RaginCajun
June 30th, 2010, 08:51 PM
A bit of a late trip report, but I honestly needed a few days off to recover from the fun. Now I'm back at work and planning our next trip.
In summary, Blue Angel was great. Just what we needed. For a dive destination with so many options, we were very pleased with our choice.
Booking was as easy as a local 1-800 # phone call to Jeannie. We talked for at least 15 minutes and she shared some great tips & advice on various things from getting to the hotel, getting around and what to expect. Normally, one might expect a solo traveller not part of a dive shop to enounter difficulty with a new place, but we had no issues and no regrets. I've hesitated slightly on posting our trip report greedily wishing to keep the secret to myself a bit longer.
…..
Arrived Sunday Jun 20th on the 12:20 Continenal flight from Houston. Aside from having to shuffle some weight around in our bags resulting in accidentally placing my wife's lotion and a few other items in our carry on for later confiscation by the TSA folks, getting through security was the most arduous aspect of the flight. I couldn't sleep or do much else on the flight over, too excited. Ours was the first flight to arrive, ahead of an American Airlines flight (I think), so we breezed through customs, just had to wait on our bags a bit. Ended up on the same taxi as a 1st Class/Priority/Elite traveller, so no delay in the customs/baggage claim area. Mexican customs & security was fast & efficient. Thanks to the education by my fellow ScubaBoard-ers, we avoided the timeshare folks and bought 2 tickets on the collectivo van, for ~$78 pesos each. They took dollars no problems. One regret, I was too nervous & focused on getting on the right van and didn't see the Mr. Margarita stand near the van loading area, a Mango Margarita would have been nice.
A few stops later after dropping off other folks on the way, we arrived at the Blue Angel. Check in was quick & easy, used my Visa debit card to pay for the remainder of the room in $ USD (no additional fees or currency conversion charges). Within a few minutes with our welcome Margarita's in hand we were unpacking and taking in the view of our 3rd floor balcony. The restaurant closes early on Sunday, so by 4 pm we were having an early dinner. …did I mention the margaritas were delicious…! Also checked in with Martin (sp) in the dive shop to confirm our dive schedule. We picked up some weights for an after dinner dive to check buoyancy. Lesson learned - we underestimated our weight needs and didn't get enough, I should have estimated high. I did get in a quick shore dive while my wife relaxed. Just grab a tank and dive all you want. The shore dive was easy, nice sandy gradual entry. I just swam around the corner of the Stingray pen. Saw lobster, a spotted moray eel and other critters. Not much else, but I didn't venture much past the stingray cage.
The room could be described as rustic in decor. It had conrete floors (no worries about sand & wet dive gear). Managed to get a King size bed, so the room was quite spacious. The AC is operated by remote control, and we were hot & sweaty so we cranked it down to cool off. It worked fine. The bathroom had a roman shower. I found the room to be immaculately clean. Cleaner than my house. The mini-fridge was stocked with water, cokes & beer and at modest prices (same as the restaurant - $~1.75 each). The room smelled nice and had a nice arrangement of fresh flowers. A nice touch that my wife liked. The balcony had 2 charis a table & and has a place to hang gear. The room had a phone, but we didn't even touch it during our stay.
Since all we had to do was stumble down stairs, get a bite and hop on the boat they told us to arrive about 5 minutes before 8 am to load up. Lesson learned - pack light for the boat. I think we had 8-9 divers max + DM & Captain on the boat for most dives. No need for a bag, towel or extra gear. After watching others, I found out how to wrap up my fins, mask & regs in my BC and leave all of the crap in the room.
I managed 8-10 dives including two shore dives. They were:
Sunday afternoon: Blue Angel shore dive
Monday morning: Bolognes & Villa Blanca Wall
Tuesday morning: Colombia Deep & Colombia Shallow
Wednesday morning: Santa Rosa Wall & Las Palmas, (Blue Angel shore dive)
Thursday morning: Palancar Gardens & Paseo de Cedral
The dives were fantastic. Visibility was great generally top to bottom viz, you could see the boats traversing above you easily from at least 50 feet below. Depending on the profile, depth & my air consumption the dives lasted anywhere from 35 minutes to an hour. Our DM's let us dive our computer and out of courteousy (and safety) to limit the dive to an hour. This wasn't too difficult to do especially on Coloumbia shallow and Paseo de Cedral, those were fairly shallow and I often finished with 1000-1200 after an hour.
