Trip report – Cozumel Mexico
February 14-23, 2012
I’ve been to Cozumel about 50 times in the last 13 years but never did a trip report so here goes.
We flew out of Denver early on Feb 14th to Dallas on American Airlines and met our friends from Ontario, Canada in Dallas airport. Oddly, the flight we got on to Cozumel was the flight they were on from Toronto. They had to de-board and re-board the same plane in Dallas. Both legs of our flight were uneventful. We muled a new UW camera for one of them from Denver.
We arrived in Cozumel and got through Immigration fairly quickly. I have not received the red light in Customs for the last 3 to 4 years but this time my wife pressed the button and we got a red light. They searched every single bag including carryons. No issues.
The girls wanted to go to the grocery store before checking into the hotel so we guys took all the bags to the hotel (Regency Club) and the ladies walked a bit into town across from the airport and grabbed a taxi. They met us later after their shopping at Mega (more than groceries I think).
The weather was perfect the entire time. No rain and although a Norte threatened one evening, it did not materialize. We did get a few bug bites but not nearly as much as other trips. Not many mosquitos, mostly sand fleas. We brought some bug spray with us for the evenings.
We started diving on Wednesday the 15th. Both of us guys dove 8 days while the girls took off a few more days.
The water seemed a bit colder than in past February dive trips. My computer downloads regularly recorded temps form 78 F to 81F but I am having doubts about it accuracy. Several other divers reported temps as low as 73F up to 79F. At one point I used my 3 mm full wetsuit (for the first time in Cozumel) instead of surf shorts and a 3 mm jacket. The night dive I tried using a full skin but was cold. I should have at least used the 3mm jacket.
My wife is generally cold in her 3 mm full wetsuit and core warmer so before dinner on Monday the 20th, we stopped by Prodive and picked up a Henderson 3mm shorty to go over her wetsuit and ditched the core warmer. It was on sale for $69 US and worked well. We hit a few other shops as well (bathing suits and misc).
Dinner was at Primas and we had a lot of good food at a reasonable price. Since the Carnival events were not on full swing that night we did not have any issues with traffic or crowds. We did not go into town for the other events – we’re not really crowd people but many who did go into town on other nights had a good time. Our DM was a bit tired after the first night of Carnival. We only went into town once since we tired from diving.
The diving:
I had 17 dives for 19 hours and 36 min underwater.
We dove with Bottom Time Divers (Cozumel Scuba Diving | Go diving in Cozumel with BottomTimeDivers dive operator) – Raul Platas, Owner/DM
The currents were generally mild or non-existent and consistently ran in the same direction (South to North with no down or upwellings).
There were many dive ops operating while we were there so we ran into quite a few groups underwater. When choosing our dive sites (divers choice), we tried to go where there were no boats.
We dived the south end of the island from Punta Sur near Chun Chacab to around Yucab. Our Punta Sur dive was not Devils Throat. I have done that one 3 or 4 times. We had great luck with the Punta Sur site last November seeing eagle rays and not too may divers from other ops i.e. some solitude. We did not dive north as we understood that the eagle rays had come early this season and our chances of seeing them were much slimmer.
We had hoped to see reef sharks at Punta Sur but did not. However we did see reef sharks at Palancar Caves. I include one here.
We did only one night dive on Santa Rosa Shallows which was disappointing compared to the same site for a night dive last November (2 times). We noticed significantly less octopus this time. There were a significant number of blood worms (not sea lice) circling our dive lights that annoyed us. We had none last November and possibly has to do with season or moon phase. We had planned for another night dive but we were getting tired at the end of our trip.
List of dive sites in no particular order and we repeated a few:
Punta Sur
Palancar Caves, Gardens and Bricks
San Clemente
La Francesa
Cedral Pass
Cedral Wall
Punta Tunich
Santa Rosa Wall
Santa Rosa Shallows
Dalila
San Francisco Wall
Yucab
For some reason we did not do Colombia Deep this time. Due to the length of our dives, we would start on one site and possibly end on another. We had one diver in our group that got a 92 min dive on an AL 80 his last day (shallow at the end). I tried to match it but only got into the 80 min range three times. Several in our group developed some slight ear problems (one ear) but some decongestants, ibuprofen and some swimmers ear drops helped alot. No dives were missed. I can’t tell if something was going around.
Interesting items:
We saw lots of the following: Eels – many large Green Moray; Nurse Sharks; Porcupinefish; Turtles (Hawksbill); Spotted Drums; Barracuda; Large grouper
We did not see much of the following: Splendid Toadfish (Raul says it wasn’t the season); Lionfish in the Park – some dives we did not see even one; Flamingo tongues though I did not constantly look.
I have included a photo of what I was told is a Naked Sole (small black fish). I have tried to identify it from my sources. I believe it is a Sole but I see no bands on the body. It could be juvenile. This fish is approximately ½ inch long and was on a sand bottom at around 40fsw.
Our DM found quite a few nudibranchs but unfortunately I did not have my camera those days. Also found was a box crab in the sand – and again no camera.
We were followed by snappers on many dives and had one confused nurse shark that could smell a lionfish the DM caught but could not locate it and became very friendly. Our friend Lou (loudives on SB) has a video of it – maybe he’ll post.
We also saw one very large Green Moray Eel that was lying almost on its side under a ledge and appeared sick (no photo included). On another occasion we found a very large grouper (4+ feet) in a hole in part of a reef that also appeared sick and seemed to have a gash (bite?) in it’s back.
We think next time we will take a day off mid week to rest.
