yak
Contributor
Well, the dust is settling from my first diving trip to Coz (if that’s possible with all the rain we’ve been having here in the Northeast), so I’ll try to capture the highlights of our trip in this long report. Sorry to say the pictures are all above sea level - no camera housing yet.
My buddy Jim and I flew into Cancun on May 3rd, breezed through immigration, got our bags quickly and green-lighted our way to our man from Cancun Valet. A quick cerveza stop at 7-11 and we were in Playa in no time. Killed an hour at the little round beach bar near the ticket office, and finally arrived in Coz at about 3:45.
A quick taxi to the Barracuda, check in, and followed the helpful sign to room 205.
The room was clean and neat, nothing fancy, with a balcony overlooking the pool and ocean.
30 minutes after the ferry dropped us we were sitting at the swim-up bar in the new pool. The pool area is new and it's very nice.
the restaurant has decent food, and the waitresses are friendly
They just installed a free wifi hub behind the bar for those folks who can’t leave the laptop behind (I had no problem closing mine up for a while). They even had Johnny Damon behind the bar (Jimmy).
Jeremy from Living Underwater stopped by at 6:30 to pick up our gear and brief us on the next day’s diving. We discussed our diving abilities and history and Jim and I decided to dive with the advanced boat vs what Jeremy decribed as a “semi-advanced” boat. On our way out, we met Jeremy’s wife and son (I’m awful about remembering names), but what a nice family he has.
The next day, we strolled outside to the Barracuda pier at 7:45
and hopped on one of the two small fast boats that LU uses.
LU uses 120cf LP steel tanks, which were a bit awkward when donning our kits, but once in the water we forgot they were there. You did need to get some weight up high to keep your trim level, which I did after the first couple of dives.
Our first dive with the 3 other divers on the boat was Tunich. We were briefed that the max depth was 150 feet (which, having donned my beanie, I misinterpreted as 115 feet ). As we quickly descended the wall, I noticed that no one besides me was paying attention to the max depth. As I followed the group deeper, my computer beeped as I passed 130 feet. Jim and I stopped at 138 feet, and hovered a bit above the group (instead of hugging the wall at that depth), which caused us to fight the strong current a bit to keep from passing the group. We slowly ascended, and when we were down to about 700 lbs, I shot my SMB, we did our safety stop, and Jim and I ended our dive in just 41 minutes! The reef itself was in nice shape (although I have no previous Coz dives to compare it to), and we really enjoyed the dive. While waiting for the other divers to return, Jim and I had a long discussion about advanced vs. semi-advanced
, currents, trim, relaxation, and asking more questions during the next briefing. Our average depth was 66 feet for the dive, I don’t want to calculate our average air consumption. The other air sippers had a 70 minute dive waiting for their computers to clear.
After a 2 hour SI including lunch at San Francisco beach, our second dive was San Francisco, Max depth 89, avg 42, 87 minutes, EAN32. The current was less ripping here, it was another beautiful dive, and we all exited the water within a couple minutes of each other.
We switched boats at the marina, had pork sandwiches at the little shack there, and hooked up with Mike and Marie from the other boat for the third dive on Paradise. We took our time, exploring all the macro life in the coral heads. Jeremy was great in finding things like pipefish, splendid toads, and other critters. Max depth was 56, avg 38, 89 minutes, EAN32.
We had a great dinner at Casa Denis, a beer by the pool, and called it a night.
On day 2 we dove with Jeremy’s other divemaster, Monster, along with another couple. They didn’t have a preference, and since Jim and I were diving EAN32, I chose Palancar Caves for our first dive. Wow, what an amazing place! Cool swim-through’s and canyons, and at one point the white sand cascading down though the corals over the wall reminded me of skiing a snow-covered chute. We saw spotted eagles in the sand, and had a nice close encounter with a turtle who didn’t mind as we hung out a couple feet from him as he munched. Monster kind of hung out ahead for most of the dive, we just looked over the coral heads for his bubbles to see which direction he was going. He did launch his SBM without asking any of us how much air we had, and our dive ended at 62 minutes, max depth 87.
We had lunch at Palancar beach, and our second dive was Dalila, Max depth 50, 74 minutes, EAN36. Monster again ended our dive for us. I did mention to Jeremy that Monster could have done a better job of extending the dive times or at least asking us how much air we had before shooting the SMB (unless he was using his 95 cf of air faster than us with our 120's, which didn't seem likely).
Our third dive was a night dive, again with Mike and Marie, with Jeremy leading the dive. We dove Paradise, max 42, avg 34, 89 minutes, EAN 36. We saw a few octopus, huge lobsters, splendid toads, snake eels, and other critters. If you looked up, you could see the phosphorescence in the water as your bubbles rose. It was an awesome dive.
