6-9-2011 post-Cozumel

Sadly, I'm back from Cozumel. Our plane left early afternoon 6/8/11 so we still had one last morning at the resort which was spent catching the last few rays available.

I'm really glad that I came to Cozumel 7 years ago and decided to get certified for diving. It was one of the best decisions ever.

Here are some more pictures/video I wasn't able to post from Mexico. This is the last posting for this trip.

6-7-2011 Cozumel

Today was our last day in Cozumel. The weather was great. No diving today which is a good thing too because Aldora does such long dives that I had more than 25hrs of desaturation time after the last dive yesterday.

We spent the day at the beach and by the pool and enjoyed leisurely meals. We did some snorkeling by the resort. Didn't see much but I think I might have gotten stung by a little jellyfish. There were many little ones about. They're tricky because they're so small and basically invisible.

The strangest thing about the beach area is that on the Northern-most border of our resort there is a long dock that extends fairly far out. On our side of the dock, the water is crystal blue and beautiful with good underwater visibly. However, to the north of our resort - the beach of Melia resort - the water is dirty brown due to a high density of seaweed, mostly dead seaweed. I had read that there wasn't good snorkeling at Melia and it was better outside our resort but had no idea that their water was completely disgusting and unswimmable. Really sucks for them.

Not really ready to leave Mexico yet but I guess it's best to leave wanting more than being too bored.

6-6-2011 Cozumel

Today was our last dive day and it was our best!! First dive was at Colombia which had fantastic cave swim throughs. We saw loads of lionfish, one of which our divemaster succeeded in spearing and killing. I can't remember the name of the second dive site but it was the best dive of the week. It was drift diving at its best with us gliding peacefully over beautiful reef formations. We saw 4!! turtles!! I got a repeat chance to capture the splendid toadfish on camera and I actually saw him in real life this time. There were eels, tons of beautiful fish, schools of fish hiding from the current, and just really pretty coral. It was an amazing dive.


speared lionfish

toadfish!!

It's too bad it's over. Time to wait for another year. The motto of our dive shop Aldora is - Diving in life, everything else is just a long surface interval.


We went to dinner in town at Perita tonight. It was reommended by our taxi driver and turned out to be an excellent restaurant. I got spiny lobster and it was fantastic! The margarita was also awesome there.

Tomorrow will be nothing but lazying around the hotel with fun in the sun/pool/ocean.

Confirmation of Splendid/Coral Toadfish - only found in Cozumel, Mexico

For your viewing - 2 images of toadfish I found online. I confirmed that they are only found in Cozumel, Mexico and are often found hiding in the reef with only a portion of their head exposed.

By comparing these pictures with my picture, I'm pretty convinced that I had a bona fide toadfish sighting and picture taking. How awesome is that!!

6-5-2011 Cozumel

Today was our 3^rd day of diving. The day greeted us with dark cloudy skies – boo. We went to San Francisco wall for our first dive because I said I wanted to see sharks, but alas, no sharks for us. Supposedly there was a distant big turtle but I couldn’t make it out. Lots of beautiful angelfish again. The lighting was difficult, esp because my strobe was on the fritz during this dive. There were arrow crabs galore on this dive and I had to have a picture of almost every one. I did so much swimming around that I actually had to watch my air at the end – a first.

Dive #2 was at three palms, another wall area leading to a sandy area dotted by little reef patches. Of note there was one particular patch that contained at least 10 lobsters, probably many more. There were also many shrimp to be seen, and a possible toadfish?!?

I believe I accidentally caught a Cozumel exclusive - toadfish - in this picture!

I hope the weather’s better tomorrow, mainly for better color for pictures.

After diving we returned to the hotel for lunch and hot tubbing as it continued to rain and be somewhat cold. Nevertheless, quite relaxing.

Dinner at the fancier restaurant again tonight. Here’s a picture from last night’s dinner – taken of pool outside restaurant from inside restaurant with reflection of waiter in back.

6-4-2011 Cozumel

Today was a day off from diving and our much anticipated swim with the dolphins.

at Dolphin Discovery

We didn’t have a get up early so it was a nice chance to sleep in and enjoy the breakfast buffet. We took a taxi to Chankanaab park and waited for our dolphin adventure – the Royal Swim!! We were in a group with 4 others – a family of 3 generations – mom, daughter, son, and grandma. I was chosen to go first for a dolphin hug and the dorsal tow where 2 dolphins pull me along which I hold onto their dorsal fins. It was amazing!! I was really impressed by how powerful and fast they were. Everything else was great too – the kiss, the handshake, etc, but the best part of all was the foot push!! That’s where you lie in the water on your belly with arms and legs outstretched. The dolphins come and put their noses to your feet and literally propel you out of the water. It was so awesome. You feel like your flying and my whole body was propelled out of the water. It was great. There was a professional photographer with us and of course we bought the CD of pictures of our adventure (photos to follow when I get access to a CD drive…definitely worth waiting for).

