mstevens
Toadfish. Splendid is implied but not guaranteed.
Boy, was the airport a mess what with people trying to escape the hurricane. We were scheduled to leave then, but lots of people with Sunday and Monday departures were being disappointed trying to leave early.
Okay, I finally see what the big deal about Cozumel diving is! In a quarter century of diving I've mostly dived freshwater or saltwater with little visibility in Galveston (which isn't much of a problem given that there's not much to see). Cozumel was truly overwhelming in comparison. Here are some impressions:
The town - San Miguel is your basic small Mexican town with a few big-city amenities (such as home sushi delivery) and way too many pod people. It was clean, pleasant, and friendly. Few, if any, real shopping bargains thanks to the cruise passengers who seem willing to buy just about any sort of tat at any price. An example is $1 postcards. The same ones were 35 pesos at Chedraui! My office manager requested a bottle of vanilla. We scoured Chedraui, San Francisco, and all the sh!t-n-shells shops but found only artificially-flavored or "natural" with added vanillin. The brand we usually get, la Vencendora, was nowhere to be found. We only finally found some pure vanilla at the airport. The same brand was at both duty-free shops, but one was 33% more.
The hotel - We stayed at the Intercontinental Presidente. For what we paid, it was great. We paid $159/night through the company website and joined the "Ambassador Club." They upgraded us to a very large ground-floor oceanfront room. Service was superb. Internet (wireless) was only available in the lobby, which is open-air and can get hot and humid. The restaurant was OK, but not great. Oddly, room service was a little cheaper for the same things than the restaurant. Shore diving was quite nice. They brought a basket of fruit daily and left animals made of folded towels and hibiscus flowers each day.
The food - (Thanks are due to Christi and her restaurant list here). We ate at the hotel restaurant the first night, had room-service lunch after one dive, and had breakfast there most mornings. Otherwise, we taxied into town (45-50 pesos) to eat. La Choza was quite good, especially the Camarones Tropical. I think the house orange salsa was used in making it. I'd love to get the recipe for that salsa, which seemed to include mustard. El Pique's Tacos al Pastor were wonderful, but we preferred the Tacos Mestizas (pastor with melted cheese under the meat). We went there twice, including for our last supper in Cozumel this trip. Los Seras had 3 pastor grills, but none running so we didn't eat there. I'll reserve my highest praise for Camilos. We had the shrimp tacos, which certainly deserve their reputation. It's a small, nicely-decorated, quiet place. A filet of grouper alla Ajillo was unbelievable - perfectly sauteed, buttery without being oily, with crisp tan but not brown/black garlic. It set us back all of 7 bucks. My wife had conch, which took a long time to arrive because they did it right. It was neither under nor overcooked and completely tender. Simply lovely. If they'd been open past 7pm we would have returned for supper. We didn't really spot any streetmeat carts in the parts of town we visited or we would have tried them. No lobster for us, since it's so much cheaper here in New England and we prefer claw meat.
The diving - (This was, after all, why we went). Christi of Blue XT Sea, who was all booked up for our visit, recommended some alternatives including Deep Blue. We started with Dive Cozumel / Yellow Rose because we wanted to to an IANTD Nitrox course. Stephanie had us get and "do" the workbooks ahead of time, so the class was focused. The next day we did our training dives. The boat was great, fast and roomy with shower and a head, dispensers of water and lemonade, chilled fruit, crackers, and towels. We were the only divers (out of 5) without sling bottles, bp/w, long hoses, and backups on necklaces. Nobody made us feel like bumpkins for diving with Zeagles and octos. The first dive was at Paso del Cedral and the second at Santa Rosa. We saw turtles and a big orange seahorse among uncountable other stuff. The boat was chartered for the rest of the week so we couldn't dive with them any more, but probably would have if we could have. For one thing, they use overfilled large steel tanks so we would have gotten awesome bottom time. For another, they do their own nitrox fills so we could easily have gotten any mix we wanted to match our dive plans.
From then on we dived with Deep Blue. The most divers we ever had was 6. The boats were small but fast with canopies, chilled bottled water, and fruit. The divemasters (Gabriel the first day and Sandro from then on) were quite good at spotting critters, including a 1-inch pipe seahorse. The captains (Chorno and his son Chornito) were on top of everything. We dived Punta Sur twice ("Devil's Throat" once, Cathedral once), Tunich, Las Palmas for a night dive, Tormentos, Palancar Bricks and Palancar Caves and Paso del Cedral again (by a different route). We saw more seahorses and turtles, sleeping and swimming sharks, a spotted eagle ray, octopuses, squid, lobsters the size of cats, crabs the size of spare tires, groupers the size of ponies, morays, splendid toadfish, puffers, and on and on. There was an amazing profusion of seafood running around on the loose. I won't even try to describe the corals and sponges. If you've been there, you know what I mean. If you haven't, you wouldn't believe me. Most of the first dives for our group were between 100 and 140 feet, and the second dives 60 to 80. The night dive had a max depth of 45 feet. That was good since my rented light conked out and the moonlight was enough to see by.
We did run into a problem at Tormentos. Our small group found a solitary seahorse clinging to a small sponge. The 3 of us were watching it when the DM made "horsey" motions to the DM of another group. They weren't with us, so I think he was just trying to share the wealth. A guy with a huge video housing came barrelling over so we made room for him. However, for some reason he needed to barge between my wife and me, kicking and elbowing us away and got right up on the seahorse. I guess there will always be divers like that out there. Somehow, seahorses seem to bring it out in them.
My wife kept having unexplained buoyancy problems. Sandro figured out that her new Zeagle's power inflator was constantly leaking air into the bladder. Within about 8 minutes the bladder would be nearly full. Once the inflator hose was disconnected all was fine.
