Interested in your recommendations for diving Cozumel

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

swimbody

Caribbean Connoisseur
ScubaBoard Supporter
Messages
197
Reaction score
55
Location
Houston, Texas
# of dives
200 - 499
Good day scubaboard friends,

My wife and I got an email from our good friends in Roatan and while it's our first love and the first place we dove to 130', did wreck dives, did our first night dive, got our advanced and nitrox done, I feel its in our interest to find some other places that affected us as much as Roatan. Cozumel looks appealing since we loved drift diving in Roatan out at Little Texas and since it seems an island designed for diving in mind. What we don't want is to be a part of a diving factory. My wife doesn't have the endurance I do and would like to enjoy some beach time and be able to snorkel and maybe sit out a dive or two while I will go full bore until I must board the plane.

We are not big fans of the large Western feel hotels where everyone speaks English. I can speak Spanish well enough to get myself around anywhere and I enjoy the challenge of speaking and reading when traveling. We are both foodies and love new adventures. We'd like a combination fun ass dive resort and food centric, small scale facility where safety is paramount and the service is excellent but not in your face. My wife would agree to a dive resort if it had some beachy stuff for her to do. As my step mother hasn't been to Cozumel in years, she's not really the best to recommend anything to us even though she has over 500 dives under her belt.

She did mention Club Cozumel. We'd like to also to go on land and dive a cenotes. Perhaps Isla Mujeres as well. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a ton,

swim
 
Scuba Club Cozumel meets some of your needs.... but not all. I don't think there is a place on Cozumel that meets ALL of the needs you mentioned.

first.... let me suggest you buy the Cozumel map/travel guide. It will show you the location of ALL the hotels on the island, their relationship to town, prices, restaurants, etc. REally the best $10 you can spend on your trip. No I have no gain in your purchase. I bought my first copy back in 2000 after returning from my 1st trip to the island, and wished I had bought it before. I am now on my 3rd version of it, still love it. cancunmap.com-Maps and travel guides.Your information source to Cancun,Cozumel,Isla Mujeres & Riviera Maya


Next... Scuba Club Cozumel is like a Mexican Bed & Breakfast, small for a resort, only divers there or their families. Cozy and walking distance to town. Gate with guard to keep out the riff raff. BUT there is no beach, no resort activities... just diving. Check out my photos and videos to get an idea.

The only resorts with activities and a beach are on the south end of the island. (you'll understand once you get the MAP).

To go over to dive the cenotes or visit Isla Mujeres you will need a FULL day minimum. Ferry across is on a set schedule hourly, but not every hour. You need to keep that in mind.


So it all depends what you really want.

robin
 
I have some ideas for you - check your private messages :)
 
My wife and I got an email from our good friends in Roatan and while it's our first love and the first place we dove to 130', did wreck dives, did our first night dive, got our advanced and nitrox done, I feel its in our interest to find some other places that affected us as much as Roatan. Cozumel looks appealing since we loved drift diving in Roatan out at Little Texas and since it seems an island designed for diving in mind. What we don't want is to be a part of a diving factory. My wife doesn't have the endurance I do and would like to enjoy some beach time and be able to snorkel and maybe sit out a dive or two while I will go full bore until I must board the plane.

We are not big fans of the large Western feel hotels where everyone speaks English. I can speak Spanish well enough to get myself around anywhere and I enjoy the challenge of speaking and reading when traveling. We are both foodies and love new adventures. We'd like a combination fun ass dive resort and food centric, small scale facility where safety is paramount and the service is excellent but not in your face. My wife would agree to a dive resort if it had some beachy stuff for her to do. As my step mother hasn't been to Cozumel in years, she's not really the best to recommend anything to us even though she has over 500 dives under her belt.
As robint mentioned, there really are only two "dive resorts" on the island, Scuba Club and Blue Angel, and neither offer beaches. The beachy stuff, at least where the beach is included with a hotel/resort, lies to the south where the resorts are all-inclusive and the food varies in quality. I would suggest Secrets Aura as one smaller-scale beachy resort with excellent service and excellent food for an all-inclusive, though to really do the "foodie" thing you'd be better off staying in town where the better restaurants are. The nice thing about Cozumel is that you're not limited to the resort's house dive op. Many well-recommended dive ops will pick up at the southern resorts and the hotels south of town.

While some dive ops offer afternoon dives and there is some shore diving on the island, the most typical "profile" for diving Cozumel is two morning dives followed by a lazy afternoon of beach, bars, or strolling the town. What I prefer to do is maximize the morning dives by utilizing one of the dive ops that offer steel 120s to ensure two long (60-70+ minute) dives. Living Underwater is the best of the three dive ops that offer 120s IMHO. This might be a good trip to relax with the wife on the beach or perhaps you could arrange an afternoon or night dive or go jogging to burn off your endurance.
 
Just a note - not everyone needs a larger tank to routinely get 60 - 70 minute dives in. We very, very rarely have dives less than 60 minutes. Pedro and my other DM's actually work with those who are not as good on air to improve their air management - and we also have larger capacity tanks for those who really need the extra air.
 
Isla Mujeres would be closer to a Roatanny experience, and I wouldn't really recommend trying to fit it in unless you're splitting your vacation between the two. A day trip there is too much like work from Cozumel. I'd stay at one or the other. If you want the best diving experience it's in Cozumel if you want the most rounded vacation experience with diving and a treat for your foodie in you it's Isla Mujeres. I would never consider Cozumel a foodie destination with 90% of it just being Mayan/mexican food. Isla will offer you a wide international selection of restaurants with the opposite mixture of only 10% being Mayan/Mexican food there. Isla is more beachy and much smaller, like a tiny roatan, where you get around on a golf cart, no rental cars. But if you want the Mexican experience that is Cozumel, mexican food, lots of mexican feel, has a town with a square and of course -- the diving, the main and only reason I'd go there. But again, unless you're there for a long time, I'd pick one or the other. A cenote experience is probably a toss up between staying either in Cozumel or Isla, as they both require a ferry ride back to the main land, but ferry stop from Cozumel a bit closer to the cenotes and is more south of Isla being you'll be let off in Playa Del Carmen and be closer to the cenotes by 30-45 minutes (measured in driving time).
 
As noted, not everyone needs a 120 for a longer dive profile. Some don't even need 80s.

But a profile is a function of both depth and time and physics dictate higher air consumption at deeper depths for everyone. 120s allow for longer, DEEPER profiles than what might be dived on an 80, allowing one to get one's money's worth for the extra expense of nitrox. Steel tanks also have better buoyancy characteristics than 80s IMO, allowing the diver to remove weight from weight pockets or a weight belt and benefit from the single long weight on the back.

120s aren't for everyone to be sure, but the popularity of dive ops like Aldora for instance proves that they are beneficial to many divers.
 
My wife and I dive with Liquid Blue Divers. They offer steel tanks. I go with a steel 120 and the wife a 100. Neither of us use weights. It's awesome!
 
Could someone post a link to the most recent steel tank thread, so we don't have to do it AGAIN? Or could someone insert some restaurant pics to break it up at least?
 
Could someone post a link to the most recent steel tank thread, so we don't have to do it AGAIN? Or could someone insert some restaurant pics to break it up at least?

Hey, Mossman...a little (read: I miss) food porn makes the medicine go down...:D
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom