Trip Report Tres Pelicanos/Casa Mexican Trip Report Sept. 2018

[deepsea21]

Cozumel will get in your blood.

Yeah it does... 15 years of diving Coz and there is always more to see and experience topside and underneath. It never gets old.

 

[RayfromTX]

We rarely spend much time closer than avenida15 unless it's to hit a bank or take a Sunday night stroll to the square. We fit in further back from the water unless we are in the water.

 

[Sallygirl]

Drrich2, I know from your prior posts that you've been thinking about this trip for a while. I am glad that you got to Coz, and glad it was a good trip. Thank you for the thorough report! It gives even we Coz regulars a lot of great information, and the feedback is also a lot of info. I find your posts always thoughtful and valuable. Happy continued diving!!

 

[Christophdiver]

Tres Pelicanos And Their Boats.​

I found Jeanie, the other staff and Jeanie’s husband Mike (who dove some with us) congenial and likable. The shop isn’t a large, shiny place with glass display cases and lots of retail gear. They do have rental gear; my Sherwood Avid BCD’s top tank strap broke off, & I rented their non-weight integrated Scuba Pro Pilot XL (I was told they had a mix of weight integrated or not; they didn’t have an integrated for me, but also didn’t charge me for the 2-days I rented it!).

Their boats are the Loan Shark and Skinny Shark. I saw the Loan Shark; decently wide enough, but the Skinny Shark (all I dove from) was wider; a good deal of foot space even when people had fins on. There’s not large ‘dry box’ - under the overhead shade there’s netting where you can put clothes & such. Even dives they offering chopped fruit and cut up pastry, cake or cookies. The boat was fast; rides to dive sites can take awhile, and I wouldn’t want to be on a slow boat. Trips started with ‘Where do you guys want to dive today’ type questions. They didn’t set specific dive time limitations; one exception is when a cruise ship’s docked and you’re on Paradise Reef; you’re only allowed so close.

Loan Shark​

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Skinny Shark​

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It’s ‘valet’ style service; your gear is setup on your tank, and they switch it over to the next tank for you. Gear is put on tank on the boat floor, then when ready to dive, they left it up to the bench and hold it open for you to put your arms through the BCD. Great; my lower back isn’t what it used to be and lifting would’ve gotten painful. They keep and rinse gear (including wetsuits!) - only your camera and dive computers need be taken back to your hotel.

Trip Cost.​

$1,962.58 Days at Casa Mexica, 13 2-tank boat dives with upgrades to 32% nitrox and 100-cf AL tanks, with taxes included.

$445.49 Roundtrip Airfare from Nashville, TN to Cozumel (Delta going, American Airlines coming back).

$80 Checked baggage fees (2 bags) Delta going, $67.60 returning on American.

$99 Parking fee at Nashville Airport.

Tipping is personal but customary in Cozumel, figures into employee pay, and with high-volume boat diving needs to be figured in. From Scuba Board I get the impression some consider appropriate boat tips $5/tank basic service (you transport, setup and keep your gear) to $10/tank valet (e.g.: they set up your gear, keep and maybe rinse your stuff). Figure $260 for 26 dives if one tips that way.

Breakfast included, but eating out twice/day and sodas (or groceries) - maybe $35/day for 8 days? $280. There’s a tip box at C.M.’s breakfast buffet, so let’s call food $300 for the week?

Taxi fare to/from airport with tips - maybe $20 if that?

Tips for baggage people at airports, etc… - maybe $15 total?

Souvenirs - I’m not counting, but I blew some money…

Total: ~ $3,250, without souvenirs, but I’d have run up a dining out/grocery bill back home if I didn’t travel. For a solo dive trip with 26 dives, bigger tanks and nitrox, valet dive service and eating out with good food, that’s pretty good.

What I Didn’t Do.​

Night, twilight or shore dives. East coast dives, or the ‘sleeping shark’ dives Aldora does to the north. Advanced sites such as Barracuda or Maracaibo. The long Devil’s Throat swim through (but Mike and another guy did it on one of our dives).

Pro.s.

Warm, high-vis. water, varied, fairly lush and ‘fishy’ reefs with some ‘big stuff’ (e.g.: grouper, rays, eels, nurse sharks), drift is a chance to try something different. Topside there are sandy beaches, a range of activities such as parasailing, San Miguel is larger and more interesting/diverse in shopping than I recall Bonaire’s Kralendijk being. Good food and prices, Overall budget destination but good diving. There’s a lot of like about Cozumel.

Con’s.

Drift diving can be a hassle.

Prohibition against Sudafed problematic if you rely on extended release forms to aid equalization; do without or break the law and hope you don’t get caught.

Regrets.

Main one is I’m torn whether making it an 8-day week vs. flying back Saturday was worth it, because time away from our 5-year old is hard, then I reach home about 12:50 a.m. to be up at 7 a.m. and work around 8 a.m. Monday morning. Cozumel is special, but so is our kid.

