i hope to be so spoiled someday that i can casually reference cozumel as "passable diving" LOL
from a PM by EvilClown:
hi roatanman,
quick question for you regarding your cozumel post. you say:
"Cozumel for sure beats any of the diving on that list.
It is in no way my Top 5 favored Caribbean basin destinations, but for the dollar value, it's still the best deal going, and it includes passable diving."
May i ask what your top 5 Carribean are then?
I was always told Cozumel is the best.
This thread has pretty well talked about what a fantastic bargain Cozumel is. If you are looking for a great value vacation that also includes diving, you really can not beat it. The numbers are irrefutable.
The rest is subjective. If you have indeed been spoiled, or lucky enough to have gone on a Caribbean wide tour, your perspectives will differ from most others.
Such as:
The out islands of the Bahamas are fantastic.
I agree, and put them in my "
Top 5",
But they aren't Cozumel in terms of ease and cost of air travel. The best (and arguably only way) to see the Out Islands of the Bahamas is on a live aboard. So you can figure your diving and hotel at about $2800 per week.
It's
apples and
oranges.
Other locations in "my" list?
Some are currently un-reachable:
-Cisne (Swan Island), to which only the Bay Islands Aggressor tried to service
-Los Roques, which was sailed by the Hughes Antares III which is gone
-Grenada's NW Barrier Islands, which you can do if you arrange it yourself ($$)
Bonaire, South shore Roatan, Tobago, Outer Bahamas, Outer Belizian Cays, some others.
The Southern Shores of Cuba look inviting, so maybe our new President will let me have a look-see. Until then, I have no real comparison. My Canadian friends who are
widely travelled and opinions I trust- they have not been there.
But that will give Coz a run for it's money, I do believe.
That brings up one last point.
Who goes to the Mar Caribe? It is largely North Americans, predominately US citizens. This is what we know because it is in our own back yard.
Folks from England see the Red Sea in the same way. We think of it as pure exotica. (It does have
a lot of nice wrecks, but the Caribbean has better critters) It is their back yard for diving.
The real adventurous Brits come to the Caribbean packed into Chartered Jets that land on many former British properties. My favorite example is when they fly in to Tobago.
When they fly 1/8
th the way around the world, your expectations are pretty high. Remember, for us, Cozumel and most of the Caribbean is a
pretty easy hop by jet.
So, it's all relative.
We have lots of fun diving to do in the Caribbean. Cozumel's diving stands high above the other (very specific) areas of locations that you mentioned.
So to put in in perspective, one of the Holy Grail dives for most American's is to go for a dunk in the Galapagos. For the British, travelling to that spot is fairly well out of the question. We may look at the Maldives in the same way.
If you want real exotic diving and locale, the equivalent to Coz in our world arena, I believe that would be the Philippines.
Comparatively cheap all the way around, and the diving is just the shiznitz.
The Brits are fairly familiar with this as they leave their work postings in the far East for four day weekends and head for the Philippines.
We all know what we know, this is our only basis for comparison.
In the world, there is diving elsewhere than in the Caribbean that is much more laden with diverse creatures, rare creatures, wrecks and underwater architecture... but it is our basis of comparison, and it is in out back yard.
Cozumel is something that I would recommend to almost anyone from North America.