Man......can't believe we are really home. After 10 days in Cozumel reality tends to leave your mind. My wife and I decided to do something different this trip and not rent a condo. Getting up early to catch a taxi to town to Aldora's pier can be frustrating. Especially if you don't want to be the one making the boat late. We stayed at Fiesta Americana in one of the Casita Suites in the back of the property on the jungle side. Very nice. Room was great. Plenty of room and the service was very good. We did not opt for the AI as we greatly enjoy taking in the local establishments. In this list of restaurants a bad meal or even an average meal did not exist.
El Moro - Twice. Zachariaz Especial is outstanding.
Ray will always treat you right.
Cocos - Good breakfast at non tourist prices
La Choza - Twice. Love the orange hot sauce so much I buy two liters to go every trip. This time they had great Wahoo steaks.
El Capi Navegante - Very good seafood. A longtime staple in Coz.
Ernesto's - Twice. Very convenient for us this trip.
La Veranda - Very good dinner. The Caribbean Jerk Chicken was out of this world. The Palancar Coconut Shrimp very good as well.
Casa Mission - Always good and you can't go wrong with anything here.
La Conchita Del Caribe - Out of the way seafood place. The Conch was very, very, very good.
Primas - Twice. My wife and I love the Lobster here. Never get anything else. Best Lobster we have found on the island.
Our DO of choice as mentioned about is Aldora. They just do such a fantastic job. We like all the DM and they leave you alone once the get you know you and your abilities. We finally made time for our AOW course. Not much really to do since so many of the optional dives you do every day in Coz anyway. Due to some ear problems late in the trip on my part, we had to cut 4 dives off our list. We were still able to get in 13 dives for TBT of 15:03. We were shooting for 20 hours on this trip but fell short.
I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this or not but IMHO the reefs seemed to lack the color of old. The numbers of fish did not seem as high either. We were in Coz last Sept. and saw much more life. We dove pretty much the same reefs:
All of Columbia
Cedar Pass
Most of Palancar
Las Palmus
Yucab
Chankanaab
Santa Rosa Wall
Paradise
so we had a good variety. If anyone else has a comment on the health of reef and numbers of fish I would like to hear it. The large grouper and Jew fish were never seen.
Rented a Sea & Sea DX3000 Digital camera from Island Photo. Holly and Armando are great people. Very helpful. Camera takes great pictures if you know what you are doing......and I don't. Would love to have one to spend more time with it. I need to remember to get closer to my subjects. Armando was to shoot a video for us one day but he came down with a head cold. This was a blessing. Holly helped us find another videographer as the last minute and it turned out to be a guy who did a video for us several years ago when we stayed at El Presidente. We lost track of him and he showed up as our guy. His name is Adalfo Mendez and he works for Sea Star Video. If anyone needs a video shot you should really give them a try. They can be reached at seastar@ecozumel.net. When we got home we were able to see his work. Once again we were extremely happy with the final product.
All in all the trip was a big hit. We had a great time but as I mentioned, we can not believe we are due to return to the real world. Now we just need to begin planning our next trip. Grand Turk......Little Caymen........Maybe somewhere in the Bahamas.
El Moro - Twice. Zachariaz Especial is outstanding.
Ray will always treat you right.
Cocos - Good breakfast at non tourist prices
La Choza - Twice. Love the orange hot sauce so much I buy two liters to go every trip. This time they had great Wahoo steaks.
El Capi Navegante - Very good seafood. A longtime staple in Coz.
Ernesto's - Twice. Very convenient for us this trip.
La Veranda - Very good dinner. The Caribbean Jerk Chicken was out of this world. The Palancar Coconut Shrimp very good as well.
Casa Mission - Always good and you can't go wrong with anything here.
La Conchita Del Caribe - Out of the way seafood place. The Conch was very, very, very good.
Primas - Twice. My wife and I love the Lobster here. Never get anything else. Best Lobster we have found on the island.
Our DO of choice as mentioned about is Aldora. They just do such a fantastic job. We like all the DM and they leave you alone once the get you know you and your abilities. We finally made time for our AOW course. Not much really to do since so many of the optional dives you do every day in Coz anyway. Due to some ear problems late in the trip on my part, we had to cut 4 dives off our list. We were still able to get in 13 dives for TBT of 15:03. We were shooting for 20 hours on this trip but fell short.
I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this or not but IMHO the reefs seemed to lack the color of old. The numbers of fish did not seem as high either. We were in Coz last Sept. and saw much more life. We dove pretty much the same reefs:
All of Columbia
Cedar Pass
Most of Palancar
Las Palmus
Yucab
Chankanaab
Santa Rosa Wall
Paradise
so we had a good variety. If anyone else has a comment on the health of reef and numbers of fish I would like to hear it. The large grouper and Jew fish were never seen.
Rented a Sea & Sea DX3000 Digital camera from Island Photo. Holly and Armando are great people. Very helpful. Camera takes great pictures if you know what you are doing......and I don't. Would love to have one to spend more time with it. I need to remember to get closer to my subjects. Armando was to shoot a video for us one day but he came down with a head cold. This was a blessing. Holly helped us find another videographer as the last minute and it turned out to be a guy who did a video for us several years ago when we stayed at El Presidente. We lost track of him and he showed up as our guy. His name is Adalfo Mendez and he works for Sea Star Video. If anyone needs a video shot you should really give them a try. They can be reached at seastar@ecozumel.net. When we got home we were able to see his work. Once again we were extremely happy with the final product.
All in all the trip was a big hit. We had a great time but as I mentioned, we can not believe we are due to return to the real world. Now we just need to begin planning our next trip. Grand Turk......Little Caymen........Maybe somewhere in the Bahamas.
