What happened to Cozumel?

[LI-er]

Hi,
Can you suggest some places that aren't trashed, and have a lot of sealife?

Unfortunately no.There are several places I would have recommended based on my experiences 20 years ago including the Belize atolls that were beautiful and covered with thick schools of fish and healthy corals but upon a revisit were shockingly barren. You might have done good days in Florida in the upper Keys and Boynton which still see large schools of mid size fish and some big stuff swimming around but the reefs themselves are trashed.

Honestly if it wasn't for the shipwrecks and the occasional sightings of something big, I'd be listing my gear on EBay.

 

[Doc Harry]

Twenty years ago, we went to Coz for the first time two months after hurricane Wilma.

The divers were all angry and upset, saying that the hurricane destroyed the reefs, and it was so bad that they were never coming back to Coz.

For us, it was the most gorgeous diving we had ever experienced despite hurricane Wilma.

In the last twenty years, we have been diving all over the world. But we go back to Coz every year, sometimes 3 times a year. Because Coz is so horrible.

 

[Allen-1]

I dove for the first time in 2022, in Roatan. To my eyes, the reefs were absolutely gorgeous, and I saw an incredible number of sea creatures.

Speaking to my instructor, who'd been there many times over the last decade or so, his perspective was that global warming and trash from humans had degraded the reefs, that the coral was dying, that the colors were faded.

Two different perspectives from two people seeing the exact same things. Both legitimate.