charlesml3
Contributor
Hi gang,
Just got back from Coz late last night and here's a report from the trip:
Flights were fine. No delays. RDU to DFW, DFW to COZ. I like flying on Wednesdays. The flights are hardly every full and almost all of the passengers are business travelers. It suits me.
Hotel: The Barracuda. Always been my favorite place place to stay. The hurricane was actually GOOD for the Barracuda. The new pool is awesome and a huge improvement.
State of the Island: Cozumel has bounced back nicely from the hurricane. There are still numerous waterfront lots that are nothing but rubble. Some have clearly not been touched since the hurricane. The lot just North of the Barracuda is a good example. The lot just South of Jeannie's Waffles is another. The old Dolphin prizon is still just rubble as well. Some places are better than before. Ernesto's did a big renovation and looks nice. The little beach out front isn't there anymore, however. There was some squatter gift-shop between Ernesto's and Scuba Shak that's still rubble and a burned out Palapa now. Ernesto and I talked about it for quite a while and he doesn't know when they're going to clean it up. It's tied up in some court battle apparently. Scuba Shak/Roberta's Eco-Dive took a massive hit right there on the water. It destroyed the pier, rinse tank, locker room and dive shop. They're rebuilding and have temporarily moved across the street.
I spent some time talking with Ernesto, Robert Cwertina and Juan over at the Barracuda regarding the general state of the island. We all agreed that Coz has about one more year to go before it's back to the way it was.
Dive Operator: I've been diving with Roberta's Eco-Dive Cozumel since it was called Blue Bubble. There may be dive ops that do things differently. They may even be better, but I've known Roberta for years and I know all of her staff. The DMs know my skill level and always let me dive my own profile. I started diving Nitrox a couple of years ago when I kept running up against deco limits. I'm blessed with very good air consumption so Nitrox let's me stay under those NDLs now.
The Diving: OK, I know this is the part that everyone wants to read. It's going to be very difficult for me to write this. Nobody loves Cozumel more than I do and I know they desperately need our dollars to rebuild and stay in business. All of the Dive Ops are hurting. On the other hand, I have to be honest and give my most unbiased report on the diving. Talk about being on the horns of a dilemma... I thought about this a lot on the way home and I've decided against substituting the word "different" for "poor" or "mediocre" to make it seem better than it is. Last September, I took as many as 50 photos per dive over the week. This trip, I took maybe 50 total the entire time. It was difficult to find anything really nice to photograph. I'm not a marine biologist so I have no idea how long it's going to take before the reefs recover.
We made 15 dives. They ranged from "Poor" to "Fairly Good." Specifically:
-Santa Rosa - Poor. This was always my favorite dive site in Cozumel. It looks just awful now. I tried it from as deep as 95 feet all the way up to 45 feet. There are very few of the large barrel sponges left. Fingertip coral is littered everywhere. There are no fan corals at all. Sand is covering everything else. Very few colors.
-Colombia Deep - Poor. Same as Santa Rosa.
-Palancar Gardens - Fairly good. This and Palancar Horseshoe were the only dives we elected to repeat during the week. Again, nothing at all what it was pre-Wilma but a decent dive. Lots of anemones.
-Chankanaab - Poor. Lots of damage here. I really didn't recognize it as the same reef I dove a year ago.
-Las Palmas - No report. The DM wouldn't even take us there. He said it wasn't worth diving.
-Palancar Horseshoe - Fairly good. Better below 80 feet or so. Anemones. Some turtles. Small black-tip reef sharks way down below us.
-Colombia Shallow - Good. This is the most surprising of all the reefs. It's very shallow and I expected it to have taken a huge beating but it looks pretty good. Probably the most enjoyable dive we made all week.
-Palancar Caves - Also fairly good. It seems that reefs further South looked quite a bit better.
-Paso de Cedral. - Hard to say, really. There was a fast current the day we dove it. Went in at the Southern tip and I came up at Santa Rosa wall! It looked fairly good, however.
-San Francisco - Fair. Lots and lots of sand covering the reef. Everything just seemed so monochromatic.
The rest of the dives were similar. We dove the C-53 on the last day. Very fast current made this a difficult dive. We were getting pushed around even inside the wreck. I spoke with some other divers that said Punta Sur and Maracaibo were in pretty good shape.
I'm planning a dive trip with a buddy this February and I really can't decide what to do. I love Cozumel and want to go back, but I can only afford one week long trip and one long weekend trip per year. I don't know. Maybe a trip to Turks and Caicos or Roatan this time.
Overall we had a good time but it was just not the same place. I know a couple of the divers in my group were pretty disappointed and I understand that. We all want to go back...
