Cozumel ? Should we wait?
- Thread starter vapovick
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jpomerantz
Contributor
Look in the Cozumel forum in North America-Mexico. There are many threads describing the recovery and coments from recent divers. Personally would not avoid it.
njd3rph
Contributor
Went diving there the first week in Feb. Stayed at Scuba Club which was in fine shape, but I cant say the same for the reefs. Every reef I dived with the exception of Paradise (which was in fairly decent shape) was a mess. Coral was severly damaged and it looked as if someone had dumped tons of sand over the entire reef. The island itself is virtually stripped of folage (the palm trees look like toothpicks), and many buildings are still damaged, although many businesses are operating, including stores and restaurants. All of the docks with the exception of the municiple peir are either gone or severly damaged. Give the choice of Coz or Bonaire, I'd go with Bonaire.
vapovick:
Already made two trips to Cozumel this year. If you're a veteran you will see a few things that are different. Yes some of the shallower reefs got hit but there is still a tremendous amount to see. Check out the Cozumel forum and look at the pictures that have been posted of the reefs recently.
My wife was there in November and saw lots of turtles, eagle rays and tons of fish. The cruise ship piers got broken to pieces. But is that really a bad thing?
The restaurants are open and the people are working. The resorts on the very south end suffered a lot of damage but are fighting back.
Seems a few travel agents seem to be referring people to other places. I think it's because the places they normally book on the south end are still being worked on.
The only thing I noticed out of place were traffic lights back on 30th and 65th that were not working and are manned by police. Otherwise it was business as usual.
Headed back down April 1st - 10th and we will be taking two couples with us and diving for six days.
I was at Paradise reef last week. It wasn't too bad. Several nice swim throughs. Sanderosa Wall looked like a nuke hit it. It was sandpacked and there wasn't a hole left for any critters and no vegitation.
Tip: We dove with Sand Dollar Sports. I would quit diving before I went with them again. I only have a dozen dives so maybe I've just been lucky so far, but it was the pits. They gave us the rental gear on the boat, and it was crap. My regulator was broken (torn mouthpice so it wouldn't stay in my mouth) and they told me to just use the backup-up reg. The dive master read us the riot act between dives because the dozen people didn't stay in line behind him. He acted like it was non-certified resort dive. Before the 2nd dive he told people if they weren't going to stay with him to stay in the boat. We went down and stayed with him. His chosen dive profile was 40 minutes at 40 feet. At 40 minutes we still had 1400 lbs of air left and the computers showed several hours of NDC time left. He physically grabbed people and was pushing them to the surface. I guess he had another drive trip to make and we were delaying him getting back. We would have swam away and stayed down. but that jerk would have gotten in the boat and just left us there!
Tip: We dove with Sand Dollar Sports. I would quit diving before I went with them again. I only have a dozen dives so maybe I've just been lucky so far, but it was the pits. They gave us the rental gear on the boat, and it was crap. My regulator was broken (torn mouthpice so it wouldn't stay in my mouth) and they told me to just use the backup-up reg. The dive master read us the riot act between dives because the dozen people didn't stay in line behind him. He acted like it was non-certified resort dive. Before the 2nd dive he told people if they weren't going to stay with him to stay in the boat. We went down and stayed with him. His chosen dive profile was 40 minutes at 40 feet. At 40 minutes we still had 1400 lbs of air left and the computers showed several hours of NDC time left. He physically grabbed people and was pushing them to the surface. I guess he had another drive trip to make and we were delaying him getting back. We would have swam away and stayed down. but that jerk would have gotten in the boat and just left us there!
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