Return to Cozumel after 6 year absence

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

fish life comparisons
reef health comparisons

Boy am I the wrong guy to ask. I can tell you my impressions but take this data to be as reliable as my fish identification credentials, and should be considered just as useful as the marine biology degree I don't have.

The reef looks just as healthy as I remember it. The amount of fish I see, both adult schools and juveniles, seems on par with my previous trips. I have noticed a lack of fish that I used to see fairly often, for example I haven't seen any needlefish, trumpetfish, coronets, etc, except for a lone trumpetfish under the pier while I was waiting for my boat one day. None of the long guys except barracuda seem to be around. I don't know if it's just a seasonal thing or if they were hit particularly hard by lionfish or the reef infection that started a couple years ago, or what. But their absence has been noted.

I haven't seen a single seahorse yet. I never saw a lot in the past, but my DMs were always able to find a couple per trip. And I still have a week left. I have seen two pipefish which is about normal for a trip.

The lionfish numbers are way, way down from any of my previous trips. I dived Cozumel pretty regularly from 2007 to 2015 and it wasn't uncommon to see lionfish, often several, on every single dive. It seemed like there'd be one hiding in every third barrel sponge back then. This year I've seen a grand total of 4 lionfish on 18 dives so far.

I saw more octopus on the night dive last week than I think I've seen in all my dives put together before that. And the turtles seem to be as frequent as ever. Nurse sharks and morays are maybe a little bit less frequent than I remember.

Take all this with a massive grain of salt. It's quite possible a massive pod of dolphins chased a school of hammerheads past me today and I didn't see it. I'm not the guy with his head on a swivel on a dive. I meander around and take in what's around me, only really seeing all these highlights because we are lucky to have world class divemasters in Cozumel that can find this stuff and point it out.
 
Love the empenadas at Punta Sur!
 
Really appreciating your reports from the island. Thank you for taking the time to share!
 
Rapid fire update!

No restaurant report for Sunday. After diving I stayed at the Residencias Reef all day and just chillaxed, mostly reading a book on the beach. If you really wanna know, dinner was chips and salsa and a couple cervezas. :)

Yesterday after diving I decided to finally do something about the incessant sonar pings from my new garmin transmitter. It was mounted right behind my head and the noise wasn't quite maddening, but was definitely disturbing my calm at times. So I hopped in a taxi and headed over to Scuba Repair where they installed a new, short HP hose for me. Highly recommend those guys if you need work done; they were fast, they appear to have every scuba tool and doodad known to man, and they have a flow bench to check their work, plus they were reasonably priced. I paid slightly more for the HP hose and installation than a dive shop at the waterfront wanted to charge me for 25 dive log pages. :oops:

Then I got dropped off at the square and people watched for a while, although there weren't many to watch. It was nice to sit on the bench under a tree, soaking up the quiet, enjoying the afternoon breeze, and praying the pigeons would not target me.

TownSquare.PNG


Upon deciding I had pressed my pigeon luck far enough, I elected to once again visit El Moro for an early dinner. I saw on the map that it was but a mile away, and commenced to walking. It was nice to take a stroll through the 'real' Cozumel. It certainly has charm, and a sort of dilapidated beauty. I saw unique buildings and residences, some stores with amazingly festive paint jobs, and busted up shacks overgrown with jungle. I love this city, warts and all.

I arrived at El Moro twenty minutes later, hot and sweaty. I was the first customer, or at least the first in a while. Many of the staff were sitting around eating a meal, watching an exciting cartel movie, before things got busy. The host came over and we got reacquainted. He remembered me from last week and this time we actually exchanged names, so now I know Ray and Ray knows me. :)

I ordered something I'd had my eye on last time - the filete de pescado en papillote especial. This is a fish filet with grilled shrimp, wrapped in foil with an asparagus creme sauce and vegetables then cooked. The end result:

ElMoro_Papillote.PNG


Just as dinner arrived another group of customers arrived. Older locals by the look of it. They sat down by the TV and Ray quickly changed the cartel movie to a video of a Latin singer's performance. I guess I will never know what happened to that guy they beat up and put in the trunk!

