Trip report Scuba Club Cozumel April 2006

Members on the trip: Dave, Tim, John, & Brent. The trip down was one of the most trouble free we have ever had. No snags, no delays, no lost luggage. Weird. We were at the resort shortly after 1PM and were quickly checked into our rooms and eating lunch by 2. Time for a quick shore dive to check out buoyancy and then off to get some Cervezas.

Having been to the Scuba Club many times before, there were few surprises in store this time. All the staff is the same, and all of them remembered me from my previous visits. Pretty much everyone in the Aquanauts has been to Scuba Club Cozumel at one time or another, so I will forgo a detailed description of the resort itself. I will say that with the exception of a few now leafless trees it would be hard to tell there was a killer hurricane 5 months ago. They put new grass in the courtyard, new potted plants, new beach sand, and repainted everything. The lockers have been replaced as have all the palapas and most welcome of all the new pier was just being completed as we arrived. The resort had been doing OK with the stubby “old” pier, but boat loading was 3 times faster once they had the new pier up and running. Compared to some of the southern resorts which are STILL not open it speaks well of the Scuba Club team that they have been up and running since 1 week after hurricane Wilma.

Usually we go to Cozumel in the winter so this time it was a little warmer than we are used to. on the water it was fine, but on land it was HOT! By 10AM the temp was already near 90. I don’t think our air conditioner ever shut off the whole week we were there. Good thing my roomie liked it COLD like me!

We did have some unusual company at the resort this time. There was an inordinately large number of 30 and 40-something guys who seemed “close” at the resort. One of our group made some crack about their possible orientation and sure enough, next day they unfurled the rainbow flag on their dive boat. They tended to keep to their group and the few interactions I had were reasonably pleasant as long as we stuck to diving related topics, but it was a little bit unsettling to see guys sitting on each others’ laps and such. The rest of the guests ran the gamut from kids to seniors. The common bond seemed to be scuba diving since there isn’t a whole lot else to do at the resort except take advantage of its close proximity to town.

As usual the food was great at the resort. All meals were included. Breakfast was a buffet and was all you could eat. Lunch was off a menu and dinner was a choice of 3 entrees; meat, seafood, or vegetarian selection. It seemed to me that the food quality had improved a bit from the last time I stayed there. Of course the last time it was only 4 weeks after the hurricane and supplies may have been harder to come by.

The boat diving was really good. I finally got us assigned to a large boat and we were off. The trip to the dive sites is typically one hour or so. That is the one disadvantage of being so close to town. Some smaller boats are much faster and get to the dive site more quickly, but they give up a lot in terms of creature comforts such as bathrooms, shade, and dry storage. Once at the site, we typically did a deeper reef such as Colombia, Palancar, or Santa Rosa for the first dive. Typically these sites had much deeper reefs starting at 60 feet and dropping off into the blue. The coral formations of these deeper reefs were quite dramatic. Large outcroppings, swim throughs, overhangs, and large sections of nearly vertical wall predominated. The coral tended to be more healthy on these deeper reefs, too. The fish life was a little more scattered, however, and the coral features themselves tended to be the highlight of the dive. The visibility was generally tremendous at well over 100 feet on most dives. One brochure boasted 250, but that seemed somewhat optimistic. The water temperature was 81F which was very comfortable in a 3mil suit. Dive times were supposed to be 45 minutes, but we rarely surfaced before on hour on any dive. The boat crews in Cozumel are simply beyond belief. I mean here are literally 20 dive boats in one site maybe ½ mile square or less and the captains are always right there when you surface. How they tell all the groups of divers apart is beyond me. One time however we did pick up some divers from another boat. At least they were from our resort. Made for some good trash talking between boat crews and divemasters I bet.

The surface interval was spent partly traveling to the second site and partly just resting near a beach. We never did go ashore or anything during the surface interval, though. The second dive site tended to be a much shallower and flatter reef system such as chakanab, Tormentos, Paradise, or Yucab. Typically these systems are a domed reef between two flat sand areas. The current tended to be higher on these reefs which made photography much more difficult. In general the current this trip was the strongest I have ever experienced in Cozumel. It was difficult to maintain position against the current, let alone make progress up current. If someone spotted a cool critter and was more than a few feet upcurrent, it was not worth the effort to try to get there to see what it was. By the same token, you generally only got one shot at each subject as you drifted past. You had no second chance if you screwed the first one up unless you were behind a coral outcropping. The coral tended to be more subdued and flatter on these reefs with much less structure than the deeper reefs. More of the coral, sea fans, and gorgonians had been shorn off by the hurricane. However, the fish life tended to be much more concentrated on these reefs. Large angels were abundant. French, Gray, and Queen angelfish are bigger here than anywhere else I have ever dived. We saw Hawksbill turtles on ¾ of our dives, too. Most of the really large black groupers have vanished, but a few were seen as well as some of the big cubera snappers. The schools of grunts and goatfish were present as well as the black durgeons and parrotfish. Moray eels were occasionally seen, but were not nearly as abundant as in past years. We did see quite a few splendid toadfish this trip which is always a treat.

Most divers in Cozumel seem to do 2 dives in the morning, return at lunch and drink margaritas, nap, and shop in town all afternoon and evening. Few do afternoon dives it seems. In years past the shore diving right off the Scuba Club has been quite entertaining with all the fish habitats, grass patches, and schools of fish under the dock. After the hurricane, however, most of the fish habitats are buried, all the grass is gone, and what you are left with is tons of concrete rubble and acres of barren sand. The shore dives were pretty lame overall. Few fish except for some extremely aggressive little triggerfish. Those little bastards would bite at anything that looked remotely edible and some things (camera strobes, zipper pulls, hair, mask straps) that weren’t. We only made a couple day dives from shore. The night dives were a little better as the octopus, yellow stingrays, puffers, and mojarras have repopulated the shoreline at night. There is a large pile of concrete which used to be the main pier. In a few years that will be crawling with critters.

Since the shore diving proved to be lame, we signed up for extra boat dives. The shop was more than happy to start a list for afternoon, twilight, and night dives. At first we were the only 4 divers on all the lists, but lo and behold by the time the dives happened they sometimes needed 2 boats to hold all the divers. Hmmm. Maybe we should have asked for a discount for starting all the hype about afternoon dives. The afternoon dives were typically at a site which would have been the second dive during the day. A shallower flatter reef. Twilight dives are great because all the “day” fish are frantically trying to get as much food as possible before going into hiding for the night. The fish seem very active overall. All night dives were done on paradise reef. They said it was because that is the best reef at night, but it did get a bit crowded at times with 7 or 8 dive boats on one relatively compact reef site. Night dives were great, too. For years we have done shore dives at night after one really lame night dive years ago. Now we know what we were missing in Cozumel. Lots of eels, lobster, BIG crabs, octopus, and tons of fish. The current still was ripping which added a whole other degree of difficulty to the overall diving experience especially for those of us with cameras. Unfortunately if one diver stopped to take a few photos, the rest of the group had to stop as well or get pretty separated from each other. We quickly learned that you get 1 or 2 shots and that is it.

Overall the trip went very well. Cozumel has seen some significant damage from Hurricane Wilma and will likely not be the same in our lifetimes. It is still a great dive destination, though, and it is a travel bargain. The people of Cozumel seem genuinely glad to see tourists. More people seemed to speak English in Cozumel than in either Houston or Dallas which is sad. I eagerly await my next trip to Cozumel and Scuba Club.