Playa Del Carmen Daily Dive Report! Geofish

[Geofish Dive in Playa]

September 9, 2010

Mama Vina and Barracuda

Mama Vina was really nice on Thursday with the huge schools of Permit, Amber Jack, Horse Eye Jack, and Barracuda. There were tons of Baitfish inside the wreck which started to become barracuda food while we were inside. Once we got off the wreck we saw a big Hawksbill Turtle swimming on the auxiliary reef along with more Horse Eye Jacks and a big Green Moray Eel. Water temp is still warm at 88ft/27m with it being 84F/29C. Visibility was about 75ft/23m and there was hardly any current.

Barracuda was very nice with the visibility being around 70ft/21m. We saw two adolescent Hawksbill turtles eating on top of the reef. As expected we saw around 10 Moray eels in total as well as two Scorpionfish. The weather is starting to cooperate very nicely after half a week of the port being closed.

Barracuda was very nice

 

[Geofish Dive in Playa]

September 10, 2010

Tortuga and Sabalos

Today the conditions were perfect. The temperature at the time of our dive was 85F/30C. It always feels so much hotter, but I will trust windguru.com. The wind was blowing from the ESE at 4knots/5mph and the waves were non existent as the water was like glass today. The weather should be great all the way through next week. Cross your fingers that Igor does not switch directions!!!!

Tortuga was awesome today!! We saw about 8 turtles in total, I counted at least 7 Hawksbill and one huge Loggerhead that scared the crap out of one of my divers. The huge Rainbow Parrot fish were out as well as the school of big Cubera Snapper. No Tarpon, we actually have only seen the Tarpon one time this year and this is a sign that the Bull Sharks are already here or coming soon.

Sabalos was very nice today. Visibility was about 70ft/21m and there was so much life on the reef. We saw the big schools of Grunts, Snapper, and Porkfish as well as 2 Painted Elisa's. Marco said his group thought they saw a Bull Shark in the distance so they went to investigate and they saw what they said was a 6 foot Bull swimming into deeper water. If this is accurate this was our second Bull Shark sighting, the first was about 3 weeks ago at Tortuga in about 70ft/21m of water. As of today we have seen 2 Bulls and we heard that another shop saw one at Cueva Pargo. So this is a good explanation of why the Tarpon haven't been seen to often and it is also a good sign that we might have an early Shark Season.

Tomorrow we are going to Tortuga and Barracuda. Happy Diving to everyone.

 

[Canard]

Max and Morgan

Sounds like great diving. We are diving in the Gulf of St Lawrence at the Saguenay-St Laurent National Marine Park near the Saguenay fiord. It is as warm as it gets here at 43F and 30' viz. Profuse sea life blankets the walls with forests of anemones teeming with crabs. The colours are tropical, the water is Cold.
Cheers
Don Gordon

 

[Geofish Dive in Playa]

September 17, 2010

Mama Vina and Barracuda

Now that Karl is gone we can go diving. Two days of wind and rain from Karl put the diving on hold, but we are thankful that we only got the remnants of what is now a category 3 hurricane. Today the weather is great with the temperature at 83F/28C. The wind is blowing from the ESE at 8knots/9mph.

Mama Vina was nice today. We saw a big school of Permit and Barracuda. There was also a big school of Yellow Fin Tuna and Mullet. The sightings of Mullet and Tuna tells us that the season is changing from Summer to Fall. The water is getting a little bit colder and we are starting to see the changes in species. The water was 81F/27C, this is a significant drop in temperature from the last time we dove when it was 84F/29C. Visibility is not great right now due to the rain, but it was still at about 20m/66ft.

I hope everyone near Veracruz and the Gulf side of Mexico stay safe and weather the storm. Happy Diving!

 

[Geofish Dive in Playa]

September 21, 2010

Tortuga and Barracuda/Sabalos

Tortuga was great today. We saw 5 turtles, all Hawksbill. We also saw 3 Moray Eels, one swimming freely with a school of 6 huge Amber Jack. Towards the end of the dive we saw a nice Southern Stingray and and a large school of Rainbow Runners. The current is very strong right now and the water is getting colder and colder every week. Today the water temp was 81F/27C. Visibility is getting better and better since the storm came through here.

Barracuda/Sabalos was very nice today, the current was so strong that we made it from the start of Barracuda to the swim through of Sabalos in 56 min. For those of you who are familiar with the Playa del Carmen area know that that is pretty strong current. We saw one turtle, but the real treat was when we got to the swim through. The entire passage was filled with bait fish, so much so that we couldn't see the other end of the swim through.

 

[Jewls]

GeoFish - Thanks for sharing all these reports. I did my first 2 ocean dives in Playa and even tho viz was low, I still saw a bunch of marine life (Rays, Cuda, Filefish, Eels). Nice first experience, IMO, and I can't wait to go back.

Not sure if you can take u/w pictures, but they sure would be a nice addition to your dive reports

 

[Geofish Dive in Playa]

Hey Jewls glad you enjoy the dive reports. We don't take the camera on every dive, but we can start to more and more. I agree it would be a nice addition to the reports. I see you are from Littleton, my brother and I who own Geofish are from Denver (Westminster to be exact) He graduated from CU and I just graduated from Regis University. Playa is a great place,next time you are in town stop in and say hi, we are on 1st ave and 10th street. Take care and happy diving.

 

[Jewls]

Hey Jewls glad you enjoy the dive reports. We don't take the camera on every dive, but we can start to more and more. I agree it would be a nice addition to the reports. I see you are from Littleton, my brother and I who own Geofish are from Denver (Westminster to be exact) He graduated from CU and I just graduated from Regis University. Playa is a great place,next time you are in town stop in and say hi, we are on 1st ave and 10th street. Take care and happy diving.

I will be staying in Akumal in November, unfortunately I don't think we will be able to make it up to PDC this trip, but if we do, I will stop by for sure! I hope to take my BF to PDC sometime in the future, if we can get there soon I will stop by to say hello

 

[warmwaterturner]

Hey Guys,
Thanks for the info last week. Can't wait to get back there in January. Looks like you might dodge TS Matthew...(sorry Honduras). Please keep posting the reports....it give me something to eascape to while tied to the computer.

 

[Geofish Dive in Playa]

October 6, 2010

Tortuga and Sabalos

The weather is starting to pick up a little with the winds blowing at about 14knots/16mph from the North. The North winds are pretty chilly too and the temperature of 80F/27 shows the gradual change in season we are going through.

The current at Tortuga was pretty strong which caused the dive to start pretty far South. It was still a great dive with 6 Turtles in total, all Hawksbill. The big Rainbow Parrotfish were out feeding on Sponges as were the big Cubera Snapper. Saw a school of about 50 Cero swimming near the surface as well as two big rays towards the end of the dive. Visibility was at about 80ft/24m and the water temp was 79F/26C.

Sabalos was nice today, but pretty chilly. The water temp in spots was 78F/25C and the visibility was around 70ft/21m. We saw two smaller Hawksbill turtles as well as about 7 Moray Eels. A school of thousands of Makavil(Mullet) were at the beginning of Sabalos and this is a sight to be seen if you have never seen this. It literally looks like a giant rock until you swim through it and they start separating. Pretty amazing to see. Very nice dives today.

Port is closed for the afternoon with 2.5m/8ft waves.