Anyone remember these days?

[jbjclj]

Salvador Sanchez

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

I first dove Coz in 1969 with my dad. I remember spearfishing and lobstering and cookouts on the beach vividly. Don't think those divers in the PanAm film ever got below 18 inches of water. Those were the days.....

 

[ggunn]

The 60's are even a bit before my time on Cozumel, but I'm pretty sure the onshore footage in the early part of the piece was shot at the old (now defunct) Cabanas del Caribe; that's where my family and I stayed on my first trip to the island in 1978. I recognized the Caleta entrance, too, and the jumping from trees into the water looked like Chankanaab Lagoon; I swam in the lagoon on our 1978 trip. The diving scenes were pretty funny - big round masks, no BCD's, and lots of flailing about.

In 1978 one could still gather lobsters and conch on the reefs, and those "Robinson Crusoe" cookouts on the beach down around Palancar were thus supplied. Sitting here at my computer I can see the big conch shell on my mantle from one we went to on that first trip.

Needless to say, it was a very different scene.

 

[rick00001967]

nope. i am wayyyy too young for that. but wow, that ad must have been cutting edge advertising back then. so ahead of its time. must have been awesome back then

 

[Dave Dillehay]

I didn't get there until 1992 but it was still pretty cool even then. Yes, just one stop light and one gas station and Karen's Pizza, La Chose and Prima were the only decent restauants in town—not so much Karen's Pizza but they had good music with Quetzal. Good lord, was that 29 years ago!

Dave Dillehay

 

[mcpowell]

My first trip was in 1987. My college room-mate set it all up, I have no idea how he did it, but we had a blast. I do remember the marine park rules were in place, but it was common for people to use their dive knives to hold in place in the sand. I remember a lot of big grouper, and some were huge. Where did they all go?

Then I didn’t go back for 31 years. It changed a bit.

 

[Mark IV]

I didn't get there until 1992 but it was still pretty cool even then. Yes, just one stop light and one gas station and Karen's Pizza, La Chose and Prima were the only decent restauants in town—

Yep, that's about when i got down there, too. I remember there still being something left to dive of the famous La Ceiba airplane wreck. We'd actually gone underneath cruise ships from there a couple times, that were tied up at the (only) pier back then. Nowadays, you'd probably get depth charged, then prosecuted for attempted terrorism !
We were on first name basis with all the waiters at La Choza, that was like our nightly base of operations, and we even had a custom, top-shelf margarita we all called The Margarita of Death, because if you were ever foolish enough to drink a 2nd one, you were lucky if you could walk home. We were also huge fans of their fish (mahi mahi) fajitas, which weren't normally on the menu, but we'd beg and plead, and they'd usually hook us up..
I used to send clients up to Big Al at Prima all the time, and we had a regular discount when we were there, but it was still kinda steep for us lowly dive slobs to go regularly. Come to think of it, i still have my permanent discount card for the original Jeanie's Waffle House (and still occasionally run across her on FB).
There was a taco joint that was quite good, called Fiesta Taco, that was either around the corner from la Choza, or another block inland. I somehow still have a refrigerator magnet from that place, LOL!
I remember buying groceries at that depressing little grocery store up the street from the big church off the plaza. It was like aliens from the future had landed when we got the big Super San Francisco on 30th, and later, a Chedraui.
There used to be a dusty old gym, called Tina's Gym, across from the Pizza Hut and Coffee Bean, but the real estate got too premium for it to stay. Tina had given me a key, so me and a couple buds could hit the gym when they were closed on Sundays. Since it was not even half a block straight up the street from the Pro-dive pier, I used to knock out sets of sit-ups while we waited for our morning boat to show up !
A buddy of mine used to staff the hyperbaric chamber (he'd tossed me in as a tender, a number of times), and we used to grab an O2 bottle from the chamber, and take it with us to the gym, and huff O2 between weight sets !!! We also used to commandeer the tiny upstairs hospital room, because it had killer air conditioning, and a TV with a VCR, so we'd rent movies at the Calling Station, and squeeze into that little room to watch movies and drink some beers in the AC !!
Yeah, those were the days, alright !!!

 

[Augustus]

Lunch time on SF beach

 

[jbjclj]

I am pretty sure the hotel at the beginning is Sol Cabanas Caribe. We stayed there before Wilma destroyed it. The lunch at San Francisco was great. We had beer for the trip home, but it was a long day on those slow boats.

Other restaurants that we visited were Guidos but it was called Pizza Rolandi. Pepes, Casa Mission, Captain Morgans, Prima,La Choza.

Gigantic grouper everywhere!!

 

[Dave Dillehay]

The grouper are still around…they just hung out at where we were feeding them. They were smart as a Lab Retriever I think. They new who had fish feed (the DM) and he could do anything to the fish, petting, hands in the gills etc

National Park put a stop to that somewhat obligatory show.

Dave Dillehay