Cozumel

by

Jayne Szekely

There are really only 2 reasons why you would visit the island of Cozumel, just off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. You'd either be on a massive caribbean cruise liner, being dropped off for a day wandering the duty free diamond shops, or, you'd be there to dive. We were obviously there for the latter reason and as there was very little else on the island other than tourist shops (though browsing the selection of hammocks, maracas and sombreros did offer a form of evening entertainment) we dived all day, every day in the week that we were there.

We stayed & dived with American-run Aqua Safari; the hotel was a typical divers' place, very basic but just fine, and right on the waterfront so each morning we just grabbed our gear from their wet room, crossed the road to the jetty & hopped on the boat for a morning's diving. We became known to the guy who ran the place, Bill, as 'BSAC' as he was one of the few people out there who recognised this qualification, and each day when he saw us, he would yell, 'Hey ! BSAC !!'.

The diving was similar to Caribbean diving we'd done in Bonaire in that there were lots of sponges, soft and hard corals and reasonable fish life, but not massive shoals and no big stuff, other than turtles! The water was quite noticeably bluer than I've ever seen; on jumping in for the first time, that was my very first thought; 'crikey ! this waters BLUE !' Viz was amazing, very few particles in the water, meaning great light even at depth, especially as it was reflected off the white sandy bottom, meaning great colours. Many dives were drift, some pretty fast, but lovely to fly low across such beautiful reefs. Depths ranged from 16 to 27m.

The dive package we'd booked included 2 boat dives per day, so we'd leave at 8.30, arrive at the first site 1-1.5 hours after this, dive (!) have a break with fruit & refreshments, a second dive on a different site and then back to the jetty by 1. A third boat dive in the afternoon was available for the princely sum of $9 ! This was almost always on Paradise Reef, a shallow dive in 12m on a reef bursting with life, a great place to hunt for the tiny stuff hiding away.

There were many turtles; we saw them on most dives and they would stop and chomp away at the reef without a care for any divers close by. A common sight was a turtle having his lunch with a couple of gray and french angelfish whizzing round his head, catching the bits flying off. We saw a free swimming green moray, 5-6 feet long, tanking across the reef, just amazing, a large spotted eagle ray, and an octopus, out for an afternoon stroll on the reef, startled by me, but what a great display of colour changes he showed me! A fish unique to Cozumel is the splendid toadfish, he hides in a hole during the day, just peeking out so you can see his blue stripes and yellow fins. Once we knew where to look, we found quite a few of these guys. We found lots of small things on the reefs; arrowhead crabs, tiny shrimps hiding in purple anemones and three different species of seahorse.

One afternoon, there was just myself & Peter and one other couple to dive, so the guide took us a sandy bottom alongside Paradise Reef and showed us all the things you can find there if you look hard enough. There were tiny shrimps living in holes that would pop out & nip your fingers; sailfin blennies, who again, after annoying them sufficiently by tapping on a nearby rock, would pop out their hole & put up their sail-like fin; tiny peacock flounders so well camouflaged against the sand.

My favourite dive was on Palancar Caves, a rocky reef system with lots of swim throughs. Into a cave, with fan corals and sponges covering the sides then towards the bright exit with the sun shining down on the white sand, or sometimes just out into the blue and a sheer drop off. Really lovely & exciting.

We did 14 dives in 5 days, before catching the ferry back to the mainland and the next part of our adventure; the cenotes.