charlesml3
Contributor
Gang,
Just got back from a relatively short trip to Coz. We were also there this past August for a week so it was interesting to see the changes over the past six months. Most everything looks better than it did. The Presidente is open but we didn't stay there. Almost all of the shops and businesses on the waterfront are rebuilt or are actively being worked. The trees all look a lot better as well. Much more green around town than there was in August.
We stayed at the Barracuda again. It's still one of my favorites. Perfect location and it has improved dramatically since the hurricane.
OK, the diving! We dove 4 days. 4 tanks on one day, 3 tanks on two other days. Total of 11 dives. Two of those were night dives and two others were twilight dives.
If we would classify the diving before Wilma to be Excellent then I would give the current state to be "fair" to "good." I honestly can't say the any of the dive sites are Very Good or Excellent at this time. That said, I do see some improvements since August. There is more color on the reef now. Some purple, orange, red, and blue. The reefs are still very sandy but they do look a bit better. I think we're a year or two away from them looking as colorful as they did. The dive sites further South looked better than the ones North. We spent most of our time on Colombia and Palancar. Tormentos looked pretty bad. Cedral not much better. The best of all was Colombia Shallow which is still very surprising. It's a shallow dive and I can't really understand why the hurricane didn't beat this reef up as bad as it did on Las Palmas. We tried to get down to Maracaibo but the weather just wouldn't cooperate. It was far too rough to make a decent dive there.
Colombia deep is still very majestic and probably my favorite deep dive right now. Santa Rosa was my favorite before Wilma.
We did see a bunch of turtles, octopus, eels, and a few stingrays. No spotted eagle rays. Heard some really loud toadfish at night but never managed to spot one. Not as many lobsters as last August but that's probably seasonal. Did see quite a few Spanish Lobsters. Man, those things are UGLY!
Overall, I would say that most everything in Coz looks better than it did six months ago, but we still have a long way to go.
-Charles
Just got back from a relatively short trip to Coz. We were also there this past August for a week so it was interesting to see the changes over the past six months. Most everything looks better than it did. The Presidente is open but we didn't stay there. Almost all of the shops and businesses on the waterfront are rebuilt or are actively being worked. The trees all look a lot better as well. Much more green around town than there was in August.
We stayed at the Barracuda again. It's still one of my favorites. Perfect location and it has improved dramatically since the hurricane.
OK, the diving! We dove 4 days. 4 tanks on one day, 3 tanks on two other days. Total of 11 dives. Two of those were night dives and two others were twilight dives.
If we would classify the diving before Wilma to be Excellent then I would give the current state to be "fair" to "good." I honestly can't say the any of the dive sites are Very Good or Excellent at this time. That said, I do see some improvements since August. There is more color on the reef now. Some purple, orange, red, and blue. The reefs are still very sandy but they do look a bit better. I think we're a year or two away from them looking as colorful as they did. The dive sites further South looked better than the ones North. We spent most of our time on Colombia and Palancar. Tormentos looked pretty bad. Cedral not much better. The best of all was Colombia Shallow which is still very surprising. It's a shallow dive and I can't really understand why the hurricane didn't beat this reef up as bad as it did on Las Palmas. We tried to get down to Maracaibo but the weather just wouldn't cooperate. It was far too rough to make a decent dive there.
Colombia deep is still very majestic and probably my favorite deep dive right now. Santa Rosa was my favorite before Wilma.
We did see a bunch of turtles, octopus, eels, and a few stingrays. No spotted eagle rays. Heard some really loud toadfish at night but never managed to spot one. Not as many lobsters as last August but that's probably seasonal. Did see quite a few Spanish Lobsters. Man, those things are UGLY!
Overall, I would say that most everything in Coz looks better than it did six months ago, but we still have a long way to go.
-Charles