Akumal - Bahía Príncipe - Akumal Dive Shop - Hidden Worlds

[Harro10]

It sounds like both of you had good trips.
Mine was a family not a dive trip but I managed to get a couple of dives in.
Excellent report and photos James. We were in Coba on May 19. Maybe we passed each other on the pyramid.

 

[Divedoggie]

Yea Haro, I remember that we were going to miss each other by one day. I told them to keep those Margs cold for you!
I'm glad that it was a good trip for you too!!

 

[Swarth]

Wow Kent...that might have been the same Shark my wife saw at Tortugas. We all saw one free swimming earlier and that was great, but the HUGE on was sleeping just like you said! Now that we a few more dives under our belts we want to try Hidden Worlds next time, it really looked great. I will second my appreciation for ADA, they did a nice job.

 

[Harro10]

DD,
It was a great trip and it sounds like you had a good one also.
I liked it so much I am going back on June 11 with my older son. I hope to get in three days of cenote diving and two of ocean diving. I may try to do the Angelita cenote this time. I here that it is exceptional.

 

[Divedoggie]

Haro,
I'm looking into going down for 4 days on June 13th-ish! I want to bring my little brother, and get him back up to speed on his diving. His last dive was almost a
year ago. So far, I can't find any reasonable plane tickets.

 

[Harro10]

I booked through AppleVacations for a last minute deal but I can't say that it is inexpensive.

 

[icyman]

I am looking for a good operation in Akumal, has anyone dove Tank-Ha or Aqua-Tech? Or can you recommend someone else for diving, the group really wants to see some turtles while we are here in July!

 

[scubawife]

Icy Man, where are you staying in Akumal? Aqua-tech is good, and has a really good reputation for cave and cavern dives. In Akumal itself, there are 3 shops. My personal preference is Akumal Dive Adventures on Half Moon Bay. I've been using them for a few years and have recommended them to others too. I've used Akumal Dive Shop once and was not impressed. They are more concerned about their schedule then with giving you good dive sites and a long dive.

There are always lots of turtles in Akumal (which is mayan for "place of the turtle"), and since July is nesting season, there should be even more then usual.

 

[icyman]

Icy Man, where are you staying in Akumal? Aqua-tech is good, and has a really good reputation for cave and cavern dives. In Akumal itself, there are 3 shops. My personal preference is Akumal Dive Adventures on Half Moon Bay. I've been using them for a few years and have recommended them to others too. I've used Akumal Dive Shop once and was not impressed. They are more concerned about their schedule then with giving you good dive sites and a long dive.

There are always lots of turtles in Akumal (which is mayan for "place of the turtle"), and since July is nesting season, there should be even more then usual.

We are staying the Bahia Principe Resort, I was thinking of Diving Aqua-Tech in Akumal and everyone really wants to see turtles. I may dive someone else for the turtle dive and Aqua-Tech for the Cenotes. We were planning on diving with Hidden Worlds but I could change that if someone is better and offers competitive pricing for the group.

 

[kkbiker]

I was in Cozumel last week and saw two Flying Gunards. One while snorkling in front of the Fiesta Americana (two different days) and one while diving. Your picture is the best I've seen of this great fish. If you go to Cozumel, I would recommend Diving with Allison particularly if you can get Chucho as your DM. He is a slow diver and has a great eye for marine life. I told him about the fish we saw snorkling and on the next dive he found one for us.
Thanks again for the great picture,
Kevin

Day 1:

Arrived Cancun and picked up the rental car. Headed south on 307 stopping in PDC for a visit to Chedraui to pick up diapers, baby food, water, etc. Not sure which was worse, my Spanish or their English. Never could find anyone who understood the word "batteries". They only existed at the checkout so my searches of the store were fruitless

.

Finally got down to the hotel a little before 3 and by 4:30 we had a room and luggage. We were both tired from the day of travel so we simply took Audrey to the pool for a bit and hit the buffet before bed. The buffet had a wide selection of foods, none of which were spectacular but as MX AI's go I'd say it was better than average.

Day 2:

Got up and headed out to Akumal Dive Shop for my first dives. Did Tzimin-Ha (Mayan for seahorse). Turns out the site is named for a fishing boat that sunk there, not for its proclivity for equine invertibrates. Saw a nice grouper snoozing on the bottom and a very large tortuga. Second dive was Half Moon Bay which had some great coral formations as well as a nice jack.

Dinner at the hotel in one of the á la carte restraunts with a seafood theme.

Day 3:

Got up in time to catch breakfast. A much better buffet. The chorizo was excelent.

Dive 1 was at Grouper, which I didn't see on that dive. Overall not a great dive but I did get another tortuga.

