Afternoon Shore diving?

[zinmaker]

Will be staying at the Scuba Club Cozumel in July, and have the afternoons free. On my previous 4 trips to Cozumel, I've always had 3 dives a day with the packages. The package I have this trip only is for 2 morning dives, and will have the afternoons free, I've never seen the ruins guess this would be a good trip for that however I would rather go diving and would like to do some shore diving on the south east or north side of the island. I have heard it is can get pretty rough over on the other side of the island with the surf, however I do some cold water diving in Northern California, and know when too rough is too rough to get in, and have spent dive days watching the surf from the beach. Has anyone done this or can you please give us some tips?

 

[ggunn]

Will be staying at the Scuba Club Cozumel in July, and have the afternoons free. On my previous 4 trips to Cozumel, I've always had 3 dives a day with the packages. The package I have this trip only is for 2 morning dives, and will have the afternoons free, I've never seen the ruins guess this would be a good trip for that however I would rather go diving and would like to do some shore diving on the south east or north side of the island. Has anyone done this or can you please give us some tips?

Diving, especially shore diving, on the east side of Cozumel is not for the faint of heart. The west side is shielded from the seas of the open Caribbean by the island; not so the east side. Expect to be pounded by the surf. You would also be far from help if anything were to go amiss; there's not much of anything other than a few beach bars with no electricity over there.

 

[zinmaker]

Gordon,

Thanks, for the information, I was aware of it being somewhat rough over there, but in the event we get lucky and have a nice day, I'm looking for a good place to start. If it looks too rough, one of those beach bars is a more likely destination of choice.


Bruce

 

[cozumelinsider]

zinmaker you may want to save a potential east side dive for one of our winter months when you have a better chance of catching a good calm day on the east side. This time of year our prevailing tradewinds are from the SE and unless a tropical storm of some sort is brewing nearby it stays pretty much the same throughout the summer months. During our winter months, sometimes we experience "nortes" where the wind is blowing strongly from the north...making the "wild side" of cozumel calm for a day or 2. This is when most folks TRY to explore the eastern side but as others have said ~ this is not for the novice. Currents can be very strong and help is a few hours away at best. The other factor to consider when contemplating a dive over there is simply logistics....there are no dive operators, tanks, weights, etc. so you'd need to be sure you had everything on hand.

There is alot of good shore diving on the reef side [west] that I think you would enjoy more this time of year!

 

[HammerNoMore]

I wouldn't really go searching for a shore dive. The shore dive at Scuba Club is excellent and requires nothing more than hauling the tank a short distance. I've seen a higher eel concentration on that dive than anywhere else. Also lots of octopi to be found and sea horses if you can spot them.