Hooked4Life
Guest
It all started one day at work when my colleague asked about getting Open Water certified. I explained that I would go to Cozumel to get OW certified. So we all decided a trip to Cozumel was in order. 
I spoke with Christi at Blue XT
Sea to see if there was any availability. There was so we booked the trip. 3 weeks later we left Saturday morning from Newark airport. This trip we decided to stay at Caribe Blu. We arrived at Caribe Blu and we were not disappointed.
A small hotel with 20 rooms (all ocean front). Definitely for the money it is hard to beat. Becky and I rented a tank and did a shore dive. There wasn't much to see but I was happy to see some small growing gorgonians.
Sunday :
We dove Palancar Bricks and Delilah.
Surprisingly the damage from hurricane Wilma to the reef didn't look bad. We saw more fish life then we have ever
seen in the past. Ask Arturo to find a Nudibranch and he will deliver. The guy is truly amazing.
Craig (ckofabq) saying its all good..
Monday :
We dove Santa Rosa Wall and San Francisco.
The damage to Santa Rosa Wall looked pretty bad. Previously it was one of my
most favorite dives in Cozumel. There was a lot of coral rubble and sand on the reef. On San Francisco Pedro pointed out the seahorse, and a stone fish. We were delighted to see a seahorse post Wilma.
Tuesday :
We dove Maracaibo and Punta Tunich.
Maracaibo is truly amazing! 60 minutes of nothing but coral formations. The sea fans and gorgonians were all over the place. When we did this dive I tried to take a few shots. I am looking through the viewfinder and thinking... I need
a video camera for this dive. It is the only way to even come close to capturing its beauty. On the way to the dive site we saw a lot of mirror-wing flying fish. If you have never seen them it is an amazing sight. On Punta Tunich we saw an octopus during the day. What a great morning of diving.
We decided to do a night dive (Arturo was the dive master). We went to paradise reef but there were tons of boats. We went to Punta Sur for the dive. We saw some good night life but nothing too exciting. The one cool thing we saw was a turtle sleeping under a reef slope/cave. Very cool.
Gorgonians at Maracaibo
Wednesday :
After studying all week and practicing her OW skills Maggie got certified.
We dove Palancar Caves and Paradise Reef .
Once again Palancar Caves was awesome. The swim throughs are better then
ever. The coral and fish life looked great. 2 days of great looking reefs! Paradise Reef looked good during the day, but it always looks better at night!
Since we were bummed from last night..we talked Craig into joining us on a
night dive. Pedro was the dive master. We went to Paradise Reef. Once again we were not disappointed. We saw crabs, lobsters, spotted moray eels, (2) 4-5 ft free swimming green moray eels, octopus. Pedro didnt miss a thing!
Turtle at Tortugas
Thursday :
We dove the Tortugas in PDC (Me, Craig, Becky, Maggie, Pedro and Sandra)
We descend on the first dive and the turtles were amazing! Most turtles were
over 4 ft wide. I felt like the turtle in Finding Nemo. I almost said .gnarly dude through my regulator. Some turtles were swimming and some were lying on the bottom munching on corals. Half way through the dive we saw a huge ray! It must have been the size of a VW beetle. Pedro said it was the largest he has seen. At the end of the dive we saw a wall of Tarpon. The Tarpon were 5-6 ft long and were at least as big as us. I took a picture but it doesn't even begin to portray their size. Pedro estimated we saw 25 - 40 turtles. This dive really made our trip special.
The second dive we saw 7 turtles and patches of reef with plenty of Sea Fans.
For her first OW dive Maggie did an excellent job. I think we got her hooked. We told Maggie that she is now really spoiled! To see what we saw for your first OW dive spoils you for life. I remember my OW dive and it was in a quarry in NJ with a 7 mil, gloves and a hood. Not quite as much fun.
Congrats Maggie!
Friday :
We asked Christi if we should do Devils Throat or Cathedrals. She explained that she thought Cathedrals was the better dive. So Cathedrals it is. Pedro explained the limit on this dive was 100ft and to follow him. No Problemo..
We descend and eventually drop down to 100ft. We did some twisting swim throughs that was like a little maze. It was like Palancar Caves on steroids. There was plenty to see. I would do this dive again. We saw a black tip shark and a nurse shark. Did I forget to mention a bunch of barracudas?
On the second dive we went to Paso Del Cedral. Always a good dive, but the first dive was just amazing.
Cathedrals
Saturday :
Sandra was our dive master. We dove Palancar Gardens. We descended into what felt like a large swimming pool. The current was very slow. We did plenty of swim throughs. Becky and I spotted the turtle at almost the same time. She
swam next to the ascending turtle and I saw my cue to take the picture. It was a great relaxing dive.
