Cozumel Mexico Dive Report
February 27 through March 5, 2016
Weather: Rain on Saturday @ arrival, Sunny and 75’ air temps through Wednesday. Rain Thursday afternoon and on departure day.
Travel:
Flying in to the Island was a breeze as there are regular flights from almost anywhere every day of the week. Getting through customs was about as easy as it gets with the normal paperwork filled in before you land. Getting Taxi service is also a breeze. As soon as you’ve cleared your baggage head towards the exit and you will find a ticket counter where you can purchase a shared cab ride to anywhere on the island. If you miss it you will be pointed in the right direction. They will designate you a cab based on the area you are traveling. We went to Hotel Cozumel, which was a 10 minute ride that cost me $12.00 and trust a $2-3.00 tip is more than enough. While you’re on the Island if you don’t rent a car or motorcycle and choose taxi remember, everything is negotiable and if you wait on the right taxi you’ll get the right price Downtown is only 5 minutes from the Hotel. It cost us $6.00 to get there. Coming back one driver tried to take us for $10.00. We said no. The next cab we stopped took us for $5.00. So don’t be afraid to negotiate.
Downtown:
Downtown is only good for great food and shopping or for lack of better words, Tourist Crap. While we were in town there were 7 cruise ships at port. If you average 3K a vessel, that puts you in town potentially shopping with 21,000 people. The town of San Miguel population is about 75K so that makes shopping crowded. Every shop you pass buy you are solicited by vendors standing in the street yelling, “Hey it’s my turn now. Come my store I have what you want!” Long story short only one vendor spoke the truth when he said, “Hey sir! You want to come in my store and give me a chance to rip you off just a little bit?” True story! Long story short there are numerous shops, all of them have the same stuff. Never the less we didn’t spend much time downtown as that’s just not our bag.
Accommodations:
Hotel Cozumel was our choice as we’ve been there before so being familiar is very convenient. It does happen to be one of the best deals on the Island if you like an all inclusive 3 dives a day package. The hotel boasts a buffet style restaurant with several cook stations as well. A well stocked bar. Outside there is what they call a snack bar but it’s more like a meal bar. You can eat there through the day. Just across the street next to the Dive Paradise Dive Shop is their Beach Club where drinks and food flow all day long. You can access the shop by walking across the street, or not take a chance with the crazy traffic and travel across in a tunnel that connects the hotel to the other side. The food was for the most part pretty good and there was plenty of it. You will not have an opportunity to go hungry during your stay! Rooms are comfortable. They boast free internet, which actually works. The TV’s get a very limited few American channels and are blessed with Spanish subtitles. Not the best but, hey I’ve had worse. This is Mexico so “Don’t drink the water.” holds true in this case. Water at dining facilities is ok, just not in the rooms. They give you bottles that you can constantly re-fill throughout the hotel. Beds are, well, hard. However, if you’re doing 3 dives a day it really won’t matter you should sleep fine. Bathrooms are small. Most all rooms come with a balcony with a pool view. There are convenient racks for hanging stuff that needs drying. All floors are tile. Which makes for some loud noise when maid service or patrons with wheeled suitcases are traveling through, but who’s trying to sleep late? You’re there for the ocean right? There is a huge pool. Not many folks were in it on this trip as the water was a bit chilly. This is March after all. Hotel staff perform various forms of entertainment in the early evening, but at least they are courteous enough to cut it off at a decent hour. Staff is helpful and informative.