The food was fantastic. It was scrumptious. The fish (sea bass) was melt in your mouth perfect, and the grilled shrimp were perfection. I ate absolutely everything you see on that plate except the lime and the tin foil. If you get a chance, you must, must, must try this. I savored every bite. I tried my best not to pull a Sally sitting across the diner table from Harry, but the urge was there. It was that good.

I talked to Ray a little about how business had been and he said things were looking up. This past Sunday had been great for them, he said, and the first Sunday they'd done serious business in a long time. It was great to hear and he seemed happy and optimistic. I promised I would be stopping by on every trip from now on and that I was a little sad it had taken me so long to find them!

Next up - dive report. Stay tuned.
 
Diving yesterday was awesome. But of course it was.

For the first dive we hit the Bricks again. This is the place I had seen a juvenile reef shark swimming below us on the safety stop last week. Well Palancar was about to one-up itself. After doing a few swimthroughs we came out to the cliff edge and Holy Smokin' Toledo's, there were NINE juvenile black tip reef sharks swimming around us. They came WAY closer than the ones I had seen in the Gardens the other day, and it just felt like a swarm of them. As we were enjoying the show, a green turtle came along and swam through the whole mess of us, sharks and all! It was GLORIOUS. I haven't had a wildlife-sighting high like that in a really long time.

As we were enjoying the end of the shark parade, another group of divers came up and who should it be - Sergio leading a group of Aldora divers, several of which I'd dived with a few days ago. I think he recognized me, and we waved at each other. Fun! We'd had our time with the sharks so we left them to enjoy the next viewing.

For the second dive of the morning Martin chose Paso del Cedral, and it turned out to be an excellent choice. The pass was teeming with cool stuff for us this time. A grand total of 3 nurse sharks appeared throughout the dive, two of them swimming around freely, and one of those gave us a super close pass through a small coral canyon. It's always epic when you get one that isn't afraid to come up to you.

A couple of turtles graced us with their presence throughout the dive, which is always pleasant. We did not see Mr. T this time (the huge loggerhead that lives around here) but I'd seen him last week so that's ok. We bagged another rockfish sighting, and Martin even found a pulpo snoozing away in a hole in the ground while teeny little hermit crabs walked around in the hole with him.

A little later we saw a pretty large hermit crab in a conch shell digging himself a hole to China on the sandy bottom, which was neat to watch for a little while. Just past him there was a goby also digging himself a new home! He was not shy either. Even with three divers hanging around his little hole, masks inches away from him, he kept popping out and barfing up some sand before giving us a little stink-eye and going back down to do it all again. We watched the construction for a minute and then left him to his work. The rest of the dive was uneventful save for a couple of southern stingrays we spotted right near the end.

Today's diving started at what Martin called Columbia Pinnacles. I don't have that name in my logbook so, hey, new site! :wink: Only three of us made it down to 50 feet because the fourth diver's quick connect line on their regulator detonated itself at 40 feet, and the air started going fast! That was a fun little emergency but the diver and Martin both handled it perfectly, and they did an air sharing ascent and got her back on the boat.

I can't say there was anything too memorable on the rest of this dive other than a very large green moray we found napping under a ledge towards the end. But the formations were awe inspiring and swimthroughs were fun as always. Martin doesn't like swimthroughs as much as Sergio (thank god) but he does like TIGHT swimthroughs. I swear he's just picking smaller and smaller ones until one of us gets stuck. I take it as a compliment that he feels we're all good enough to get through them without beating the crap out of the walls. And it IS really nice to dive with a solid group. The practice at this tight maneuvering is helping me become a better diver, too.

Captain Carlos got the other diver's equipment fixed while the rest of us were sucking up nitrogen, and she was able to join us for the second dive, yay! It turned out to be a faulty or possibly improperly sized o-ring. He replaced it and she was good to go. We suited up and dropped into Cedral Mountains.