We saw all of the usual tropical life. Seeing turtles on at least 1 or 2 dives a day was a treat for us. We even saw a few nurse sharks. My wife who is terribly afraid of sharks, spotted a nurse shark sleeping in a swim through on Colombia deep. We spied it for a minute before pointing it out to the rest of the group. The swim throughs were great. These were a first for me and a real treat. Also new to me was drift diving. What a great way to see so much territory in one dive.
Jorge was our DM Mon-Wed & Matt on Thursday. Surface intervals generally consisted of a slow putt putt to the next dive site with pastrys & fruit. One day we stopped at an uninhabited pier/beach on the south side and shared dive stories from around the world. The DM's were attentive, watched over the flock with care and were quick to point out something interesting. Jorge killed a few Lion fish. On one dive he had a snapper follow him around like a puppy. I figured out it was because he usually kills a Lion fish on that reef which the snapper will gobble up happily.
There was even a videographer on two of our dives, Sharyn. I splurged and picked up a copy of my last dive on Palancar Gardens & Paseo De Cedral. Great quality, well produced HD keepsake of Cozumel. She does great work.
All of the staff was great and our waiter Sergio kept kidding us about being newly weds all week long. Breakfast & lunch are included on dive days, so aside from an extra cocktail here & there, I found this to be an economical approach to dinner. Aside from our first night, we generally ventured out for dinner, but a sunset dinner at the open air restaurant would have been quite nice. I'm not sure if the dinner menu changed, but it would be nice to have a special or slight variation every other day or so. Although honestly, I had the grilled grouper (Divers lunch) most days without hesitation.
The hotel was just what we wanted. It was quiet even after a group of 20 checked in on Wednesday. There were all plenty of Palapas, the pool was never crowded, wireless internet readily accessible, clean cozy & the guests were friendly too. We met a family from across town who we enjoyed diving with. No booming music and not much of a Club Med beach scene which is just what we wanted. The hotel is nestled between the road and the beach. Some might complain on the proximity to the road, some might love the convenience of 50 steps to the boat. In the end it worked for us just fine.
We had dinner in the town Plaza a few times. Really enjoyed the Lobster & Snapper Denis & Casa Denis as well as the Ceviche at the place next door (forgot the name..). We had dinner at the restaurant south of BA one night an I really enjoyed the chicken tacos, but wouldn't recommend the Greek salad (too much feta).
We rented a Jeep at Less Pay on Thursday. Total was ~$50 all in. Could have gotten a convertible beetle for ~$35 total ($18+15) but they were out. Drove around the south tip of the island, checking out the beach in a few spots. Saw some neat blow holes. Had early dinner at Coconuts. Beware that this side of the island closes early and I think Coconuts is cash only. Now I know why they call it Coconuts, check out the photo albums (not PG-13).
On Friday we found a small Café off of the plaza called le Check (?) inexpensive & very nice Italian/type bistro restaurant. Return to the airport was also easy, I think the cab ride was $8. Less Pay would have dropped us off at the airport for no additional charge, a nice add on to their inexpensive rental rates, but the jeep we were in didn't have "plates" and they couldn't drive through the airport. They offered to drop us at the entrance to the airport, but it was way too hot, muggy and I was towing too much baggage for that trek. We took the advice of some new friends from the hotel and bought our souvenir vanilla at the airport Duty free shop. The flight home was fine, but a flight home what else to say?
Other nuggets' of info/advice…ATM's in the Town Plaza are more expensive. Avoid them. Use the one in the Bank building catty corner from Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville ($19.75 peso ($1.53) transaction fee).
Mega or Chedraui is a good place to stock up the mini-fridge. 6 pack of local beer was $3. We re-filled the water bottles with filtered water from the cooler down the hall, better on the environment, better on the wallet. Less Pay had the cheapest car rental rates we found. Rentals were 24 hrs and they'll pick you up & drop you off. Next time, I'll look harder for an authentic eatery. A more "local" taco shop.
I do hesitate in posting so much about our great stay at the Blue Angel in fear that my undiscovered gem will be over-run with business that they'll book up, double the rates and keep me from going back. We're already planning our return with our son who's now a certified scuba diver.