Dive 2 was at a site called "The Nets". As soon as we dropped down I spotted a really nice flying gurnard on the sandy bottom. Also saw another grouper, some nice elkhorn coral, and a baby tortuga, about 10" shell length. Just me and one other diver on the boat with the DM. I overheard him before the dive: "When I started diving the BC's were in the front." "I used to do photography, had some pictures published" and then the good ones: "Now that I've moved to Colorado I only get to dive once every couple of years." and "I only get 2 dives in on a trip". Yep this guy is averaging 1 dive per year and still wearing his vintages oval mask... Alarm bells are ringing and rightfully so. 30 minutes into a 50' dive he's OOA and charges to the surface...

Day 4:

Took the day off from diving. Headed off to Coba to see some ruins. Coba is nice and worth the visit. The jungle surrounding doesn't really offer the "Indiana Jones" feel as I've seen it described but the structures are impressive, as is the view from Nohoch Mul.

Headed over to Cozumel for dinner at Casa Denis with a fellow ScubaBoarder. Nice dinner and company. Casa Denis seems to have a new coat of paint and a small price increase. Still a reasonably priced dinner. I remembered the Snapper Denis as being covered with a seafood sauce but it was covered with an almond sauce. Don't know if it changed or I was confused as there are several snapper dishes.

Day 5:

First dive was back to Tzimin-Ha. Second was Xaac. More tortugas, a nice swimthrough with a medium green morray at the end and 2 large stingrays.

Dinner was at the á la carte Mexican grill which was better than the seafood restraunt.

Day 6:

Noone was diving this morning so I went down with an instructor from the Oasis that rents boats from the Akumal Dive Shop. She was doing dive 4 of an OW class. She had a nice slow pace that I really enjoyed. We did Morgan's Reef which had a lot of canyon like reef structures. Another tortuga. I met DiverDoggie (another SB'er) before the dive but he was a little under the weather and sitting it out.

Second dive was Motorcycle, named for the encrusted carcass of, you guessed it, a motorcycle. This was a nice dive. As soon as we hit the reef we came upon 3 very brave Caribbean squid.

Had dinner in Akumal at La Cueva del Pescador. Got the seafood stuffed grouper and my wife got the lobster. Her's was the clear winner. Good, but mild, salsa with a lot of cilantro. The margaritas were not particularly strong as they had been advertised to be

. Saw DD again at dinner.

Day 7:

At this point, I've given up on getting a Cenote dive with the Akumal Dive Shop, they require at least 2 and I'm diving alone, no one else has signed up all week. So I head over to Hidden Worlds and do two dives from Bat Cave. These are clearly the winning dives of the week. Stunning cave system (and a couple of nice bikini shots as you dive past snorklers at entrance platforms). The shear number of sinks in the area make for much more interesting cavern dives. You can go much further into the system by basicly diving from one sink to another in sucsession.

Went to Tulum in the afternoon. No pyramids there but a great city by the sea layout. There is somthing really nice about ruins with the blue ocean in the background.

Dinner at the "International Gormet" á la carte. Of the hotel meals this was clearly the best. The hilight was the cream of mushroom soup with scallops. It was absoultly delicious and the service was excellent.

Day 8:

Sigh...time to head home, up and out for the ride back to CUN and an uneventfull flight.

Comments:

1. Diving in Akumal, is nothing like diving in Coz even though the sites are like a mile apart. On the down side, not near as much color and no nudi's. On the upside, the water was warmer and the currents are mild at best/worst.
2. Next time I'm in the area I will do 1 day of ocean and the rest of Cenotes, not the other way around.
3. Credit cards are next to worthless in the area, bring a lot of cash.
4. I will not use Akumal Dive Shop next time: They run fixed schedules, first dive 80' max for 30 minutes, second dive 50' max for 40 minutes. I ended every dive with over 1000psi most with over 1500. The DM's seem to be photo buffs. One in partuclar, instead of pointing out life, went in for pictures. I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I missed a good photo op because the DM had scared away the subject by the time he got through. I also had to haul everything from the shop to the boat and back before and after each dive (not day). I'm not lazy but on vacation I expect them to at least get the tank to the boat for me.
5. Hidden Worlds by contrast was excellent. This was a top notch operation that treated you well from a to z. Dives were limited by the rule of thirds, so you got least common denominator for the group, but with 20' dives and a couple of decent divers with me I got some nice long dives in. 19 minute SI just to change tanks was nice and helped get me on my way faster (I know 19 minutes is short, but DM left it up to us and when the whole dive is a safety stop it's no big deal.)

I've got cleanup to do on the pictures but I'll be posting some soon. I'll leave a note here when I do. I already have some Cenote pictures up at: http://www.midwestdive.com/gallery/browseimages.php?c=23 since they don't really need cleanup.

James