Our second dive was at San Francisco. We asked Sandra if she could show us the Seahorse. She wasnt sure exactly where he was and said she couldnt promise us that we would see it. We were a few minutes into the dive. I look over to Sandra and thought she was having problems. She didnt have any problems but she spotted the seahorse! I never saw anyone so excited under water. I could almost hear her German accent through her regulator. She was thrilled!!!
Seahorse at San Francisco
Conclusions. :
All I can say is Cozumel is back! I have read mixed reports on the message boards so I didn't know what to expect. To dispel some of the rumors..
Gorgonians : If you think that the gorgonians and sea fans are no more, please do me a favor and look at my pictures. Yes the shallow reefs did get hit and some gorgonians/fans were ripped off the reef. On the shallower reefs you could see the gorgonians growing back. It definitely made my day. Go dive Maracaibo and you will be totally amazed. Gorgonians and Sea Fans everywhere!
Growing Gorgonian
Seahorses : I am glad to say we saw one (twice).
We were diving in Cozumel twice last year and I have to say this was our best trip yet to Coz. The overall experience was great. Pedro was our dive master most of the week. He is amazing at finding things underwater. Our first dive of the day ranged from 70-100ft all week. Almost ever single dive was 60 + minutes. We are already talking about going back in January.
Once again it was cool to meet some great people while diving. We dove most of the week with Craig and it was great to share some drinks and our bad UW photos. I would personally like to thank Blue XT Sea for some great diving (16 total) : Christi, Pedro, Mago, Arturo and last but not least Sandra (Sandra was Maggies instructor).
Some Restaurants we ate at:
La Chosa (Downtown) : Good food, good atmosphere, good prices.
French Quarter (Downtown) : I had the scallops, I thought they were excellent but for the value I thought the prices were pretty high.
Casa Dennis (Downtown) : Food was good, easy to get to and good prices. We ate there twice.
Los Oates (Downtown) : Tacos here awesome, and the prices are hard to beat. We went here twice.
Las Perlitas (take a taxi) : This is one of our favorite places. The seafood platter is very tough to beat. Also try the seafood soup.
La Cocay (Downtown) : We all got together (Christi, Sandra, Me, Becky, Maggie, Craig, and 2 other people sorry I forgot your names) Of course the food was excellent but they no longer have the plantain crusted fish. I had the blackened grouper which was very good.
Jeanies Waffle Hut (Downtown) : We had some waffles for breakfast. Not bad..
Caribe Blu : Tacos, and Fajitas were very good
All pictures taken with a Olympus C-5050 camera with onboard flash. I took this trips pictures in RAW but I have to research editing. More pictures can be found at http://www.scubastruck.com
I spoke with Christi at Blue XTSea to see if there was any availability. There was so we booked the trip. 3 weeks later we left Saturday morning from Newark airport. This trip we decided to stay at Caribe Blu. We arrived at Caribe Blu and we were not disappointed.
A small hotel with 20 rooms (all ocean front). Definitely for the money it is hard to beat. Becky and I rented a tank and did a shore dive. There wasn't much to see but I was happy to see some small growing gorgonians.
Sunday :
We dove Palancar Bricks and Delilah.
Surprisingly the damage from hurricane Wilma to the reef didn't look bad. We saw more fish life then we have ever
seen in the past. Ask Arturo to find a Nudibranch and he will deliver. The guy is truly amazing.
Craig (ckofabq) saying its all good..
Monday :
We dove Santa Rosa Wall and San Francisco.
The damage to Santa Rosa Wall looked pretty bad. Previously it was one of my
most favorite dives in Cozumel. There was a lot of coral rubble and sand on the reef. On San Francisco Pedro pointed out the seahorse, and a stone fish. We were delighted to see a seahorse post Wilma.
Tuesday :
We dove Maracaibo and Punta Tunich.
Maracaibo is truly amazing! 60 minutes of nothing but coral formations. The sea fans and gorgonians were all over the place. When we did this dive I tried to take a few shots. I am looking through the viewfinder and thinking... I need
a video camera for this dive. It is the only way to even come close to capturing its beauty. On the way to the dive site we saw a lot of mirror-wing flying fish. If you have never seen them it is an amazing sight. On Punta Tunich we saw an octopus during the day. What a great morning of diving.
We decided to do a night dive (Arturo was the dive master). We went to paradise reef but there were tons of boats. We went to Punta Sur for the dive. We saw some good night life but nothing too exciting. The one cool thing we saw was a turtle sleeping under a reef slope/cave. Very cool.
Gorgonians at Maracaibo
Wednesday :
After studying all week and practicing her OW skills Maggie got certified.
We dove Palancar Caves and Paradise Reef .
Once again Palancar Caves was awesome. The swim throughs are better then
ever. The coral and fish life looked great. 2 days of great looking reefs! Paradise Reef looked good during the day, but it always looks better at night!