Can't wait to return. Felice Navidad maybe?
In summary, Blue Angel was great. Just what we needed. For a dive destination with so many options, we were very pleased with our choice.
Booking was as easy as a local 1-800 # phone call to Jeannie. We talked for at least 15 minutes and she shared some great tips & advice on various things from getting to the hotel, getting around and what to expect. Normally, one might expect a solo traveller not part of a dive shop to enounter difficulty with a new place, but we had no issues and no regrets. I've hesitated slightly on posting our trip report greedily wishing to keep the secret to myself a bit longer.
…..
Arrived Sunday Jun 20th on the 12:20 Continenal flight from Houston. Aside from having to shuffle some weight around in our bags resulting in accidentally placing my wife's lotion and a few other items in our carry on for later confiscation by the TSA folks, getting through security was the most arduous aspect of the flight. I couldn't sleep or do much else on the flight over, too excited. Ours was the first flight to arrive, ahead of an American Airlines flight (I think), so we breezed through customs, just had to wait on our bags a bit. Ended up on the same taxi as a 1st Class/Priority/Elite traveller, so no delay in the customs/baggage claim area. Mexican customs & security was fast & efficient. Thanks to the education by my fellow ScubaBoard-ers, we avoided the timeshare folks and bought 2 tickets on the collectivo van, for ~$78 pesos each. They took dollars no problems. One regret, I was too nervous & focused on getting on the right van and didn't see the Mr. Margarita stand near the van loading area, a Mango Margarita would have been nice.
A few stops later after dropping off other folks on the way, we arrived at the Blue Angel. Check in was quick & easy, used my Visa debit card to pay for the remainder of the room in $ USD (no additional fees or currency conversion charges). Within a few minutes with our welcome Margarita's in hand we were unpacking and taking in the view of our 3rd floor balcony. The restaurant closes early on Sunday, so by 4 pm we were having an early dinner. …did I mention the margaritas were delicious…! Also checked in with Martin (sp) in the dive shop to confirm our dive schedule. We picked up some weights for an after dinner dive to check buoyancy. Lesson learned - we underestimated our weight needs and didn't get enough, I should have estimated high. I did get in a quick shore dive while my wife relaxed. Just grab a tank and dive all you want. The shore dive was easy, nice sandy gradual entry. I just swam around the corner of the Stingray pen. Saw lobster, a spotted moray eel and other critters. Not much else, but I didn't venture much past the stingray cage.
The room could be described as rustic in decor. It had conrete floors (no worries about sand & wet dive gear). Managed to get a King size bed, so the room was quite spacious. The AC is operated by remote control, and we were hot & sweaty so we cranked it down to cool off. It worked fine. The bathroom had a roman shower. I found the room to be immaculately clean. Cleaner than my house. The mini-fridge was stocked with water, cokes & beer and at modest prices (same as the restaurant - $~1.75 each). The room smelled nice and had a nice arrangement of fresh flowers. A nice touch that my wife liked. The balcony had 2 charis a table & and has a place to hang gear. The room had a phone, but we didn't even touch it during our stay.
Since all we had to do was stumble down stairs, get a bite and hop on the boat they told us to arrive about 5 minutes before 8 am to load up. Lesson learned - pack light for the boat. I think we had 8-9 divers max + DM & Captain on the boat for most dives. No need for a bag, towel or extra gear. After watching others, I found out how to wrap up my fins, mask & regs in my BC and leave all of the crap in the room.
I managed 8-10 dives including two shore dives. They were:
Sunday afternoon: Blue Angel shore dive
Monday morning: Bolognes & Villa Blanca Wall
Tuesday morning: Colombia Deep & Colombia Shallow
Wednesday morning: Santa Rosa Wall & Las Palmas, (Blue Angel shore dive)
Thursday morning: Palancar Gardens & Paseo de Cedral
The dives were fantastic. Visibility was great generally top to bottom viz, you could see the boats traversing above you easily from at least 50 feet below. Depending on the profile, depth & my air consumption the dives lasted anywhere from 35 minutes to an hour. Our DM's let us dive our computer and out of courteousy (and safety) to limit the dive to an hour. This wasn't too difficult to do especially on Coloumbia shallow and Paseo de Cedral, those were fairly shallow and I often finished with 1000-1200 after an hour.
