osufhorn
Registered
Everyone here has so much more knowledge to post than I do, but I finally have something I can share with everyone, so here goes.
I just got back from a western caribbean cruise and was able to dive both Belize and Cozumel. I will post the Belize review on the appropriate forum. In Cozumel on recommendation of postings on this board, I booked my own with Scuba with Alison. All I can say was that this was three times better than Belize and has convinced me to come back and spend a week in Cozumel diving with her. Alison was quick to respond to my e-mails and had clear directions for me. All I had to do was get off the ship and hop in a taxi to the Caleta Marina. She has a small boat, the Enigma II, and it was full with 8 divers on the boat. Her captain, Carlos, was very helpful and maneuvered the boat masterfully so you never had to swim to get picked up. We dove Palancar Caves for the first dive and were the first boat there so we had it all to ourselves for most of the time. We all decided we wanted to see turtles that day and Alison was able to oblige us with 2 turtles on the first dive and 4 turtles on the second dive. She was very safety conscientious and good about keeping everyone together, even retrieving 2 hooligans who broke the dive plan and went to 100'. We stopped for our surface interval at a beach restaurant and after a liesurely hour, we went to French Reef for our 2nd dive. This was absolutely spectacular as we were able to drift along in the slow but steady current and observe lots of marine life. We saw 4 turtles, a medium sized grouper, and a eel, plus lots of smaller fish and beautiful corals etc. The shallower depths made for long bottom time and the last person came up after 75 min. I would come back and dive with Alison and Carlos in a heartbeat and plan on doing so sometime next winter/spring.
I just got back from a western caribbean cruise and was able to dive both Belize and Cozumel. I will post the Belize review on the appropriate forum. In Cozumel on recommendation of postings on this board, I booked my own with Scuba with Alison. All I can say was that this was three times better than Belize and has convinced me to come back and spend a week in Cozumel diving with her. Alison was quick to respond to my e-mails and had clear directions for me. All I had to do was get off the ship and hop in a taxi to the Caleta Marina. She has a small boat, the Enigma II, and it was full with 8 divers on the boat. Her captain, Carlos, was very helpful and maneuvered the boat masterfully so you never had to swim to get picked up. We dove Palancar Caves for the first dive and were the first boat there so we had it all to ourselves for most of the time. We all decided we wanted to see turtles that day and Alison was able to oblige us with 2 turtles on the first dive and 4 turtles on the second dive. She was very safety conscientious and good about keeping everyone together, even retrieving 2 hooligans who broke the dive plan and went to 100'. We stopped for our surface interval at a beach restaurant and after a liesurely hour, we went to French Reef for our 2nd dive. This was absolutely spectacular as we were able to drift along in the slow but steady current and observe lots of marine life. We saw 4 turtles, a medium sized grouper, and a eel, plus lots of smaller fish and beautiful corals etc. The shallower depths made for long bottom time and the last person came up after 75 min. I would come back and dive with Alison and Carlos in a heartbeat and plan on doing so sometime next winter/spring.
