Cozumel Diving 13-18 Sep 2020

[ColoDale]

I dove with a friend who came down from Virginia with United via Houston and met up another coming from California. We dive with Raul (owner/DM) of Bottom Time Divers (bottomtimedivers.net). I dived five days.

According to protocols, we need to wear masks on the boat and in public and practice distancing. We are in yellow status now and things are opening back up. Some that lived in Cozumel have left the island (temporarily maybe) and many here are still feeling the financial pinch.

Parking at the Fonatur marina is still closed off so in general parking there is a pain.

Diving
Weather – Mostly short rain showers with a few thunderstorms. Overcast at times. Hot and humid.

Water temps – I have not checked my computer but water was warm and I had no issues diving in surf shorts. In a few spots there is fresh water coming out at dive sites so the temps drop there. Not a big deal.

Currents - Slow and always South to North though on a couple of dives it was running out towards the channel a bit. Not a big issue.

Visibility – There are a lot of plant particles in the water but overall good visibility. There are a lot of jellyfish in the water column– combs, girdles, and those that look like a small string with black dots (I haven’t identified these) and even a few sea nettles. They generally are not a bother but I do have wide angle photos where it’s blurred due to a jellyfish in the frame. I did not get stung much and get stung more around April when the thimble jellies are here.

We dove mornings and others did do a couple of three tank dives on few days. No night dives by boat allowed.

Sites
Palancar – Open sites
La Francesa and Dalila
Santa Rosa
Punta Tunich
Cedral Wall
Yucab/Tormentos
Cedral Pass
North sites

There were quite alot of free swimming large Green Morays, quite a lot of Brown Spotted and Goldentail eels. Good fish life – Snappers, Margates, and such. Not many juvenile spotted drums as most were adult with one very large spotted drum that was turning dark. Lots of Splendid Toadfish. We saw hawksbill turtles but not as many as other times of the year. Lots of lobsters and channel crabs. Less scorpionfish on the sites we were on.

Photos (split into two posts)

Anemone

Balloonfish

Banded Crab (Anemone crab)

Banded Coral Shrimp

Brown Spotted Moray Eel

Goldentail Moray Eel

Green Moray Eel

Green Razorfish

Harlequin Bass

Horse Eye Jacks

 

[ColoDale]

More Photos

Nurse Shark

Peacock Flounder

Red Hind

Sea Nettle

Shortfin Pipefish

Smooth Trunkfish

Splendid Toadfish

Spotted Drum

Tiger Grouper

Web Burrfish

 

[Ray and Pam]

Some nice pics.
I've got to get a better camera, or learn how to use mine.
Harlequin Bass...I've never heard of that one, or seen one.

 

[Cozdreamer]

Nice shots! nice angle on the splendid toadfish! I enjoy watching the smooth trunkfish flit around with their triangle shaped flat bottomed torsos! Thank you for sharing your cool underwater finds!

 

[cozcharlie]

Thanks for posting. I particularly like the web burrfish. They are pretty shy so hard to get a good shot since they turn away from the camera/diver. —I have probably taken 30 or 40 pics of them and pretty much have pictures of 30 or 40 tails

You even got some purple in the background to add some color . Well done

 

[ColoDale]

Thanks for posting. I particularly like the web burrfish. They are pretty shy so hard to get a good shot since they turn away from the camera/diver. —I have probably taken 30 or 40 pics of them and pretty much have pictures of 30 or 40 tails

You even got some purple in the background to add some color . Well done

True. I have 6-7 other shots of fish tails of it but managed to get this one before it turned.

 

[ColoDale]

Water temps averaged 84 F on all dives. Avg dive time for 10 dives was 69 minutes and we did not plan intentionally deep dives. I had good fills on all but one day. Others reported short fills on a couple of days. Tanks were from the Fonatur Marina which I think is Meridiano. Quite a few bad orings on tanks which had to be replaced by us.

 

[deepsea21]

Quite a few bad orings on tanks which had to be replaced by us.

Having known people who have had that primary o-ring blow at depth (my wife included) I ALWAYS set up our gear, pressurize it, shut off the valve and listen for leaks around that o-ring. No hiss no prob but I then also watch how the whole system holds pressure on the way to the dive site to detect any other leaks. Plenty of things can fail but that little 5 cent (or whatever it costs) primary o-ring that holds the 3000 psi for the whole system is not one you want to screw around with. Any hiss or bubbles seen if sprayed with some soap and water results in an immediate replacement and testing again before we'll dive with it. Anyone who says that tiny little hiss or that tiny stream of bubbles coming out is nothing to worry about hasn't experienced one blowing at depth when that tiny stream turns into an crazy erupting volcano at depth.

When I was a kid and could only afford to drive cheap cars that should have been in a junk yard by then I learned the same thing about car radiators... They say that little drip is nothing to worry about... add some "radiator fix" to it and keep topping it off. Did that for a while until it let lose and the radiator blew out spraying steam and water all over the place on the highway.

 

[FLturtle]

Great pics. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ggunn]

When I was a kid and could only afford to drive cheap cars that should have been in a junk yard by then I learned the same thing about car radiators... They say that little drip is nothing to worry about... add some "radiator fix" to it and keep topping it off. Did that for a while until it let lose and the radiator blew out spraying steam and water all over the place on the highway.

In a related story...

When I was a lot younger I drove a 1969 Ford Econoline that developed a small radiator leak, and a friend of my dad's who used to be a NASCAR driver recommended that I pour a quarter pound tin of ground black pepper into the cooling system. It worked. I drove that van with the pepper in it for a couple of years, but every time I took off the radiator cap it smelled like I was cooking gumbo.