Since we were bummed from last night..we talked Craig into joining us on a
night dive. Pedro was the dive master. We went to Paradise Reef. Once again we were not disappointed. We saw crabs, lobsters, spotted moray eels, (2) 4-5 ft free swimming green moray eels, octopus. Pedro didnt miss a thing!
Turtle at Tortugas
Thursday :
We dove the Tortugas in PDC (Me, Craig, Becky, Maggie, Pedro and Sandra)
We descend on the first dive and the turtles were amazing! Most turtles were
over 4 ft wide. I felt like the turtle in Finding Nemo. I almost said .gnarly dude through my regulator. Some turtles were swimming and some were lying on the bottom munching on corals. Half way through the dive we saw a huge ray! It must have been the size of a VW beetle. Pedro said it was the largest he has seen. At the end of the dive we saw a wall of Tarpon. The Tarpon were 5-6 ft long and were at least as big as us. I took a picture but it doesn't even begin to portray their size. Pedro estimated we saw 25 - 40 turtles. This dive really made our trip special.
The second dive we saw 7 turtles and patches of reef with plenty of Sea Fans.
For her first OW dive Maggie did an excellent job. I think we got her hooked.
We told Maggie that she is now really spoiled! To see what we saw for your first OW dive spoils you for life. I remember my OW dive and it was in a quarry in NJ with a 7 mil, gloves and a hood. Not quite as much fun.
Congrats Maggie!
Friday :
We asked Christi if we should do Devils Throat or Cathedrals. She explained that she thought Cathedrals was the better dive. So Cathedrals it is. Pedro explained the limit on this dive was 100ft and to follow him. No Problemo..
We descend and eventually drop down to 100ft. We did some twisting swim throughs that was like a little maze. It was like Palancar Caves on steroids. There was plenty to see.
I would do this dive again. We saw a black tip shark and a nurse shark. Did I forget to mention a bunch of barracudas?On the second dive we went to Paso Del Cedral. Always a good dive, but the first dive was just amazing.
Cathedrals
Saturday :
Sandra was our dive master. We dove Palancar Gardens. We descended into what felt like a large swimming pool. The current was very slow. We did plenty of swim throughs. Becky and I spotted the turtle at almost the same time. She
swam next to the ascending turtle and I saw my cue to take the picture. It was a great relaxing dive.
Our second dive was at San Francisco. We asked Sandra if she could show us the Seahorse. She wasnt sure exactly where he was and said she couldnt promise us that we would see it. We were a few minutes into the dive. I look over to Sandra and thought she was having problems. She didnt have any problems but she spotted the seahorse! I never saw anyone so excited under water. I could almost hear her German accent through her regulator. She was thrilled!!!
Seahorse at San Francisco
Conclusions. :
All I can say is Cozumel is back! I have read mixed reports on the message boards so I didn't know what to expect. To dispel some of the rumors..
Gorgonians : If you think that the gorgonians and sea fans are no more, please do me a favor and look at my pictures. Yes the shallow reefs did get hit and some gorgonians/fans were ripped off the reef. On the shallower reefs you could see the gorgonians growing back. It definitely made my day. Go dive Maracaibo and you will be totally amazed. Gorgonians and Sea Fans everywhere!
Growing Gorgonian
Seahorses : I am glad to say we saw one (twice).
We were diving in Cozumel twice last year and I have to say this was our best trip yet to Coz. The overall experience was great. Pedro was our dive master most of the week. He is amazing at finding things underwater. Our first dive of the day ranged from 70-100ft all week. Almost ever single dive was 60 + minutes. We are already talking about going back in January.
Once again it was cool to meet some great people while diving. We dove most of the week with Craig and it was great to share some drinks and our bad UW photos.
I would personally like to thank Blue XT Sea for some great diving (16 total) : Christi, Pedro, Mago, Arturo and last but not least Sandra (Sandra was Maggies instructor).Some Restaurants we ate at:
La Chosa (Downtown) : Good food, good atmosphere, good prices.
French Quarter (Downtown) : I had the scallops, I thought they were excellent but for the value I thought the prices were pretty high.
Casa Dennis (Downtown) : Food was good, easy to get to and good prices. We ate there twice.
Los Oates (Downtown) : Tacos here awesome, and the prices are hard to beat. We went here twice.
Las Perlitas (take a taxi) : This is one of our favorite places. The seafood platter is very tough to beat. Also try the seafood soup.
La Cocay (Downtown) : We all got together (Christi, Sandra, Me, Becky, Maggie, Craig, and 2 other people sorry I forgot your names) Of course the food was excellent but they no longer have the plantain crusted fish. I had the blackened grouper which was very good.
Jeanies Waffle Hut (Downtown) : We had some waffles for breakfast. Not bad..
Caribe Blu : Tacos, and Fajitas were very good
All pictures taken with a Olympus C-5050 camera with onboard flash. I took this trips pictures in RAW but I have to research editing.
More pictures can be found at http://www.scubastruck.com