We're planning to return in about 3 weeks. Maybe this time we can dive with Christi. I hope everyone makes it through the storm OK.
Okay, I finally see what the big deal about Cozumel diving is! In a quarter century of diving I've mostly dived freshwater or saltwater with little visibility in Galveston (which isn't much of a problem given that there's not much to see). Cozumel was truly overwhelming in comparison. Here are some impressions:
The town - San Miguel is your basic small Mexican town with a few big-city amenities (such as home sushi delivery) and way too many pod people. It was clean, pleasant, and friendly. Few, if any, real shopping bargains thanks to the cruise passengers who seem willing to buy just about any sort of tat at any price. An example is $1 postcards. The same ones were 35 pesos at Chedraui! My office manager requested a bottle of vanilla. We scoured Chedraui, San Francisco, and all the sh!t-n-shells shops but found only artificially-flavored or "natural" with added vanillin. The brand we usually get, la Vencendora, was nowhere to be found. We only finally found some pure vanilla at the airport. The same brand was at both duty-free shops, but one was 33% more.
The hotel - We stayed at the Intercontinental Presidente. For what we paid, it was great. We paid $159/night through the company website and joined the "Ambassador Club." They upgraded us to a very large ground-floor oceanfront room. Service was superb. Internet (wireless) was only available in the lobby, which is open-air and can get hot and humid. The restaurant was OK, but not great. Oddly, room service was a little cheaper for the same things than the restaurant. Shore diving was quite nice. They brought a basket of fruit daily and left animals made of folded towels and hibiscus flowers each day.
The food - (Thanks are due to Christi and her restaurant list here). We ate at the hotel restaurant the first night, had room-service lunch after one dive, and had breakfast there most mornings. Otherwise, we taxied into town (45-50 pesos) to eat. La Choza was quite good, especially the Camarones Tropical. I think the house orange salsa was used in making it. I'd love to get the recipe for that salsa, which seemed to include mustard. El Pique's Tacos al Pastor were wonderful, but we preferred the Tacos Mestizas (pastor with melted cheese under the meat). We went there twice, including for our last supper in Cozumel this trip. Los Seras had 3 pastor grills, but none running so we didn't eat there. I'll reserve my highest praise for Camilos. We had the shrimp tacos, which certainly deserve their reputation. It's a small, nicely-decorated, quiet place. A filet of grouper alla Ajillo was unbelievable - perfectly sauteed, buttery without being oily, with crisp tan but not brown/black garlic. It set us back all of 7 bucks. My wife had conch, which took a long time to arrive because they did it right. It was neither under nor overcooked and completely tender. Simply lovely. If they'd been open past 7pm we would have returned for supper. We didn't really spot any streetmeat carts in the parts of town we visited or we would have tried them. No lobster for us, since it's so much cheaper here in New England and we prefer claw meat.
The diving - (This was, after all, why we went). Christi of Blue XT Sea, who was all booked up for our visit, recommended some alternatives including Deep Blue. We started with Dive Cozumel / Yellow Rose because we wanted to to an IANTD Nitrox course. Stephanie had us get and "do" the workbooks ahead of time, so the class was focused. The next day we did our training dives. The boat was great, fast and roomy with shower and a head, dispensers of water and lemonade, chilled fruit, crackers, and towels. We were the only divers (out of 5) without sling bottles, bp/w, long hoses, and backups on necklaces. Nobody made us feel like bumpkins for diving with Zeagles and octos. The first dive was at Paso del Cedral and the second at Santa Rosa. We saw turtles and a big orange seahorse among uncountable other stuff. The boat was chartered for the rest of the week so we couldn't dive with them any more, but probably would have if we could have. For one thing, they use overfilled large steel tanks so we would have gotten awesome bottom time. For another, they do their own nitrox fills so we could easily have gotten any mix we wanted to match our dive plans.
From then on we dived with Deep Blue. The most divers we ever had was 6. The boats were small but fast with canopies, chilled bottled water, and fruit. The divemasters (Gabriel the first day and Sandro from then on) were quite good at spotting critters, including a 1-inch pipe seahorse. The captains (Chorno and his son Chornito) were on top of everything. We dived Punta Sur twice ("Devil's Throat" once, Cathedral once), Tunich, Las Palmas for a night dive, Tormentos, Palancar Bricks and Palancar Caves and Paso del Cedral again (by a different route). We saw more seahorses and turtles, sleeping and swimming sharks, a spotted eagle ray, octopuses, squid, lobsters the size of cats, crabs the size of spare tires, groupers the size of ponies, morays, splendid toadfish, puffers, and on and on. There was an amazing profusion of seafood running around on the loose. I won't even try to describe the corals and sponges. If you've been there, you know what I mean. If you haven't, you wouldn't believe me. Most of the first dives for our group were between 100 and 140 feet, and the second dives 60 to 80. The night dive had a max depth of 45 feet. That was good since my rented light conked out and the moonlight was enough to see by.
We did run into a problem at Tormentos. Our small group found a solitary seahorse clinging to a small sponge. The 3 of us were watching it when the DM made "horsey" motions to the DM of another group. They weren't with us, so I think he was just trying to share the wealth. A guy with a huge video housing came barrelling over so we made room for him. However, for some reason he needed to barge between my wife and me, kicking and elbowing us away and got right up on the seahorse. I guess there will always be divers like that out there. Somehow, seahorses seem to bring it out in them.
My wife kept having unexplained buoyancy problems. Sandro figured out that her new Zeagle's power inflator was constantly leaking air into the bladder. Within about 8 minutes the bladder would be nearly full. Once the inflator hose was disconnected all was fine.
We're planning to return in about 3 weeks. Maybe this time we can dive with Christi. I hope everyone makes it through the storm OK.
