COZUMEL TRIP REPORT

OK, I admit I was more than a little apprehensive about taking this trip after hurricane Wilma. Like many of you, I had read the reports on how bad the damage was to the town, resort, and reefs. But seeing as how it would have to be REALLY torn up to be worse than NW Indiana in December, Jack and I took a chance and went on down. My first glimpse of the island from the airplane did not set my mind at ease. I saw just a lot of brown tree trunks and blasted jagged coral along the shoreline. The airport was all but deserted and ours was the only plane there. One cannot help but notice that most of the trees have been stripped bare. What was once green jungle along the road was mostly just sticks and stumps. The main road through San Miguel to the resort also showcased many damaged resorts, shops, and homes. Concrete walls lay crushed on the sidewalks, buildings appeared gutted and wreckage was everywhere. However, despite all the wreckage and damage, people seemed to be working everywhere. It was business as usual. Chedraui supermarket was open despite having no air conditioning, reduced lighting, and no sign. The scooter rental ops all had their scooters out lining the roadway.

Apparently the Scuba Club came through pretty well. I had read reports that they had a little damage to some rooms and the restaurant, but most of the damage was to the pier, beach, palapas, and BBQ area. Pretty much everything between the restaurant and the ocean had been wasted by Wilma. I mean stripped down to the bare old coral. All the beach sand, all the concrete, all the palapas, lockers, hammocks, benches, rinse tanks, even the pier were gone. Most of the concrete wound up in the water off the shore. The resort had maybe 6 rooms that were not open yet, but otherwise it was up and running. The rooms, restaurant, and dive shop seemed to be fine. Even the courtyard was filled with freshly planted grass and plants. During the week we were there there were at least 10-15 people working on the resort each day pouring concrete, building palapas, thatching roofs, running wiring and plumbing, and replacing the beach sand. They even had a couple of divers clearing concrete rubble from the resort waterfront area. By the time we left, the only things missing were the large pier, the BBQ pit, the rinse tanks, shower, and the lockers. Give them another week and all but the pier will be done. They require a special permit and special crew to rebuild the pier I understand.

As always, every one of the staff was a familiar face. No one ever leaves the Scuba Club it seems. Everything seemed to be running just as before at the resort. The dive boats took a little longer to load up since the main pier was gone, but they managed extremely well with just the stubby short one on the other side of the resort.

Probably our biggest worry was the condition of the reefs themselves. With so much damage topside we had to wonder how the reefs fared. As was usually the case, we did the deepest dive first which meant heading farther south. When we first rolled in the main difference we could see was that pretty much everything off the reef was just white sand. I mean every stick of weed every blade of eelgrass was gone. The first section of reef at first appeared to be scoured and dead, but upon closer inspection it appeared that this had been buried before and was now uncovered. The bare coral was covered with this odd purplish pink algae about 4 inches high. This gave the “dead” reefs a furry appearance. Then there was an area of what I will call damaged reef. The reef was the typical green/brown color, but appeared stubbier and there were no sea fans, sponges, or gorgonians. There were plenty of fish to be seen, though. The main portion of the reef, that which was higher off the bottom seemed to be a little better off. On the ocean side there were more sponges, anemones, etc. On the bottom there seemed to be about 4-5 feet of bare rock below the living portion of the reef. This is the portion that had been buried in the sand for many years before. There were many new swimthroughs present, too along with many new overhangs for sharks and turtles to hide in. Upon closer inspection the reef appeared to be pretty much normal. All the little hydroids, anemones, algae clusters, etc. all were present. Blennies poked out of holes, damselfish guarded their territory, cleaners did their cleaning duties. There really didn’t seem to be any difference in the number, size, and type of reef fish. Water temperatures were in the upper 70s and visibility was only very slightly reduced from the normal 100 foot plus. Despite what we read on the internet, there were no extra rules, no restrictions on camera use, and diving off the boats was business as usual. They did remind us to watch our buoyancy, though.

During the week we were there we made dives on Palancar, Columbia, Pasa Del Cedral, Tormentos (yes it is closed but we got special permission), Santa Rosa, Villa Blanca, and a few others. On the boat trips to the south, you could clearly see the hurricane damage to the water front. The most glaring damage was the big international cruise ship pier. Where there were two long piers, now only part of one remains. The outer pier had completely collapsed into the water and the inner pier is missing some sections. Neither is useable. All of the shoreside resorts are damaged and none appeared to be in operation except Scuba Club. The Presidente sat empty and abandoned, as was the Fiesta Americana and Occidental. In contrast to the Scuba Club where people were scraping, pouring, repairing, painting all day long, not much appeared to be getting repaird at any of the southern resorts.

I had heard that Cozumel’s only real wreck had been, well, wrecked by hurricane Wilma. I had dived the C-53 a.k.a. Philip Xicotencatl several times in years past so I was interested to see what had happened to it. The wreck is still intact except there is a large gash on each side of the hull where it was torn apart and then wound up back together again. The crowsnest has been ripped off and is now laying on the deck. Complete penetration with a divemaster is still possible. despite the fact that the wreck is prepared for divers, there are still entanglement hazards and protruding snag hazards. I think that dive ops need to have both a leading and tailing divemaster on penetration dives.