After the dolphin adventure, we had a complimentary manatee experience with 3 manatees. I was very bad and kept sneaking away to secretly play with the manatees. It was great. They are big and dumb looking with elephant skin on their backs covered with algae and nails on their fins like elephant feet but soft underbellies and a super pudgy snout with funny whiskers. I wish I had pictures of the manatees. They also have a big back fin that’s wide and mermaid-like (but nothing else about them is particularly mermaid-like. I also secretly snuck on one and tried to ride it. (hee hee) We were able to feed them lettuce, cool!! I would definitely buy a full time manatee adventure in the future, and do that dolphin trainer thing that’s available at the mainland location.

We also saw an excellent sea lion show with 3 different sea lions that were very well trained.

The rest of the day was spent lounging about the resort which was super relaxing and pleasant.

My friend had spent her first day at a scuba refresher course which had a professional underwater photographer staffed. I was able to see her pix which were amazing. Taken with a Nikon D20 and wide lense with red filter – really makes me want to upgrade my equipment and/or consider a career in underwater photography – how perfect would that be!!

Off to dinner now…

6-3-2011 Cozumel

On our second day, we went diving together with 3 folks from our resort. In addition, there were 2 people from our resort doing a scuba certification. Our first dive was palancar horseshoe which also consisted of cave passages which were less challenging than yesterday’s thus allowing me to take some pix.

Again there was the long surface interval and then the second long shallow dive. The weather turned sour after the first dive and we got rained upon. The rain was probably 20 degrees colder than the ocean water. It was very cool to see the rain drops from below. We were fortunate to have a bigger boat today as there was a covered area which afforded some protection from the storm. The storm did not detract from our diving experience at all. However, it did significantly decrease the quality of my lighting for pictures. :(

We went to town in the evening for some shopping and dinner at La Casa Mission which was an interesting restaurant set inside a nice garden Interestingly, the eating space of the restaurant are built in a porch-like area surrounding an actual house – presumably the casa in the name which can be seen through big windows. So visible are a 1980’s style kitchen, dining rm, living rm, and such, very odd. There were also parrots in very large cages.

We strolled back into town, bought some clothing after some successful bargaining with locals. I bought some yummy hot out of the fryer churros. We watched some men doing airbrush “art”. In the center square, there was a band playing and some random people dancing which we sat and watched as I ate my yummy churros. I also saw a little Chihuahua, dressed in a ridiculous pink outfit, which somehow didn’t seem out of place here, as the Chihuahua is afterall native to Mexico.

Cozumel, Mexico - I return at last

I was first introduced to the wonderful world of diving and certified in 2004 in Cozumel, Mexico at the Coral Princess, a couple resorts down from where I am staying now. Cozumel is as I remembered it - beautiful waters, yummy guacamole and nachos, and promise of underwater adventures.

We arrived yesterday afternoon after layover in Atlanta Georgia. Everything was a bit slow, especially the immigration line, but I guess this is just Mexico.

The first dive was at punta sur in a site named Devil’s throat. It’s a complex of caves starting at 80ft and going as deep as 116ft with an initially wide mouthed opening but with many tight turns and passes. I was rewarded with many incredible vistas of the beautiful blue through the dark caves. Didn’t get any pics of this as the passage was challenging enough.

The second dive was at San Francisco – a shallow reef site where I saw really beautiful coral and way too many queen angelfish which I love. Our dive master found a little turtle and lay with it for a while. It was an excellent dive.

This dive company likes to take 2hr long surface intervals which provide them the excuse of delivering dive groups to a resortlike beachy area with food, lounge chairs and water trampolines but also allows us to take really long second dives, in the 1hr+ range which is pretty cool. Though getting back to the hotel around 2 without having had breakfast is a bit of a chore.

The rest of the day was spent lying about in the pool and by the ocean.

We had dinner at the fancy little restaurant which is by reservation only. It’s fancier than the buffet dinner but still included in the all inclusive deal. There was a Mexican dance night in the buffet dinner site which we were able to watch during our fancy dinner. A shame I didn’t have a camera to capture the funny outfits they wore.