-Charles
Just got back from Coz late last night and here's a report from the trip:
Flights were fine. No delays. RDU to DFW, DFW to COZ. I like flying on Wednesdays. The flights are hardly every full and almost all of the passengers are business travelers. It suits me.
Hotel: The Barracuda. Always been my favorite place place to stay. The hurricane was actually GOOD for the Barracuda. The new pool is awesome and a huge improvement.
State of the Island: Cozumel has bounced back nicely from the hurricane. There are still numerous waterfront lots that are nothing but rubble. Some have clearly not been touched since the hurricane. The lot just North of the Barracuda is a good example. The lot just South of Jeannie's Waffles is another. The old Dolphin prizon is still just rubble as well. Some places are better than before. Ernesto's did a big renovation and looks nice. The little beach out front isn't there anymore, however. There was some squatter gift-shop between Ernesto's and Scuba Shak that's still rubble and a burned out Palapa now. Ernesto and I talked about it for quite a while and he doesn't know when they're going to clean it up. It's tied up in some court battle apparently. Scuba Shak/Roberta's Eco-Dive took a massive hit right there on the water. It destroyed the pier, rinse tank, locker room and dive shop. They're rebuilding and have temporarily moved across the street.
I spent some time talking with Ernesto, Robert Cwertina and Juan over at the Barracuda regarding the general state of the island. We all agreed that Coz has about one more year to go before it's back to the way it was.
Dive Operator: I've been diving with Roberta's Eco-Dive Cozumel since it was called Blue Bubble. There may be dive ops that do things differently. They may even be better, but I've known Roberta for years and I know all of her staff. The DMs know my skill level and always let me dive my own profile. I started diving Nitrox a couple of years ago when I kept running up against deco limits. I'm blessed with very good air consumption so Nitrox let's me stay under those NDLs now.
The Diving: OK, I know this is the part that everyone wants to read. It's going to be very difficult for me to write this. Nobody loves Cozumel more than I do and I know they desperately need our dollars to rebuild and stay in business. All of the Dive Ops are hurting. On the other hand, I have to be honest and give my most unbiased report on the diving. Talk about being on the horns of a dilemma... I thought about this a lot on the way home and I've decided against substituting the word "different" for "poor" or "mediocre" to make it seem better than it is. Last September, I took as many as 50 photos per dive over the week. This trip, I took maybe 50 total the entire time. It was difficult to find anything really nice to photograph. I'm not a marine biologist so I have no idea how long it's going to take before the reefs recover.
We made 15 dives. They ranged from "Poor" to "Fairly Good." Specifically:
-Santa Rosa - Poor. This was always my favorite dive site in Cozumel. It looks just awful now. I tried it from as deep as 95 feet all the way up to 45 feet. There are very few of the large barrel sponges left. Fingertip coral is littered everywhere. There are no fan corals at all. Sand is covering everything else. Very few colors.
-Colombia Deep - Poor. Same as Santa Rosa.
-Palancar Gardens - Fairly good. This and Palancar Horseshoe were the only dives we elected to repeat during the week. Again, nothing at all what it was pre-Wilma but a decent dive. Lots of anemones.
-Chankanaab - Poor. Lots of damage here. I really didn't recognize it as the same reef I dove a year ago.
-Las Palmas - No report. The DM wouldn't even take us there. He said it wasn't worth diving.
-Palancar Horseshoe - Fairly good. Better below 80 feet or so. Anemones. Some turtles. Small black-tip reef sharks way down below us.
-Colombia Shallow - Good. This is the most surprising of all the reefs. It's very shallow and I expected it to have taken a huge beating but it looks pretty good. Probably the most enjoyable dive we made all week.
-Palancar Caves - Also fairly good. It seems that reefs further South looked quite a bit better.
-Paso de Cedral. - Hard to say, really. There was a fast current the day we dove it. Went in at the Southern tip and I came up at Santa Rosa wall! It looked fairly good, however.
-San Francisco - Fair. Lots and lots of sand covering the reef. Everything just seemed so monochromatic.
The rest of the dives were similar. We dove the C-53 on the last day. Very fast current made this a difficult dive. We were getting pushed around even inside the wreck. I spoke with some other divers that said Punta Sur and Maracaibo were in pretty good shape.
I'm planning a dive trip with a buddy this February and I really can't decide what to do. I love Cozumel and want to go back, but I can only afford one week long trip and one long weekend trip per year. I don't know. Maybe a trip to Turks and Caicos or Roatan this time.
Overall we had a good time but it was just not the same place. I know a couple of the divers in my group were pretty disappointed and I understand that. We all want to go back...
-Charles
I think we'll see some improvements as time goes on.
