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First thank you to all on the board that offered great advice and help make this trip a success. Here is our report, hopefully it can help someone else.
We traveled on Continental to Cancun via Houston and arrived about 1:30p CST. We were able to get a Colectivo to take us down nonstop to Akumal for $100. We stayed at a small, older, but very well kept hotel, Hotel Akumal Caribe for about a $100 a night. All ocean front rooms with a nice veranda overlooking Akumal Bay. The room was large, clean, quiet, and nice for the money. It even had a real mattress! No tv’s or phones. We dove with The Akumal Dive Center. Overall they were very good and made our trip enjoyable. Small boats, backrolls in, remove gear and pass back to re-enter boat. We never had more than five divers per dive. Two dives was just my wife and I. We dove most of our dives with Jose (Chepo) who has been diving Akumal for 25 years. His style is a little faster pace than we prefer, but he pretty well let’s do our thing. We had one minor problem and he was right there help solve the problem even though a moment before he was 75 ft away. Good job Chepo.
Akumal is small and very quaint. Beautiful white sand beaches and coconut palms. No docks or piers, boats are all tied up in the shallows of the beach. Very picturesque. There was several dining options, mostly modest cafes and restaurants. We were able to get some very fresh and fine seafood many times. Very good local cuisine and even some good American & continental food. Food prices were comparable to those in the states with the exception of the few loncherias whuch were much cheaper. The ceveche (fish, lobster, conch, scallops, shrimp) was excellent in several places we went.
Now to the good stuff, -----Diving!
Day One
La Tortuga Reef; Depth 86' bottom time 40 minutes. After a short 5 minute boat ride we back rolled into the ocean within almost earshot of our hotel. The water was a chilly 77 degrees. Visibility was around 60'. I wore a skin and a 3mm suit and was fine the first day but was looking for an additional suit by day two. Akumal in Mayan means “land of the turtles” and one minute into the dive we saw why. A three foot hawksbill come over to us and looked my wife right in the eye through her mask. All of the turtles seemed very friendly and curious of us. Unlike Cozumel which seems to have a lot of multi-depth dives Akumal seems to be more level at each dive site. So average depth is closer to your maximum depth. The first thing we noticed on this and every Akumal dive is how good of condition the reefs are in. They are varied types of coral and in some places it is so thick it looks like someone tried to get every known variety into a small area. The fish life was a different story. We did see quite a few different reef fish but every thing seemed a little small and times you would glide over 75 feet of reef w/o seeing any fish. Apparently the locals are eating anything they can catch. On this dive we saw a huge ‘cuda at a cleaning station. Vertically it was over a foot thick and overall about 5' long. It’s stripes were a very pronounced dark brown. We gave him a wide berth.
La Langosta Reef; Depth 51', bottom time 56 minutes. Another short boat ride and back roll and we are on a healthy reef. Fairly flat and level topography. Lots of coral, some plume worms, oceanic triggerfish, several parrot fish in several varieties, schools of blue chromis, a small grouper that has not taken a Mexican lure yet, more turtles including a very very large hawksbill lying on the bottom. It had a large (moray) resting on its back. The highlight of the dive was a large school of juvenile barracuda that we swam through. Another highlight was a yellow snapper that schooled with me for about 20 minutes of the dive. Did I mention how great of shape the reefs are in? Wow!
Day Two
El Cayons; Depth 79' bottom time 42 minutes. Another short 5-7 minute boat ride and backroll. Probably the best dive of the trip. Very cool topography. Cayons or Canyons is a large series of reefs with about a 30' deep canyon between them forming a group of mini walls. The canyons in width ranged from 20'-40'. We dove them perpendicular to the reefs and slowly examined each canyon and wall. The coral here is different than the previous dive with some 8' high elkhorn formations, more fans of all sizes and a few anemones and sponges. We came upon several grey, queen, and french angels of pretty good size. Some hogfish, black durgon, more hawksbills, cero, and a 3' Pluma. I guess there is a few survivors. Wonderful and fun dive. I would like to do it again and explore the mini-walls more thoroughly.