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Comparisons.

Compared to other mainstream Caribbean destinations I’ve tried (e.g.: Bonaire, Belize, the Caymans, Provo. & West Caicos), Cozumel diving is on par but drift diving is significantly different, and topside I found the mix of cheap, good food, diverse shopping & varied entertainment options a real draw. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison; Cozumel isn’t necessarily ‘better,’ but it’s different and worthy trying.

I hope this write-up helps others considering a Cozumel trip.

Richard.

 

[Christophdiver]

Great review. I have been diving with Tres Pelicanos and staying at Casa Mexicana for several years. Agree that Bahia Suites is cheaper but prefer paying extra for Casa Mexicana. Always ask for the south facing rooms for the value and some decent views. My only disagreement is your criticism (sort of) of drift diving. I love it! Nothing more fun than flying over Paso Cedral or slower drifts at Columbia Deep!

 

[neehooya]

Great write up, thank you for sharing your trip with us. Great pictures!
cheers.

 

[bdyslm]

@drrich2 - brother you are a mad man and I love you for it. I thought my OCD on trip planning was intense but I look like a kindergartner next to you. So much gratitude for your time and effort in thoroughly documenting all of your research (also a great thread) and trips. Immensely helpful to a sc00b n00b like me. If we ever meet in person drinks or dinner on me I'm headed to coz for my first time in a little over a month and this has all been a great help!

 

[bdyslm]

At the moment I am chatting via email with Aldora as they have some more unique dives that I am interested in and seem to be geared toward more advanced divers. Specifically their Aldora Adventure package, Lion Fish hunting, and blackwater dives. While I'm not snooty about it, I'd prefer to go with an op and other divers that are more serious about it rather than divers that dive a couple of times every year or two and have them bashing into me and the coral. Drives me nuts.

I haven't done a full-on forum search on other ops that may be geared toward what I'm looking for, so if anyone has any recommendations based on the above, feel free to suggest it. Otherwise, I will continue my research. I would like to do a cenote dive excursion and a bull shark dive excursion to PDC, which Aldora doesn't offer.

In my communications with Aldora they mention booking specific days/itineraries can be challenging because of possible port closures due to winds/Norte. My question is, in everyone's experience, how often does that actually happen from mid-December to the beginning of January? Please don't respond with "weather is unpredictable, you just never know". I get that. I'm trying to figure out based on past experiences what is the likelihood....how many of your days were thrown off..etc.

I may just need to go back and re-read the research thread for some of this.

Part of the reason is that I am trying to book three morning activities other than diving. Josefina's cooking class, San Gervasio, and a Temazcal. Some of them are only available on specific days, require advanced booking, and would require me to miss morning diving and do afternoon diving in order to still get dives on that day.

On a side note... last December I got my OWC and 7 other certs getting me to AOW in Bonaire...I sent my dive op (TDS Bonaire who is freaking amazing!) a spreadsheet of classes and diving per day for the entire 2-3 week trip. I was told I won the award for the first person to ever send them a spreadsheet for it. lol. OCD much? lol.

 

[drrich2]

In my communications with Aldora they mention booking specific days/itineraries can be challenging because of possible port closures due to winds/Norte. My question is, in everyone's experience, how often does that actually happen from mid-December to the beginning of January?

You might get more responses with a new thread, since some who've already seen this one (and see it's old) might not open it.

I've had 3 cruise ship stops at Cozumel where I attempted to dive; we tended to hit in the Jan. - Feb. time frame. Of those, 2 got blown out by weather (once when we were in Living Underwater's boat ready to head out); 1 we got to dive.

That's anecdotal.

Nobody knows day to day, granted. If you go for 7 or 8 days and book 6 days of diving, for example, are you okay with doing something else if a day or two are blown out? Head to Chankanaab Park for the day?

 

[bdyslm]

You might get more responses with a new thread, since some who've already seen this one (and see it's old) might not open it.

I've had 3 cruise ship stops at Cozumel where I attempted to dive; we tended to hit in the Jan. - Feb. time frame. Of those, 2 got blown out by weather (once when we were in Living Underwater's boat ready to head out); 1 we got to dive.

That's anecdotal.

Nobody knows day to day, granted. If you go for 7 or 8 days and book 6 days of diving, for example, are you okay with doing something else if a day or two are blown out? Head to Chankanaab Park for the day?

was just in the process of doing that

To answer your question...I guess I don't really have a choice...if it gets blown out it gets blown out. Me being me, I'd prefer to have my itinerary as set as possible, mostly due to booking those other things. In the end, I might be disappointed but I'm not going to lose my mind if it does get blown out...I'm on vaca, I'll roll with it. And in the end my number one goal is diving, all of the other stuff is ancillary.

Any chance they can predict it a day or two ahead of time based on weather predictions?