What happened to Cozumel?

[ggunn]

It's all about the context. I saw something (divers damaging reefs), you didn't and you were disputing my account, seeming to suggest that it never happened simply because you hadn't ever seen it.

No. Any of us who have dived Cozumel for any length of time has seen the occasional flailing newbie kick something. What we are disagreeing with is "the onslaught of hoardes [sic] of divers on a daily basis who make contact with the reef, sometimes violently, kicking coral with their fins and breaking it off or grabbing onto it because they can't control their buoyancy or don't know how to properly handle a swift current".

Again, your words. This has not been my experience diving Cozumel, and I have dived it what would be a lot to some and not a lot to others.

 

[Shawn C]

Yeah I just checked my logbook and when I first visited a couple of decades ago and saw a lot of great reefs filled with fish, Santa Rosa was not one of them.

Again, your words. So just because you didn't see anything, that's reality? Make up your mind.

 

[Shawn C]

It's reasonable to assume this happens all day long and with hundreds of divers per day getting dropped off of Cozumel boats it's not a stretch to conclude hordes of divers have caused significant damage over the years.

This is why I asked you who you dive with. No, it is not reasonable to assume that because of your limited personal experience that you can extrapolate to believe that this is normal behaviour. I gave you my observations, after many years of experience diving in Cozumel (and 40 years of diving in total) and you outright dismissed it. Others have now provided their observations and have also called out your extremely limited diving experience in Cozumel for what it is. Anecdotal and irrelevant.

 

[BRT]

When I dived Santa Rosa wall several times over a course of 2 decades I never saw much life on it which led me to believe it's generally like that. Especially when during the earlier trips most Cozumel reefs were teaming with life.

When I see divers damaging the reef due to poor skills or just plain ignorance or carelessness I figure it happens on a regular basis not just when I'm diving there.

Reasonable assumptions as I see it. Could I be wrong? Sure. But that doesn't make me a hypocrite.

Cozumel is massive walls and lots of coral and life. Puerto Morelos is smaller coral and massive amounts of fish. This year I think I saw more clouds of fish on Cozumel than we have. But life on Santa Rosa???? Are you staying above 40 feet? Below 50' it is just alive.

 

[Redfoot]

I'd be curious what sites OP dove- last trip down, I did some afternoon dives with a lesser known operator last minute because Blue Angel had to cancel dives. We had some discover scuba folks on the boat, and did two of the most boring reef dives I have ever been on (I believe Chankanaab with two different drops) If that was my only impression of Coz, I would feel the same as the OP.

On the other hand, Cedral Pass for an afternoon dive was the single most marine life I have ever seen in 45 minutes- about 10 turtles (or the same five turtles twice- who knows), giant free swimming morays, nurse & blacktip sharks, stingrays, large schools of fish, school of squid, lobsters, crabs.... it was incredible.

 

[cozcharlie]

Yes, for the first time this year it cost us more than $100/diver day on Coz. Last year the peso was up in relation to the dollar so I understood the increase. This year the peso was way down, so not so clear. On the other side they quoted me very close to the same peso price last year and this year. Made diving a little cheaper but I gave them more anyway cause the owners are the divemasters and I really like them.

I’m not tracking them all , but several costs for diver operators have either jumped or are very likely to jump . Not inflation style increases—giant discrete jumps. Marine park fees and marina slip fees were essentially doubling or tripling by recollection (I think at one point they were trying to increase marina slip fees much more than that ). The discussion(s) are somewhere on this board

 

[ggunn]

it's called demographics. Scientific and medical studies are based on it. You take a small population sample and extrapolate it and apply it to the wider population.

What you see when you dive is a small fraction of the diving population and the damage that is caused by the masses.

It's rather surprising this needs to be spelled out.

What size is your sample? Mine is 600-700 Cozumel dives over a 30 year span. Something that I am surprised needs to be spelled out is that the smaller your sample size is in comparison to the population you are attempting to characterize the larger the margin for error is and the higher the probability will be that your so-called extrapolation is incorrect. I took Statistics, too.

Have I seen any bad divers around Cozumel? Of course I have; as I said anyone who dives Cozumel as much as I have has seen them, but in the main the people whom I have observed while diving around Cozumel are not an "onslaught of hoardes [sic] of divers on a daily basis who make contact with the reef, sometimes violently, kicking coral with their fins and breaking it off or grabbing onto it because they can't control their buoyancy or don't know how to properly handle a swift current". Not even close.

 

[BRT]

I'd be curious what sites OP dove- last trip down, I did some afternoon dives with a lesser known operator last minute because Blue Angel had to cancel dives. We had some discover scuba folks on the boat, and did two of the most boring reef dives I have ever been on (I believe Chankanaab with two different drops) If that was my only impression of Coz, I would feel the same as the OP.

On the other hand, Cedral Pass for an afternoon dive was the single most marine life I have ever seen in 45 minutes- about 10 turtles (or the same five turtles twice- who knows), giant free swimming morays, nurse & blacktip sharks, stingrays, large schools of fish, school of squid, lobsters, crabs.... it was incredible.

Cedral Pass is another one of those dives where you can't look at any percentage of the life you go by. Amazing!

 

[lowwall]

Just got done diving Santa Rosa. Best coral of this trip (12 dives).

 

[Shawn C]

You keep saying the same thing over and over again but make no attempt to explain or validate your reasoning. You appear to simply want to argue as if my words have offended you.

Are you a coral kicker or bottom dweller Shawn?

Read your posts #34 & #67 and you might be able to understand your hypocrisy.

Actually several members have agreed with my observation that the diving in Cozumel is quite poor as is the diving pretty much everywhere in Mexico and the Caribbean.

You pick and choose from posts that align with your way of thinking and ignore the rest.

Which is fairly typical.

I returned to Cozumel in 2017 after first diving there in 2005 and I too was shocked to see reefs that were originally teaming with life to be dark walls covered in silt and devoid of life which reminded me of post apocalyptic movies, only this was real life.

Literally no one agrees with you that this accurately describes the reefs in Cozumel. I'm not picking and choosing posts that align with my way of thinking. I'm picking out posts (yours) that are exaggerations at best, and complete fabrications at worst.