We ate at the hotel bar, relaxed by the pool for a bit (in my new Red Sox beanie)
and called it an early night.
My buddy Jim and I flew into Cancun on May 3rd, breezed through immigration, got our bags quickly and green-lighted our way to our man from Cancun Valet. A quick cerveza stop at 7-11 and we were in Playa in no time. Killed an hour at the little round beach bar near the ticket office, and finally arrived in Coz at about 3:45.
A quick taxi to the Barracuda, check in, and followed the helpful sign to room 205.
The room was clean and neat, nothing fancy, with a balcony overlooking the pool and ocean.
30 minutes after the ferry dropped us we were sitting at the swim-up bar in the new pool. The pool area is new and it's very nice.
the restaurant has decent food, and the waitresses are friendly
They just installed a free wifi hub behind the bar for those folks who can’t leave the laptop behind (I had no problem closing mine up for a while). They even had Johnny Damon behind the bar (Jimmy).
Jeremy from Living Underwater stopped by at 6:30 to pick up our gear and brief us on the next day’s diving. We discussed our diving abilities and history and Jim and I decided to dive with the advanced boat vs what Jeremy decribed as a “semi-advanced” boat. On our way out, we met Jeremy’s wife and son (I’m awful about remembering names), but what a nice family he has.
The next day, we strolled outside to the Barracuda pier at 7:45
and hopped on one of the two small fast boats that LU uses.
LU uses 120cf LP steel tanks, which were a bit awkward when donning our kits, but once in the water we forgot they were there. You did need to get some weight up high to keep your trim level, which I did after the first couple of dives.
Our first dive with the 3 other divers on the boat was Tunich. We were briefed that the max depth was 150 feet (which, having donned my beanie, I misinterpreted as 115 feet ). As we quickly descended the wall, I noticed that no one besides me was paying attention to the max depth. As I followed the group deeper, my computer beeped as I passed 130 feet. Jim and I stopped at 138 feet, and hovered a bit above the group (instead of hugging the wall at that depth), which caused us to fight the strong current a bit to keep from passing the group. We slowly ascended, and when we were down to about 700 lbs, I shot my SMB, we did our safety stop, and Jim and I ended our dive in just 41 minutes! The reef itself was in nice shape (although I have no previous Coz dives to compare it to), and we really enjoyed the dive. While waiting for the other divers to return, Jim and I had a long discussion about advanced vs. semi-advanced
, currents, trim, relaxation, and asking more questions during the next briefing. Our average depth was 66 feet for the dive, I don’t want to calculate our average air consumption. The other air sippers had a 70 minute dive waiting for their computers to clear.After a 2 hour SI including lunch at San Francisco beach, our second dive was San Francisco, Max depth 89, avg 42, 87 minutes, EAN32. The current was less ripping here, it was another beautiful dive, and we all exited the water within a couple minutes of each other.
We switched boats at the marina, had pork sandwiches at the little shack there, and hooked up with Mike and Marie from the other boat for the third dive on Paradise. We took our time, exploring all the macro life in the coral heads. Jeremy was great in finding things like pipefish, splendid toads, and other critters. Max depth was 56, avg 38, 89 minutes, EAN32.
We had a great dinner at Casa Denis, a beer by the pool, and called it a night.
On day 2 we dove with Jeremy’s other divemaster, Monster, along with another couple. They didn’t have a preference, and since Jim and I were diving EAN32, I chose Palancar Caves for our first dive. Wow, what an amazing place! Cool swim-through’s and canyons, and at one point the white sand cascading down though the corals over the wall reminded me of skiing a snow-covered chute. We saw spotted eagles in the sand, and had a nice close encounter with a turtle who didn’t mind as we hung out a couple feet from him as he munched. Monster kind of hung out ahead for most of the dive, we just looked over the coral heads for his bubbles to see which direction he was going. He did launch his SBM without asking any of us how much air we had, and our dive ended at 62 minutes, max depth 87.
We had lunch at Palancar beach, and our second dive was Dalila, Max depth 50, 74 minutes, EAN36. Monster again ended our dive for us. I did mention to Jeremy that Monster could have done a better job of extending the dive times or at least asking us how much air we had before shooting the SMB (unless he was using his 95 cf of air faster than us with our 120's, which didn't seem likely).
Our third dive was a night dive, again with Mike and Marie, with Jeremy leading the dive. We dove Paradise, max 42, avg 34, 89 minutes, EAN 36. We saw a few octopus, huge lobsters, splendid toads, snake eels, and other critters. If you looked up, you could see the phosphorescence in the water as your bubbles rose. It was an awesome dive.
We ate at the hotel bar, relaxed by the pool for a bit (in my new Red Sox beanie)
and called it an early night.