We saw all of the usual tropical life. Seeing turtles on at least 1 or 2 dives a day was a treat for us. We even saw a few nurse sharks. My wife who is terribly afraid of sharks, spotted a nurse shark sleeping in a swim through on Colombia deep. We spied it for a minute before pointing it out to the rest of the group. The swim throughs were great. These were a first for me and a real treat. Also new to me was drift diving. What a great way to see so much territory in one dive.
Jorge was our DM Mon-Wed & Matt on Thursday. Surface intervals generally consisted of a slow putt putt to the next dive site with pastrys & fruit. One day we stopped at an uninhabited pier/beach on the south side and shared dive stories from around the world. The DM's were attentive, watched over the flock with care and were quick to point out something interesting. Jorge killed a few Lion fish. On one dive he had a snapper follow him around like a puppy. I figured out it was because he usually kills a Lion fish on that reef which the snapper will gobble up happily.
There was even a videographer on two of our dives, Sharyn. I splurged and picked up a copy of my last dive on Palancar Gardens & Paseo De Cedral. Great quality, well produced HD keepsake of Cozumel. She does great work.
All of the staff was great and our waiter Sergio kept kidding us about being newly weds all week long. Breakfast & lunch are included on dive days, so aside from an extra cocktail here & there, I found this to be an economical approach to dinner. Aside from our first night, we generally ventured out for dinner, but a sunset dinner at the open air restaurant would have been quite nice. I'm not sure if the dinner menu changed, but it would be nice to have a special or slight variation every other day or so. Although honestly, I had the grilled grouper (Divers lunch) most days without hesitation.
The hotel was just what we wanted. It was quiet even after a group of 20 checked in on Wednesday. There were all plenty of Palapas, the pool was never crowded, wireless internet readily accessible, clean cozy & the guests were friendly too. We met a family from across town who we enjoyed diving with. No booming music and not much of a Club Med beach scene which is just what we wanted. The hotel is nestled between the road and the beach. Some might complain on the proximity to the road, some might love the convenience of 50 steps to the boat. In the end it worked for us just fine.
We had dinner in the town Plaza a few times. Really enjoyed the Lobster & Snapper Denis & Casa Denis as well as the Ceviche at the place next door (forgot the name..). We had dinner at the restaurant south of BA one night an I really enjoyed the chicken tacos, but wouldn't recommend the Greek salad (too much feta).
We rented a Jeep at Less Pay on Thursday. Total was ~$50 all in. Could have gotten a convertible beetle for ~$35 total ($18+15) but they were out. Drove around the south tip of the island, checking out the beach in a few spots. Saw some neat blow holes. Had early dinner at Coconuts. Beware that this side of the island closes early and I think Coconuts is cash only. Now I know why they call it Coconuts, check out the photo albums (not PG-13).
On Friday we found a small Café off of the plaza called le Check (?) inexpensive & very nice Italian/type bistro restaurant. Return to the airport was also easy, I think the cab ride was $8. Less Pay would have dropped us off at the airport for no additional charge, a nice add on to their inexpensive rental rates, but the jeep we were in didn't have "plates" and they couldn't drive through the airport. They offered to drop us at the entrance to the airport, but it was way too hot, muggy and I was towing too much baggage for that trek. We took the advice of some new friends from the hotel and bought our souvenir vanilla at the airport Duty free shop. The flight home was fine, but a flight home what else to say?
Other nuggets' of info/advice…ATM's in the Town Plaza are more expensive. Avoid them. Use the one in the Bank building catty corner from Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville ($19.75 peso ($1.53) transaction fee).
Mega or Chedraui is a good place to stock up the mini-fridge. 6 pack of local beer was $3. We re-filled the water bottles with filtered water from the cooler down the hall, better on the environment, better on the wallet. Less Pay had the cheapest car rental rates we found. Rentals were 24 hrs and they'll pick you up & drop you off. Next time, I'll look harder for an authentic eatery. A more "local" taco shop.
I do hesitate in posting so much about our great stay at the Blue Angel in fear that my undiscovered gem will be over-run with business that they'll book up, double the rates and keep me from going back. We're already planning our return with our son who's now a certified scuba diver.
Can't wait to return. Felice Navidad maybe?