Cozumel Shore Diving in June

[jonance]

Hi,

My wife and another couple are staying for 10 days in Cozumel in July. My friend Mac and I are both divers, although i am a relatively new diver and he is probably a bit rusty...we'll probably take a refresher course before we go. Anyhow, we are staying in a condo right next to the Playa Uvas beach club...which offers shore diving out to the Chakanaab Reef. I've contacted them and they have agreed that since it's low season they'll rent us all our equipment for the entire stay for a good rate and also give us tanks at a good rate. I figure we'll definately use them right there on site a few days...is anyone on the board familiar with the shore diving here. Is it safe as far as current goes, etc? Any tips? I figure we will want to kind of swim against the current out to the reef, then drift back towards the condo. But how do we know when we've reached it so as not to overshoot the condo and have to hike with all of our equipment?

Also...Are any of the other areas that are possible to shore dive worth a shot? I figure the hassle of loading up the equipment and driving to another site isn't worth it unless it is much better than Uvas (Chakanaab), but i do believe there is a wreck you can dive...any info on other shore dives that anyone can recommend i would appreciate.

Thanks in advance for any tips, info, and recommendations...any help is greatly appreciated.

THanks
John

 

[ggunn]

Also...Are any of the other areas that are possible to shore dive worth a shot? I figure the hassle of loading up the equipment and driving to another site isn't worth it unless it is much better than Uvas (Chakanaab), but i do believe there is a wreck you can dive...any info on other shore dives that anyone can recommend i would appreciate.

Thanks in advance for any tips, info, and recommendations...any help is greatly appreciated.

THanks
John

There is not a lot of shore diving to be had in Cozumel, and since the passage of Hurricane Wilma last year, there is even less. Much of what there was has been pretty much wiped out. You can shore dive at Caribe Blu, and if you go south a couple hundred yards there are few small coral heads left. I have heard that you can access part of Paradise Reef from the grounds of the Presidente Hotel.

The wreck is not a shore dive.

As to the current, it varies day to day, sometimes hour to hour.

 

[Dave Zimmerly]

When we were there in October,and on one dive the current changed direction 3 times in under an hour. Be advised that Cozumel is more suited for drift dives and you will have to be accompanied by a DM in the marine park.

And don't forget you safety sausage, mirror and whistle.

Dave (aka "Squirt")

 

[sharky60]

I belive currents are much more unpredicible in the fall and early winter months than they are in June, having said that, I think it is still advisable to go out with a local DM in any unfamiliar waters.

It's true that shore diving in Coz is really not the "big show", you really need to get in a boat and head out the reefs to see what Cozumel diving is all about. The first time my wife did a boat dive there she surfaced exclaiming "man! it's just like being IN a Naitonal Geographic magazine! but it's all around you! The colors are amazing!"

shore diving there it's more of a treasure hunt, especially after Wilma. I made 2 dives in front of Caribe Blu in May and both were expeptional dives. One we drifted all the way from Papa Hog's pier to Caribe Blu and the other we swam "upstream" and drifted back.

Sure, most of the sea fans were gone or badly damaged & the hard corals had taken a terrific beating, but the faster growing soft corals and sponges were making a comeback, slowly but you could see it.

We saw lots of sealife, mostly juviniles, which is what you'll see in shallow waters anywhere, cuddle fish, barracuda, yellow stingrays, several blennies, lots of juvinile angels, several scorpion fish, lots and lots of small eels and thousands of juv. shells were out there.

like I said it was a treasure hunt, but still a very nice dive, I actully got some of my favorite pics from this trip out there.

 

[thelawgoddess]

just posted this in another thread, but we were in coz last week and:

"we did shore dives [at the caribe blu] at night and they were great. not a lot of feautures and no corals or anything, but we'd see 3 octos and 2-3 eels in addition to lots of other fish - all in 24 ft or less of water. those were some of our favorite dives actually. a little surf and some surge to deal with on the entry/exit, though. (it's not a beach, though - it's fairly rocky on the shore.)"

all of the diving we do at home (seattle, wa) is shore diving, so the shore dives were right up our alley. we like being in total control of our dives, so we found the shore dives refreshing after the "confined" nature of the boats. (i use this terminology loosely of course!) anyway, like i said there isn't much for features, but there is a lot of life that we saw: octos, eels, small rays, lobster, many kinds of fish, urchins, cuttlefish, peacock flounders, snails ... and perhaps the coolest (and one of my favorites of all the things i saw during all of our dives) - a "blue-spotted cornetfish" ...

there actually wasn't much current. i am an incredibly poor swimmer and it was nothing i couldn't swim against. (i have heard it can be quite strong at times, though.) the worst part for me was the surge on the egress - but i just had my boyfriend stand ground and hold onto me the second time until i could de-fin and manage the rest of the walk out on my own. :14:

anyway, all that said - we definitely highly recommend the shore dives at night. take your compass to help with navigating, or worst case surface and see where you're at - we never went deeper than 24 feet on our first shore dive, and we spent well over an hour down there and still had a ton of air left ...