Dive Ops:
Dive Paradise runs out of the shop at the beach. However, it is not there headquarters and they have several locations throughout the island. It is, if I’m not mistaken, the largest of the 100 dive operators in Cozumel. That’s right, I said 100. Boats are scheduled to depart the dock at 8:00am for 2 dives, sometimes you leave at 8:30, then you return for lunch and head back out around 2 for #3. Extra dives may be purchased, plus special dives for qualified divers such as a fast boat ride to Punta Sur for a 130’ confined space dive through Devil’s Throat, night dives, dusk, and dawn dives etc. When you leave dock you may venture to several other docks to pick up other passengers before heading to the dive site. MAKE SURE you confirm which boat you are on every day! The week we were there we were on 4 different boats with completely different staff. Which makes tipping difficult so we didn’t worry about it. Just tip the shop at the end unless you have a special preference. I had mixed feelings about this because most days you were with different divers and this made it difficult to build relationships. Regardless, we met and dove with some fantastic divers. Unless you get on a fast boat with limited seating the operation is mostly cattle boat diving. Dive Paradise did well at managing as they’d split the boat and we’d have no more than 8 in a group. In the 15 dives we took there were a few circumstances where the water became very crowded because of the sheer number of boats on the water. This is not at all to our liking. However, the absolute quality and health of the reef made it tolerable. Water temps on this trip were a very uncommon 77’. We were wearing a 2/3 and there was an initial shock of cold on every entry. Visibility was commonly 80’+. Most days the sea was lake water calm, but just a few days before we arrived the harbor master closed down all operations for a few days because of high winds and rough water. Rumor is a dive boat sank if that gives you the idea. Marine life was very diversified and every reef had something to offer. I saw more scorpion fish than ever on this trip. Also of note we didn’t see a single lion fish although others said they saw a few. The opinion now is they have been so effectively culled, that they are now populating at deeper depths. On another note for those of you who are un- aware, this is drift diving. Pretty much jump in, get to depth, trim, and with very little effort cover a vast distance in a single dive. My advice to you, especially if you are documenting in photo or video, is to prepare for some form of drift control. I came with the bright idea on our last dive there and opted for a 12” plastic tent stake clipped to the BC that offers great stability on reef or sand with limited impact. Cost = about two bucks.
Overall rating- Well we’d do it again in a heart beat. It’s convenient, easy, close, and great diving.
DIVE VIDEO:
TIP:
My wife REALLY wanted to tour the tequila factory. Then we find out there are four so we chose a location nearby and went. These are merely a store front to sell you their stock. We were taken out back and had a tour of billboards, and fake or replica tools of the trade with a hand full of agave plants, rabbits, chickens, and pot bellied pigs running around everywhere. Essentially we were in someone’s back yard. Tequila is made in only two places in Mexico and it’s nowhere near Cozumel. So if you want it, go anywhere else on the island and save yourself some time.
February 27 through March 5, 2016
Weather: Rain on Saturday @ arrival, Sunny and 75’ air temps through Wednesday. Rain Thursday afternoon and on departure day.
Travel:
Flying in to the Island was a breeze as there are regular flights from almost anywhere every day of the week. Getting through customs was about as easy as it gets with the normal paperwork filled in before you land. Getting Taxi service is also a breeze. As soon as you’ve cleared your baggage head towards the exit and you will find a ticket counter where you can purchase a shared cab ride to anywhere on the island. If you miss it you will be pointed in the right direction. They will designate you a cab based on the area you are traveling. We went to Hotel Cozumel, which was a 10 minute ride that cost me $12.00 and trust a $2-3.00 tip is more than enough. While you’re on the Island if you don’t rent a car or motorcycle and choose taxi remember, everything is negotiable and if you wait on the right taxi you’ll get the right price Downtown is only 5 minutes from the Hotel. It cost us $6.00 to get there. Coming back one driver tried to take us for $10.00. We said no. The next cab we stopped took us for $5.00. So don’t be afraid to negotiate.
Downtown:
Downtown is only good for great food and shopping or for lack of better words, Tourist Crap. While we were in town there were 7 cruise ships at port. If you average 3K a vessel, that puts you in town potentially shopping with 21,000 people. The town of San Miguel population is about 75K so that makes shopping crowded. Every shop you pass buy you are solicited by vendors standing in the street yelling, “Hey it’s my turn now. Come my store I have what you want!” Long story short only one vendor spoke the truth when he said, “Hey sir! You want to come in my store and give me a chance to rip you off just a little bit?” True story! Long story short there are numerous shops, all of them have the same stuff. Never the less we didn’t spend much time downtown as that’s just not our bag.