February 14-23, 2012
I’ve been to Cozumel about 50 times in the last 13 years but never did a trip report so here goes.
We flew out of Denver early on Feb 14th to Dallas on American Airlines and met our friends from Ontario, Canada in Dallas airport. Oddly, the flight we got on to Cozumel was the flight they were on from Toronto. They had to de-board and re-board the same plane in Dallas. Both legs of our flight were uneventful. We muled a new UW camera for one of them from Denver.
We arrived in Cozumel and got through Immigration fairly quickly. I have not received the red light in Customs for the last 3 to 4 years but this time my wife pressed the button and we got a red light. They searched every single bag including carryons. No issues.
The girls wanted to go to the grocery store before checking into the hotel so we guys took all the bags to the hotel (Regency Club) and the ladies walked a bit into town across from the airport and grabbed a taxi. They met us later after their shopping at Mega (more than groceries I think).
The weather was perfect the entire time. No rain and although a Norte threatened one evening, it did not materialize. We did get a few bug bites but not nearly as much as other trips. Not many mosquitos, mostly sand fleas. We brought some bug spray with us for the evenings.
We started diving on Wednesday the 15th. Both of us guys dove 8 days while the girls took off a few more days.
The water seemed a bit colder than in past February dive trips. My computer downloads regularly recorded temps form 78 F to 81F but I am having doubts about it accuracy. Several other divers reported temps as low as 73F up to 79F. At one point I used my 3 mm full wetsuit (for the first time in Cozumel) instead of surf shorts and a 3 mm jacket. The night dive I tried using a full skin but was cold. I should have at least used the 3mm jacket.
My wife is generally cold in her 3 mm full wetsuit and core warmer so before dinner on Monday the 20th, we stopped by Prodive and picked up a Henderson 3mm shorty to go over her wetsuit and ditched the core warmer. It was on sale for $69 US and worked well. We hit a few other shops as well (bathing suits and misc).
Dinner was at Primas and we had a lot of good food at a reasonable price. Since the Carnival events were not on full swing that night we did not have any issues with traffic or crowds. We did not go into town for the other events – we’re not really crowd people but many who did go into town on other nights had a good time. Our DM was a bit tired after the first night of Carnival. We only went into town once since we tired from diving.
The diving:
I had 17 dives for 19 hours and 36 min underwater.
We dove with Bottom Time Divers (Cozumel Scuba Diving | Go diving in Cozumel with BottomTimeDivers dive operator) – Raul Platas, Owner/DM
The currents were generally mild or non-existent and consistently ran in the same direction (South to North with no down or upwellings).
There were many dive ops operating while we were there so we ran into quite a few groups underwater. When choosing our dive sites (divers choice), we tried to go where there were no boats.
We dived the south end of the island from Punta Sur near Chun Chacab to around Yucab. Our Punta Sur dive was not Devils Throat. I have done that one 3 or 4 times. We had great luck with the Punta Sur site last November seeing eagle rays and not too may divers from other ops i.e. some solitude. We did not dive north as we understood that the eagle rays had come early this season and our chances of seeing them were much slimmer.
We had hoped to see reef sharks at Punta Sur but did not. However we did see reef sharks at Palancar Caves. I include one here.
We did only one night dive on Santa Rosa Shallows which was disappointing compared to the same site for a night dive last November (2 times). We noticed significantly less octopus this time. There were a significant number of blood worms (not sea lice) circling our dive lights that annoyed us. We had none last November and possibly has to do with season or moon phase. We had planned for another night dive but we were getting tired at the end of our trip.
List of dive sites in no particular order and we repeated a few:
Punta Sur
Palancar Caves, Gardens and Bricks
San Clemente
La Francesa
Cedral Pass
Cedral Wall
Punta Tunich
Santa Rosa Wall
Santa Rosa Shallows
Dalila
San Francisco Wall
Yucab
For some reason we did not do Colombia Deep this time. Due to the length of our dives, we would start on one site and possibly end on another. We had one diver in our group that got a 92 min dive on an AL 80 his last day (shallow at the end). I tried to match it but only got into the 80 min range three times. Several in our group developed some slight ear problems (one ear) but some decongestants, ibuprofen and some swimmers ear drops helped alot. No dives were missed. I can’t tell if something was going around.
Interesting items:
We saw lots of the following: Eels – many large Green Moray; Nurse Sharks; Porcupinefish; Turtles (Hawksbill); Spotted Drums; Barracuda; Large grouper
We did not see much of the following: Splendid Toadfish (Raul says it wasn’t the season); Lionfish in the Park – some dives we did not see even one; Flamingo tongues though I did not constantly look.
I have included a photo of what I was told is a Naked Sole (small black fish). I have tried to identify it from my sources. I believe it is a Sole but I see no bands on the body. It could be juvenile. This fish is approximately ½ inch long and was on a sand bottom at around 40fsw.
Our DM found quite a few nudibranchs but unfortunately I did not have my camera those days. Also found was a box crab in the sand – and again no camera.
We were followed by snappers on many dives and had one confused nurse shark that could smell a lionfish the DM caught but could not locate it and became very friendly. Our friend Lou (loudives on SB) has a video of it – maybe he’ll post.
We also saw one very large Green Moray Eel that was lying almost on its side under a ledge and appeared sick (no photo included). On another occasion we found a very large grouper (4+ feet) in a hole in part of a reef that also appeared sick and seemed to have a gash (bite?) in it’s back.
We think next time we will take a day off mid week to rest.
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