Another big concern was the shore diving situation. Scuba Club used to have some interesting shore diving right off the resort. There were some fish habitats and beyond that a sand patch and then weeds and eelgrass. There has been a tremendous change in the character of the shore diving. Pretty much all you have is concrete rubble, pieces of pier, and sand. A few portions of the old fish habitats still protrude from the sand, but not much is left to hold fish there. The Pier has collapsed and while the columns and concrete slabs will in time make excellent fish habitats, it is unlikely they will remain there since that is going to be the site of the new pier. In time I am sure the grass, weeds, and critters will return, but it may be a while. Night dives were a little better as the octopus were out in force. However since the only structure around is the rubble and pier pieces it tended to get a bit crowded if more than a few divers were in the water at once.

The week we were there Jack and I rented a vehicle to tour the island. We rented a very tired jeep with like 200,000 miles on it. The owner of the vehicle had thoughtfully removed any extraneous nonessential items like turn signals, radio, transfer case, spare tire, etc. The parking brake was a rock. I bought all the insurance they had, but they still told me I had a $1500 deductible if I wrecked it. Too bad the jeep was worth like $150. Eventually we got the jeep started and began our odyssey. We had heard of and seen photos of the damage done to the east coast road and in fact the rental office told us we could not get completely around the island. However we tried anyway. Many of us have walked along the waterfront of San Miguel and maybe gone a few blocks inland, but that city is actually very large. It goes for miles and has like 80,000 people in it. The waterfront is just the tourist area. When the city finally ends there is not much except a few roadside tourist stands and lots and lots of stripped trees. There is only one road so it isn’t really possible to get lost. The road just ends in a T at the east coast of the island. We couldn’t turn left because that road was dirt to start with and the hurricane didn’t improve it. The rental agreement says that driving on that road will void the insurance. So we turned right and headed south. Right away we could see all the road repairs being done. Apparently large sections of the roadway had simply washed away in the storm, but most had been replaced and they were in the process of paving them. The only “roadblock” we hit was a couple orange cones along the road. So we kept going until we came across a drowsy cop on a motorcycle who didn’t speak any English. I don’t really speak any Spanish and eventually he just waved us on. So we got to tour the east coast after all. The east side is very reminiscent of Bonaire’s rough side. Jagged coral with large waves pounding into it. There are also some nice looking beaches, but the surf would have made shore diving impossible. There are a few bars and small resorts along that shore, but none were open that we could see. Just miles of empty road. Of course when we got to the southern end we found out why. There was a real roadblock there. The cop there didn’t speak any English but the tourist stand guy there did (of course if there is any reason for vehicles to stop for any length of time be it a roadblock, washed out road, traffic light, etc. there will be a vendor selling silver, beads, sombreros, etc). Turns out the cop wanted to know how we got there. The road wasn’t supposed to be open yet. They had to lower the roadblock to let us through. Then we almost felt obligated to buy something since the vendor was nice enough to act as interpreter. Luckily we were saved at the last minute by a tour bus coming from the other way that stopped and disgorged 2 dozen cruise ship passengers who instantly got the attention of the vendors allowing us to leave unnoticed. Our map showed some Mayan ruins nearby so we stopped to check them out. We came to a small cluster of tourist shops and sure enough there in the middle of them complete with fluttering plastic used car banners and bogus painted animal statues was a small pile of stacked rocks which was proudly proclaimed to be 500 year old Mayan ruins. Of course the vendors were glad to see us. Jack did his best to pump dollars into their economy. The only thing I wanted was an ice cold diet pepsi. I didn’t get one. Seems refrigeration has become a thing of the past since Wilma. On the return trip we tried to stop in at some of the southern resorts to inspect the damage, but they had guards posted at all of them so we couldn’t get in. The Fiesta Americana was being worked on, but all others seemed to be abandoned. In the afternoon we toured the real Mayan ruins at San Gervasio. These were pretty neat. The site involved quite a bit of hiking to see all of them, but it was worthwhile. The site contained perhaps a dozen medium sized stone structures from 400-700 years old. Few were recognizable as dwellings, but a couple had intact walls and roofs.

In the past we had seen as many as 11 cruise ships per day stopping at Cozumel. During the week we were there the average was 4. No pier was usable for cruise ships, so they had to hold position offshore with thrusters and ferry passengers in with small boats. I am sure the vendors were glad to see them. We did speak to a few taxi drivers and vendors and they said it has been terribly hard to make any money in the last few months with no tourists. Pretty much the entire island economy is driven by tourism, be it divers, beachgoers, or cruise ship passengers. Despite this, the overall attitude of the people of Cozumel was very good. There was no resentment of us coming down there, rather they welcomed us.

I am looking forward to returning in the near future to see how the island and the reefs have progressed.