Accommodations:
Hotel Cozumel was our choice as we’ve been there before so being familiar is very convenient. It does happen to be one of the best deals on the Island if you like an all inclusive 3 dives a day package. The hotel boasts a buffet style restaurant with several cook stations as well. A well stocked bar. Outside there is what they call a snack bar but it’s more like a meal bar. You can eat there through the day. Just across the street next to the Dive Paradise Dive Shop is their Beach Club where drinks and food flow all day long. You can access the shop by walking across the street, or not take a chance with the crazy traffic and travel across in a tunnel that connects the hotel to the other side. The food was for the most part pretty good and there was plenty of it. You will not have an opportunity to go hungry during your stay! Rooms are comfortable. They boast free internet, which actually works. The TV’s get a very limited few American channels and are blessed with Spanish subtitles. Not the best but, hey I’ve had worse. This is Mexico so “Don’t drink the water.” holds true in this case. Water at dining facilities is ok, just not in the rooms. They give you bottles that you can constantly re-fill throughout the hotel. Beds are, well, hard. However, if you’re doing 3 dives a day it really won’t matter you should sleep fine. Bathrooms are small. Most all rooms come with a balcony with a pool view. There are convenient racks for hanging stuff that needs drying. All floors are tile. Which makes for some loud noise when maid service or patrons with wheeled suitcases are traveling through, but who’s trying to sleep late? You’re there for the ocean right? There is a huge pool. Not many folks were in it on this trip as the water was a bit chilly. This is March after all. Hotel staff perform various forms of entertainment in the early evening, but at least they are courteous enough to cut it off at a decent hour. Staff is helpful and informative.
Dive Ops:
Dive Paradise runs out of the shop at the beach. However, it is not there headquarters and they have several locations throughout the island. It is, if I’m not mistaken, the largest of the 100 dive operators in Cozumel. That’s right, I said 100. Boats are scheduled to depart the dock at 8:00am for 2 dives, sometimes you leave at 8:30, then you return for lunch and head back out around 2 for #3. Extra dives may be purchased, plus special dives for qualified divers such as a fast boat ride to Punta Sur for a 130’ confined space dive through Devil’s Throat, night dives, dusk, and dawn dives etc. When you leave dock you may venture to several other docks to pick up other passengers before heading to the dive site. MAKE SURE you confirm which boat you are on every day! The week we were there we were on 4 different boats with completely different staff. Which makes tipping difficult so we didn’t worry about it. Just tip the shop at the end unless you have a special preference. I had mixed feelings about this because most days you were with different divers and this made it difficult to build relationships. Regardless, we met and dove with some fantastic divers. Unless you get on a fast boat with limited seating the operation is mostly cattle boat diving. Dive Paradise did well at managing as they’d split the boat and we’d have no more than 8 in a group. In the 15 dives we took there were a few circumstances where the water became very crowded because of the sheer number of boats on the water. This is not at all to our liking. However, the absolute quality and health of the reef made it tolerable. Water temps on this trip were a very uncommon 77’. We were wearing a 2/3 and there was an initial shock of cold on every entry. Visibility was commonly 80’+. Most days the sea was lake water calm, but just a few days before we arrived the harbor master closed down all operations for a few days because of high winds and rough water. Rumor is a dive boat sank if that gives you the idea. Marine life was very diversified and every reef had something to offer. I saw more scorpion fish than ever on this trip. Also of note we didn’t see a single lion fish although others said they saw a few. The opinion now is they have been so effectively culled, that they are now populating at deeper depths. On another note for those of you who are un- aware, this is drift diving. Pretty much jump in, get to depth, trim, and with very little effort cover a vast distance in a single dive. My advice to you, especially if you are documenting in photo or video, is to prepare for some form of drift control. I came with the bright idea on our last dive there and opted for a 12” plastic tent stake clipped to the BC that offers great stability on reef or sand with limited impact. Cost = about two bucks.
Overall rating- Well we’d do it again in a heart beat. It’s convenient, easy, close, and great diving.
DIVE VIDEO:
TIP:
My wife REALLY wanted to tour the tequila factory. Then we find out there are four so we chose a location nearby and went. These are merely a store front to sell you their stock. We were taken out back and had a tour of billboards, and fake or replica tools of the trade with a hand full of agave plants, rabbits, chickens, and pot bellied pigs running around everywhere. Essentially we were in someone’s back yard. Tequila is made in only two places in Mexico and it’s nowhere near Cozumel. So if you want it, go anywhere else on the island and save yourself some time.
