........last July. We had a great day of diving in Coz. (Used Dive with Martin, our own arrangements) Did the Ship's shore excursion Jungle River Cruise and Altun Ha (Mayan Ruins) in Belize, very enjoyable and seemed worth the price. What do you do in Costa Maya? That was our question? CM was such a new Cruise ship stop we couldn't find hardly any info. on it. So we showed up on the dock with our snorkeling gear hoping for the best. We found a "barker" for fishing or snorkeling around the new tourist courtyard area. We secured their services and went on a small, fairly new fast boat a few miles (2-4 miles?) to the south and we snorkeled a fringe reef for a couple of hours. The reef is a long ways from pristine but in better shape than you will see in a lot of areas. Fairly shallow, 10'-20' range. The Mexicans spoke no english, two of them guided us (split into two groups) and showed us several interesting things. We saw your typical Caribbean fish, lobster, a counch, a school of squid (very cool). BTW, I am in fairly good shape but the 18-19 year-old that took the men out about "killed" me physically. It was quite a workout. The women's guide seemed in a little less of a hurry.
After our snorkel excursion they dropped us at a beach at a little village that was very third world. We enjoyed a few snacks, practicing our Spanish and buying a few trinkets from the locals. It was kinda of a nice change from the over built tourist traps you see every where. At the end of the day our "barker" sent a fairly new van to pick us up so we could get back to our ship in time.
Overall a very nice day.
The cost of our third world dream package was $50 a head. Diving? I don't know what you could find there, if any, with the limited cruise ship schedule.
Best of luck on your cruise.
SterlingDiver
