Is Cozumel getting over-dived ???

[Tuckster]

Just back ... dove Aqua Safari on Tuesday (2/13) .... Santa Rosa wall on dive 1 & the as always shallow dive for tank 2. I was not impressed with the coral & there seems to be less life each year.This was my 4th visit to Cozumel & I love the city & its people ( & its affordability) but I'm not as excited about the diving as I once was. Is it getting over-dived ??? There were & always are a ton of boats out there.

:huh:

 

[diver 85]

Interesting question....Little history of me 1st....1st & only time we dove CZM was '89....From there we dove G. Cayman for about 5 yrs, it became too crowded, then on to Roatan, bought a beachfront house there in '94 & have been there since-- till last Oct, friend of mine,fairly new to diving, talked my wife & I into a trip to CZM....well, the diving I found was excellent, saw more 'big' animals than I had seen in several trips to Roatan... On one dive, finishing up Devil's Throat @ Columbia Reef I think it was, 6 spotted eagle rays swan under us @ 40 ft-we were at 20 ft drifting our safety stop....Another dive, we saw 3 different nurse sharks- one was under a ledge with a big green eel sitting beside it......I think some of what good happened to us was the dive shop we used, Aldora- for instance the 6 eagle rays we would never have seen due to lack of BT time on that dive- it was a 140ft./1hr 15 minute dive with deco & safety stops we had to make.....If you're not familiar with Aldora, they are a little more per dive BUT your bottom time is unreal, must use a computer to get in the water with them, check them out next time, well worth the extra $$$, IMO...(they use 125 hp steel tanks so bottom time is ALOT......you MUST BE CAREFUL & watch that computer......Just a short review but I was extremely pleased with the 'shape' of diving in CZM....btw, us 2 guys on that trip are heading back March 7 thru 11 to get in about 12-13 dives( in 4 days) of course with Aldora....My recommendation is to check them out, you may want to go with them or not.......Aldora.com is their address, and their villas they just started last year are very good & a very good value, right there on the water too......good luck, I would not give up on CZM just yet........

 

[ronski101]

We also just got back and hadn't dove Cozumel since before Wilma. We expected the worst since it appears that many of the threads are prejudiced in one direction or the other and we wanted to see for ourselves. What we found based upon the dives that we made over 1 week was that there was more big life and less small life. We saw many large green eels, nurse sharks, small rays, and turtles when in the past we saw very few. What we saw less of was a variety of the 4-8" reef fish. We saw tons of the yellow striped French? grunts hiding out of the current. Soft flora got beaten back pretty hard at most of the sites that we dove.We think that the reefs are still in a recovery mode. Certainly with the constant pressure of tons of divers many who have little experiency diving in currents, the reefs are going to have a tough go of it to recover. Diving in Cozumel will never be like it was 10, 15, 20, years ago. However, we still had a great time and will go back late this year after a trip to little cayman.

 

[Diver Kat]

Don't think Coz is over-dived, I think Mother Nature has done quite a bit of rearranging in the last few years .... we saw a lot of changes before & after the last few hurricanes, but the diving was still great - just different. It does seem as if the smaller fish had a rougher time of things, and the larger guys are out in force .... One of best dives ever was this past December on San Francisco Wall - we were heading into the end of the dives and a pod of 30+ dolphins came by on both sides of us underwater ... it was spectacular.

 

[diveborg]

Maybe it isn't Cozumel, it is you. Going to the same dive destinations 4 times in a row might be the problem. You need more variety. Get out of the Caribbean for your next trip. Try something different like the California Channel Islands or closer to home, some of the NE wrecks.

 

[Gdog]

I am thinking Diver Kat is close to home....mother nature decided to try a different look and tore up the old landscape in favor of new...lets see how it matures. I like watching it come back into its new look

 

[Moodiejeff]

Just back ... dove Aqua Safari on Tuesday (2/13)

I'm going to assume on a cruise? I really think it's too hard to get a feel for a place in one day. Maybe all the Eagle Rays & Black Tips were down at Palancar that day. I know for a fact that what you see from day to day is highly variable.

I made 4 trips to Coz last year, had some great days and some ho-hum days... and some Awesome days. I actually think that I've been seeing more of the big stuff lately. Before Emily & Wilma it was pretty unlikely that you were going to see any sharks except for Nurse (though I did see a Hammerhead once). Now there are Black Tip Reef Sharks hanging around the southern sites. I probably saw 6 or 7 Green Morays last trip. On one site there was a Green Moray sitting in it's hole right next to a Nurse shark acting like best buds... and 20 feet down the reef, another Green Moray & his nurse shark buddy. How often do you see that?

I was lucky enough to find a juvenile seahorse all on my own on Paradise and I keep hearing about more being found. I can't even begin to tell you how happy that makes me. I can go on and on...

Is it over-dived? Hmmm, well maybe. I agree there are a LOT of divers putting pressure on the reefs. It takes going out with a good and trustful dive operation who keeps an eye on their divers to help alleviate some of that pressure. I've seen too many people walking on the reefs but that's going to happen if the DM doesn't care. We all know the hurricanes took their toll but the coral will come back, it's just going to take some time. The difference I saw between January '06 and November '06 (and 2 trips in between ) fills me with a lot of hope.

You're going to have to beat me away with a stick 'cause I can't wait to go there again. Maybe Diveborg is right, or maybe you need to spend a week there and soak it all in. How did it compare to the rest of your stops on the cruise? Were they all ship excursions or did you book by yourself? I'm not going to bash Aqua Safari but find an op that will take you down to Chun Chakaab or Colombia Shallows.

None of these are going to win a photo contest:

 

[diveborg]

You're going to have to beat me away with a stick 'cause I can't wait to go there again......

That's because you're a Coz Addict.

I agree, a person really needs a week there to really see what the diving can be like. 2 dives is just too small of sample to make a valid judgement.

 

[Moodiejeff]

That's because you're a Coz Addict.

Ha ha! You're right!

Actually my next trip is to Turks and Caicos... so there! :mooner:

...Unless I can sweet talk my wife into a Coz quickie next month. You reading this honey? :10:

 

[pa diver]

"Over dived" or over used, over visited etc.....implies some degree of degradation and can be documented in most popular places, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and The Great Pyramids, unfortunately it comes with the territory. The impacts can be lessened but not eliminated. "Crowded" is a relative term, I felt crowded when there are 15-20 people on a boat and they dumped us in with lots of ************s and elbows everywhere. Using a diff operator, smaller boats didn't get that feeling. To date...............I've never felt too crowded to make me cross Cozumel off my dive list.