La Reles Reef; Depth 58' bottom time 56 minutes. 2 minute boat ride and we are in the water again. Shallow dive that starts over grass beds working into a flat reef system. Lots of surge on this one which seemed to bother some of the other divers. We seen 8 turtles on this dive from small to large in size. The real attraction here was the smaller fishes. Lots of harlequin bass, sharpnose puffers, bicolor & yellow damsels, chromis, fairy basslets. Also, snappers, another large pluma, a med. sized ‘cuda, more queens and angels. Fun shallow dive.
Night Dive; I canceled this dive because the weather kicked up and there was 6' swells and 20 knot winds. Chepo was willing to still go but I could see the relief in his face when we canceled.
Day Three
Dos Ojos Cenote; Depth 26' bottom time 42 minutes. 15 minute drive from our hotel. Our first cenote dive and this one exceeded our expectations. We had to play follow the leader with Chepo on this one, but it was a lot of fun to see something new. The water (fresh) was a chilly 75 degrees. I wore a 1mm & 3mm wetsuit and was pretty well chilled by the end of the dive. Chepo had a caving grade light that helped me understand in a moment how deficient my princton tek light is. I was surprised that there is a few varieties of small fish in the cenote who seemed to enjoy our company and follow us around. Interesting formations, stalagmites, staglatites, underground caverns with air at their ceilings, translucent rock that let light in from the jungle. We dove this at 8:30 am and beat the crowds that started arriving as were loading up to leave. This is great cenote to dive. Chepo had twelve Germans coming in the next day just to dive Dos Ojos.
We spent the afternoon exploring Tulum which was only 20 minutes from our hotel. On the way we stopped at Oscar’s on Puta Solomon for some great ceveche. Tulum is interesting and fun. Watched the super bowl at the hotels sports bar, ate great pizza and had a great time. Day three was a very good day.
Day Four
Packed to come home. Gear is in great shape after diving the fresh water cenote. Laid on the beach until noon. Hire a car ($70 for two) to take us to Playa for some shopping and back to CAN to catch our 5:30p flight. Customs was easy and now we are back to the real world. <sigh>
Dave
Last edited by SterlingDiver; February 13th, 2005 at 12:20 AM.
Nice report, thanks for the memories. I love diving in this area. I am suprised that the water was so cold though. Each time I have gone the ocean was around 80+ deg. However, I usually go in the fall. Glad you had a great time and, it gave me great memories too. Have to go back soon. Thanks.
Nice trip report. I too did just did the Dos Ojos cenote dive, it was fantastic, was supposed to do Tak Mal (sp) on my last day but the dive was cancelled due to some people cancellations. You got that right about the fresh water doing a cleanup of the gear. Next time I go I will make my last dives in the cenotes.
David
Thanks for the information. I will be down there in July. Any information on Playdelcarmen.
Thanks
I was Coz a yr. ago xmas time- we dove mostly w/ Aldora divers and they were very good - I highly recommend them. We dove a couple of days with Yukatek divers on playa our cenote guide was a dutch woman who moonlighted (literally) as a salsa dance instructor [nothing quite as sexy as a dive diva with doubles - who can get them on herself and the knowledge that she'll be salsa-ing the night away] actually she was a lot of fun and very competent - The owner of Yukatek is Swiss swiss so things are pretty efficient & organized (a nice thing) and she also runs a cute little hotel just a couple of blocks from the beach where the dive shop classroom is located- I loved Playa- the action it's quite an international scene. I only wish the diving was as good for me as Coz. If you like cenotes or want to try it out I'd recommend Yukatek.
My problem is I'd like to stay in Playa but dive Coz.
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Akumal Trip Report 2/3-6 2005
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Originally Posted by Sue-ba Lips
hanks for your nice comments. I would be glad to bring you next time but my girlfriend probally wouldn't like it.