This is not my favorite dive because there are a lot of depth changes as you go up, over, and down the rolling hills of coral. My ears are not the greatest so I have to treat the mountains the same as I would on foot and do switchbacks to ease the depth changes! But the Mountains were kind to us today with a slow current and some very nice sightings. We saw two nurse sharks, one of which was absolutely massive. I know I can't trust my eyes underwater, but I swear it was 7 or 8 feet long. Unfortunately we came upon it right after my computer started screaming at me because I had been flirting with the deco limit, so I had to enjoy the sight floating by at 30 feet while everyone else got a great view down at 55 or so.

We also bagged three turtle sightings throughout the dive, and the biggest parrotfish I can remember seeing. That mad lad was a deep red with blue accents, and looked like he'd recently eaten a small minivan. He was chomping away at the coral with a ferocity that would have gotten me an OSHA violation if I'd swam any closer. Just past him was another parrotfish (I think) but with an unusual color scheme - he was almost completely midnight blue, with a few teal accents. It was a beautiful combination that I don't think I've ever seen before. He had the same body shape as a parrotfish, but I could be wrong. I just know he was beautiful and I enjoyed watching him graze after his big brother.

That's it for the dive reports, I'm all caught up. Hope you enjoyed!

Quick edit: I saw my first trumpetfish this trip (not counting my from-the-pier sighting) on the second dive today. He wasn't very big, maybe 6-8 inches long, but he was there, hanging out in some soft corals. Huzzah!
 
Have you had a chance to eat at the food stand between Sabor and Residencias Reef? It is a great lunch option for us that love the solitude of the RR. Thanks for the trip report!
 
Just past him was another parrotfish (I think) but with an unusual color scheme - he was almost completely midnight blue, with a few teal accents. It was a beautiful combination that I don't think I've ever seen before. He had the same body shape as a parrotfish, but I could be wrong. I just know he was beautiful and I enjoyed watching him graze after his big brother.
Midnight parrotfish, by your description.

 
So I hopped in a taxi and headed over to Scuba Repair where they installed a new, short HP hose for me. Highly recommend those guys if you need work done; they were fast, they appear to have every scuba tool and doodad known to man, and they have a flow bench to check their work, plus they were reasonably priced.
I've only been there once, but they were great, and we hear great stories. I need to take one of my computers there next trip for a battery. I am too much of a klutz to try it myself.
Then I got dropped off at the square and people watched for a while, although there weren't many to watch. It was nice to sit on the bench under a tree, soaking up the quiet, enjoying the afternoon breeze, and praying the pigeons would not target me.
I think the Sunday plaza crowds are better after supper. My Sunday on my last trip got rained out.
I saw on the map that it was but a mile away, and commenced to walking.
I was young once. I have records.
My ears are not the greatest
Do you take original Sudafred with Pseudoephedrine (PSE)? The new formula is almost worthless, but I take Wal-Act D from Walgreens with Pseudoephedrine. It's not legal to possess in Mexico so I have to smuggle it in, and there is some risk, but not much.
 
He was chomping away at the coral with a ferocity that would have gotten me an OSHA violation if I'd swam any closer.
The first one, by size, sounds like a rainbow parrotfish. They get huge, and look huger when you're in close. Years ago in Bonaire I was in close to one that gaped its jaws, and I don't know if it was looking for food or agitated by my presence, but it looked like those coral-breaking jaws could've gouged out half my knee in one bite, had it been so inclined.
 
Do you take original Sudafred with Pseudoephedrine (PSE)? The new formula is almost worthless, but I take Wal-Act D from Walgreens with Pseudoephedrine. It's not legal to possess in Mexico so I have to smuggle it in, and there is some risk, but not much.

Yes, well, ahem. I have a funny story about that. But I'm not posting it here until I'm back home. :oops:
 

Back
Top Bottom