jonhall
Contributor
Thought I'd share this trip as it had some firsts for me......and the pics were supposed to be at the bottom of the post!
Flight to Coz and back: American Airlines on time for all flights - Indy to Miami to Coz and Coz to Dallas to Indy. There was nothing about the Quintana Roo Visitax at the Cozumel airport. Talked to a couple of travelers at the Villa who paid it ahead of time, but it wasn't necessary.
First time to walk out of the airport to the round-a-bout and grab a taxi to take us to resort. Only a few minutes walk and all sidewalk until you have to cross the street. We had friends fly in on a different airline arriving about 10 minutes after us. We waited for them - small taxi van somehow got our 4 large and 4 small suitcases in. $30 for all of us plus $10 tip - same thing we paid for larger taxi van to take us back to airport.
Villa Aldora: First time to stay in Coz somewhere other than a timeshare resort/hotel. Stayed in the Norte Suite with another couple we generally travel with. Felt the price being split 2 ways was a pretty good deal. Two bedrooms upstairs (master with a large balcony looking out to ocean) and a large living space on lower level (fully stocked kitchen, dining table, living room) with a large balcony with ocean-view - the lower level of this room is still a floor level up on the oceanside. Things I liked: clean, furniture/beds in good shape, quiet area, the view, right by Puerto Abrigo, air tanks/weights provided for shore dives, rinse tank/drying area for scuba gear, Aldora dive boat pick up, free nitrox for boat dives if staying here, bicycles/helmets available to use (~10 minute ride to town), large water jugs in each room, snorkeling area is really good, manager onsite and maids/staff provided anything we needed. A first for me was seeing a croc swim along the coast from the direction of the port toward town - right across our snorkeling area!! Was worried we might not like the place, as we also reserved a room for April with family several months ago, but after being there, we can't wait to go back!
Aldora Diving from Villa Aldora: Just to get it out of the way, my last dives were 2 years earlier and this was my first time diving with steel 117 tanks and first time using nitrox (although I've had the certification for 8 years.) I found I had to adjust to some new things. After using 8 lbs, 10 lbs, and 12 lbs of weight, and although I could use either, I found 12 lbs the easiest to complete a safety stop with - think I figured it all out on my last dive!
Dive boat assignments are posted on a whiteboard in the evening. Boats pick up at 7:35 - there were as many as 4 boats that picked up each morning - they had already picked up other divers either from Aldora's town pier or elsewhere. Fast boats get you to the marine park sites in ~40+ minutes depending on the sites. I did do the 3 adventure dives trip when conditions permitted and the trip north (first time) to Tiburcio was 1 hour - Tiburcio had the most barracuda I've seen at any one dive site - as it turned out conditions changed at the other sites in that area, so we headed back and did Cantarel and San Juan Reef, both with pretty strong currents - still great dives. Visibility was great at every site I dove although Punta Sur Sur was only about 80' instead of 100'
. Every dive we did was a deep dive and only 2 were under 60 minutes - an 87 minute dive was my longest. We did several nice swim throughs. Pretty common was starting with 3700 psi +/- and coming up around 1000 +/- psi. At the end of dives everyone came up together - the boat was always in sight. Surface intervals were usually along a beach in some shallow water (one day was at Cielo Beach where stingrays swam around the boat. Fruit and water was provided on the boat, and coats were offered for warmth. Villa Aldora divers are also taken back first and then the other divers - only exception to this would be if Aldora picked up divers from a far south resort. Lucas was my DM for 7 of the 9 dives I did - he was very good with pre-dive info and leading the dive. Very accommodating staff. WhatsApp was a great way to communicate with the shop. Memo does a great job running the shop. Also paying in cash will get you a 10% discount.My dive computer battery compartment flooded, a first for me, sometime during my first 2 dives, but it did it's job. I did replace the battery before the trip. After cleaning and checking it out, it seemed to work fine so I used it again and, of course, it flooded after the first dive and quit working. I was provided a wrist computer for the 2nd dive. Couldn't get cap off of battery compartment after that, so used a wrist or air-integrated console for the rest of my dives - the first console wouldn't come on so I used a wrist model - the second console (different day) was fine, but after the first dive, we couldn't get it to switch from 32% to 36%, so I just stayed at the level of the DM on the second dive. Also had the rechargeable battery in my camera go out after a couple of days - that was okay as I don't take a lot of pics anyway, but I was also reminded how nice it is to just dive and not worry about other things.
Other things:
*Met Dave and Stacy Dillehay (owners) who came to town for a day and hosted a nice little get together for the guests. Great people - the kind you can sit and talk to and feel like you've known them for years. It's obvious that they both (Stacy especially) care about the Villa and that Dave still cares a lot about Aldora Divers.
*Taxis - a ride from the resort to the ferry pier (town) was always 100 pesos, which in the taxi drivers mind is anywhere from $6-$8. We always said $6 and they said okay. Better deal would have been to have 100 peso notes available. Taxi drivers usually asked for more from town back to Villa, but we usually named the price we would pay - never paid what the driver asked for.
