One more question, so it looks like there is no direct flight or even a same day flight from Phoenix all of them are overnight lay overs my main airline I usually fly usair has direct 4 hour flights to Cancun I'm thinking of just renting the car at that airport and driving over and taking the ferry over to Cozumel. Is the drive a long one lot of traffic what time of the day would be best?
No, I would not recommend this. Partly out of my own ignorance as I've never taken the car ferry. Nor have I ever heard from a tourist who has. It is not meant for tourist transportation. It is a cargo ferry that allows cars, not a car ferry. From what I've heard it runs on a sporadic schedule with long waits. It might even be once a day. And you better check if they even allow rental cars on it or the rental agencies allow their cars to be on it. They can be funny about things like that.
Your best bet is to fly into Cancun and take a shuttle down to PDC then the passenger ferry across. Search here as there have been dozens of threads on the infamous "bag drop" some with detailed instructions and photos. If you have a group you can arrange a private van for 4-6 people for about $70 one way. If it's just two of you take a shared shuttle or a taxi. If you want to go cheap take the ADO bus for $10/each. Cart guys will get your stuff from the PDC dropoff to the ferry dock for $5 or less. The ferry is about $12/each.
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Now as to the shore diving, call me crazy but I love it! I guess the people who say it sux or is not that good are used to vacation diving with dm boat service. I always boat dive when I go to Coz but I shore dive too. Each has it's advantages. The advantages of boat diving are well covered so I'll tell you why I like shore diving.
Flexible schedule. I can rent a tank and drop in any time of day. Of course if I want to drop in at 10pm or 6am I'll need to have rented my tank when the house shop or wherever was open. I like to do an afternoon shore dive after a morning boat trip. Maybe I'll have lunch first or not. Maybe I'll take a nap first. I'll decide how I feel when I get back to the dock. I'm on nobody else's schedule.
Bottom time. In 20-25 feet of water I can log 2 hours on an AL80.
I can loiter all I want. There's usually less current and no group to stay with so if I want to hover in a spot and watch a pair of butterflies or damsels for 15-30 minutes I can. Great for video and photography plus you have more natural light at 20 feet. I love drift diving but I've often had to leave something interesting because the group was getting too far ahead.
Marine life. I see more stuff on shore dives than on the reefs. Seriously. You don't have the towering pillars of coral but you certainly have lots of fishes and critters in the rubble. Except for a large manta or shark I don't think Ive seen anything on the reef that I haven't seen from shore. The parrots and groupers are not as big but the juvie versions are just as interesting to me. Last month I saw more lobsters and skates and lion fish (unfortunately) on one shore dive than all the reef dives combined.
Cheap. I hope someday I can say that cost is no object but until then I can double my Coz dives for the cost of rental tanks, usually $5 or $6 each.