the UltraMar ferry get's pissed, cause your dive boat is protecting you in the downpour is really sweet. Gotta love Mago, I see his props 20 feet infront of my SMB, touching the throttles back and forth while I'm at 28 feet gassing off and I know he blocking for me. I hear the big loud thruster dual props from the ferry getting closer and closer, it's really loud on top of us. I see them pass a pleasant distance away as I surface. Mago always protects his divers, blocking with his boat no matter what, Dang fine captain!!.
Conditions were Shweeet, 200 + feet of viz (why don't they make 3 foot long dome ports for those ESPN long telephoto lens) Currents more fun than a theme park roller coaster at 3 knots and I gotta stop being a warm water wuss in a 7mm cause temps were 79 and I was sweatin, having a Dentine Smile the whole time.
Day 2 was San Francisco Wall and Paradise Reef. Endless blue water viz and currents so easy, it was like watching an IMAX movie pass infront of you in Wide WoW mode. Hope you like pictures, cause this many my burn out your modem by the time they all load.
Big Mutton Snapper or Small diver
Wanna shake hands? Promise I'll be gentle....
Splooge alert pictures
Love this boat
This next three picts is cause we dove the most popular dive site in Coz and we had the first 30 minutes alone underwater on Paradise Reef. For a Saturday this unheard of and we got lucky. Further down you'll see that it was an incredible awesome 90 minute dive.
Cattle stampede coming from behind.
Moooo overrrr.
Just passin through..
But wait........Now the good stuff shows up.
Big arse dang black grouper,,,be still my beating heart!!
Colorless, oderless fish under a ledge
Puffer with a whale's blow hole (lucky capture)
Big ole field of grass,,,,,Now to spread out & scour it to find a seahorse.
Gotcha!! 7 inch long big boy !!
Still the same dive and found a herd of Squid, until one inked as it got chomped by a Jack.
I didn't do it.............
And then in just 40 feet, more Eagle Rays showed up and got closer.
Not sure what kinda fish, looks like a big dark frog fish.
Plan your next trip to Cozumel and you'll see some great values to stay in condo's and the diving is off the charts fantastic . We had a great time !!
Stayed at Residencia's Reef which is way way south of town. There are so many different types of places to stay in Coz, in town, out of town, beachside, inland, and hotel, house, etc, etc. You just need to decide how you spend your weekends normally, how you like to dine, then it's easy to find an area with options. This trip required some quiet reflection time with someone's help, to organize my thoughts.. Residencia's Reef (RR)is just off the famous San Francisco Beach dive site. It is 500 feet from 2 huge day party venues so if you want to socialize, it's easy. Those same places along with the next door nice restaurants, are an easy stroll for anything you want to eat, drink, get a beach side massage, rent a dive tank or just dig your feet into the wide sandy natural beach and chill under the cool breeze shade. The night time moonlit beach strolls for miles are pretty nice too.
Everything from dirt cheap studio units up to 4 bedrooms is available. I had a work associate who owns a unit and I paid some maintenance fees along with doing some bathroom repairs that he needed done for a min-cost short time visit. RR is really nice with both a quiet pool and also a waterflow pool. Snorkeling and shore diving are right out front, but it's really a check out dive although I found a bunch of skates and juvi's in the rocks out front. There is a pier and I wasn't charge a pickup fee. I had a $30/day jeep cause I wanted to visit some other Coz residents and places so I dove with D2D's Christi at Blue XT Sea. She knows how I dive, my history and likes that I show up early and never cancel no matter what.
1st dive right out of the box is to the 3 digit deep rippin currents of Barracuda reef. 3 knots and another dive boat was at the same site with some divers using 12 foot long stay in place helper gear with their BC's totally inflated. Our divers knew how to HIDE behind a rock or sponge and let the eddy swirls push you forward, hide so the eagle rays couldn't see you ,and it was easy to take pictures. The other guys looked like hooked bait fish in mid water and the eagle rays stayed right in front of us the whole time and ignored them. Stalking technique is critical to getting close.
More:
Zoooooommmmmmm
Getting divers in the background shot
Loved the 1st dive so much, we pushed a couple of clicks north along the wall and found 8 eagle rays again. Barracuda Reef can be right in the ship lanes. Having a nice 5 foot, 8 inch wide surface maker buoy while hanging at 30 feet as the UltraMar ferry get's pissed, cause your dive boat is protecting you in the downpour is really sweet. Gotta love Mago, I see his props 20 feet infront of my SMB, touching the throttles back and forth while I'm at 28 feet gassing off and I know he blocking for me. I hear the big loud thruster dual props from the ferry getting closer and closer, it's really loud on top of us. I see them pass a pleasant distance away as I surface. Mago always protects his divers, blocking with his boat no matter what, Dang fine captain!!.
Conditions were Shweeet, 200 + feet of viz (why don't they make 3 foot long dome ports for those ESPN long telephoto lens) Currents more fun than a theme park roller coaster at 3 knots and I gotta stop being a warm water wuss in a 7mm cause temps were 79 and I was sweatin, having a Dentine Smile the whole time.
Day 2 was San Francisco Wall and Paradise Reef. Endless blue water viz and currents so easy, it was like watching an IMAX movie pass infront of you in Wide WoW mode. Hope you like pictures, cause this many my burn out your modem by the time they all load.
Big Mutton Snapper or Small diver
Wanna shake hands? Promise I'll be gentle....
Splooge alert pictures
Love this boat
This next three picts is cause we dove the most popular dive site in Coz and we had the first 30 minutes alone underwater on Paradise Reef. For a Saturday this unheard of and we got lucky. Further down you'll see that it was an incredible awesome 90 minute dive.
Cattle stampede coming from behind.
Moooo overrrr.
Just passin through..
But wait........Now the good stuff shows up.
Big arse dang black grouper,,,be still my beating heart!!
Colorless, oderless fish under a ledge
Puffer with a whale's blow hole (lucky capture)
Big ole field of grass,,,,,Now to spread out & scour it to find a seahorse.
Gotcha!! 7 inch long big boy !!
Still the same dive and found a herd of Squid, until one inked as it got chomped by a Jack.
I didn't do it.............
And then in just 40 feet, more Eagle Rays showed up and got closer.
Not sure what kinda fish, looks like a big dark frog fish.
Plan your next trip to Cozumel and you'll see some great values to stay in condo's and the diving is off the charts fantastic . We had a great time !!
Last edited:
for a short trip looks like you saw it all
