Dove lardeC today

[sefuchs]

I really enjoy Paso del Cedral. Last year at Cedral a Nurse shark charged up from the bottom and got face-to-face with my son while he was drifting along his safety stop. Very strange and kind of a pucker moment for sure. I think the Nurses' are getting "trained" to look for food from divers feeding them Lion Fish. Maybe with fewer Lion fish (actually divers with Lion fish) they won't get to aggressive or domesticated. Went to Ambergris Caye two years ago and the Nurse sharks were extremely annoying. They EXPECT to be fed by divers and just won't leave you alone.

 

[MMM]

No current at Tuniche? Wow, that's something I've never seen.

Everything is topsy-turvy...literally.

 

[NDL_Diver]

Everything normal today.

 

[deepsea21]

Wow, to call Paso del Cedral a wasted dive is a little extreme, I think. Just checked my logs and I've got more than a dozen dives there, most of which seemed pretty cool, according to my notes, as do several at Santa Rosa wall. Different strokes for different folks, I guess...

Yeah, I know there are many who like that dive and it can be a popular one with dive ops. I think the primary reason is it always seems to offer multiple sightings of big things primarily turtles & sharks. If I'm not mistaken the "odd couple" of the green moray and nurse shark hang out under that ledge on that dive as well. My complaint is the "fly-over" nature of it - what good is it to see multiple sharks and turtles if you fly right over or past them? Turtles and sharks can be seen on virtually every dive site and often in far better dive conditions where I have time to check them out a while in addition to spotting lots of other critters. I put traditional Santa Rosa Wall in the same class as a fly-over, only it's not a fly "over" - it's a fly "beside" or "along" the wall.

I do guess I shouldn't call it a "waste" of a dive as it still beats a day at work but for me there are so many dives that truly put those two to shame. I'll dive them as the boat wants variety and I generally stay for 2-weeks at a time so my exposure to Paso and Santa Rosa represents a small % of my dives but if the day's dives were known before I got on the boat and they were to be Paso and Santa Rosa I'd request another boat or swap to an afternoon dive that was heading to other sites.

 

[ggunn]

Yeah, I know there are many who like that dive and it can be a popular one with dive ops. I think the primary reason is it always seems to offer multiple sightings of big things primarily turtles & sharks. If I'm not mistaken the "odd couple" of the green moray and nurse shark hang out under that ledge on that dive as well. My complaint is the "fly-over" nature of it - what good is it to see multiple sharks and turtles if you fly right over or past them? Turtles and sharks can be seen on virtually every dive site and often in far better dive conditions where I have time to check them out a while in addition to spotting lots of other critters. I put traditional Santa Rosa Wall in the same class as a fly-over, only it's not a fly "over" - it's a fly "beside" or "along" the wall.

While more often than not, in my experience, there has been significant current at Cedral, especially in the "canyon" section, not so for Santa Rosa. Every time I have been there over the past few years the current has been sauntering speed at the most. The last time it was dead calm.

 

[deepsea21]

While more often than not, in my experience, there has been significant current at Cedral, especially in the "canyon" section, not so for Santa Rosa. Every time I have been there over the past few years the current has been sauntering speed at the most. The last time it was dead calm.

Santa Rosa "sauntering speed" - Lucky you (or unlucky me). Dead calm? You should have purchased a lottery ticket that day!

 

[mediumone]

Our experience with Santa Rosa mirrors ggunn's. A few years back, I remember slowly finning south at 100' to hang out and watch a HUGE lobster.

 

[DjDiverDan]

Personally, I really enjoy Santa Rosa Wall. While I have seen a nasty downcurrent there once - just once, in 25+ years of diving Cozumel, they are too rare to be worried about and easy to avoid/escape if you pay attention and are prepared - most of the dives have been very pleasant. Once, we were on Santa Rosa Wall and I watched two huge Eagle Rays fly up from below us on the wall, and the only time I ever saw a pod of wild dolphins come in close enough to se and hear clearly, we were on Santa Rosa Wall. Granted, it's not my very favorite site at Cozumel, falling somewhere behind Columbia Deep and Shallows and all of the Palancar dive sites (Palancar Bricks, Palancar Caves are both great for amazing coral structure), and it is NOT for divers who aren't good with their bouyancy control or paying attention to their depth, but I would not call it boring.

 

[sefuchs]

I’m with you on SR wall. My wife absolutely loves it but I prefer the Colombia/Palancar reefs. Even though it’s not my favorite I would not think of not diving it at least once per trip.

 

[gopbroek]

Similar experience as the OP about 2 1/2 weeks back, crazy currents for several days. One morning Cedral was ripping backwards, dropped in at the very bottom of Santa Rosa and did the deep wall backwards down through the outboard side of the canyon (which was fatal to several large Pez Leon) and then started working up and inland. Current was still ripping south and by the end of the dive we were at Francesa. It was actually a pretty fun dive.