Cozumel On shore pics from the ESDC trip to Cozumel, Mexico. - (49) more edit 2007-12-10 - rec# 126

Several months ago I got word the the ESDC was planning a trip to Cozumel. I jumped at the chance and told my brother about the trip. While my brother and I have both been divers for several years we had never dove together. And I hadn't seen my friends from the ESDC for several years. Ever since I moved to Costa Rica. Hell, Mexico's not that far away. Should be an easy trip, yes? I went to Travelocity.com to get tickets. Easy trip? No. I would need to fly to Miami, wait for 18 hours to catch a flight to Cozumel. I felt I could trust Travelocity.com so booked the tickets. For some reason this time they insisted on sending me paper tickets. No there's something you need to understand about Costa Rica. Houses don't have numbers and streets don't have names. So getting mail is a bit of a problem. But Travelocity.com was adamant that they needed to snail mail me the tickets, so we tried. Of course the tickets got lost. Of course Travelocity.com would not help, but said the airline would be able to issue me tickets at the air port. Which was true, but Travelocity.com failed to mention that it would cost me $1,136 to do so. Over twice the price of the original ticket. But I hadn't seen my brother for about 3 years and my friends from the club in over 2, so I bit the bullet. You only live once. The flight was the most unpleasant that I have ever experienced. Thank you Travelocity.com! But I made it. I arrived in Cozumel. Tired and exhausted I dropped off my gear and set off to explore the town. In short order I found Loogpla and the gang doing what they do so well...eating. I joined them for lunch and a beer and then returned with them to Agua Safari, where we were staying. Our first day of diving was on Tuesday. There were four dives scheduled. Our boat left dock at 8:30am. The first dive was the usual, cautious, let's see if these guys can put their gear on and us it checkout type dive. Not very challenging, but very beautiful. Coral reefs with lots of colorful fish of all sizes. It's always great to get into the water, better with friends. At the end of this dive I had notified the dive master that my air was at 700 and he instructed me to make my way to the boat. I went to tell me dive buddy when I saw Loogpla below me signaling that I should come down and take a picture of something. My first turtle of the trip. It was a medium size animal tearing apart a piece of coral. I got a few pics and then decided to move to movie mode. Because of all the debris being thrown into the water several large fish were hanging around to take advantage of the feeding opportunity. Good pics, great video, neither helped my air situation. Cozumel is an island with lots of dive sites scattered around the perimeter. Most at depths of less than 100ft. While by NorthWest standards not very deep it is the deepest I've been in the Caribbean. Our second dive was on Paradise Reef. They all have a Paradise Reef, don't they. We began to see lots of very large lobsters which were a great attraction for the photographers. After dive two we returned to shore and ate at the Costa Brave restaurant. These dive trips are as much about eating as diving and this was a great find. Cute old Mexican man ran it with his wife(?). Whenever she picked up a tip she crossed herself with it. The seafood was really great! We decided to eat breakfast there to for the next day. Back to the boat for dive three and then our night dive. The night dive was nice, but not spectacular. I understand that often these night dives are quite nice, there was a photographer there with all sorts of grand and expensive equipment, but he only shoot a few minutes of video. He told me later that there are usually lots of octopuses out, but that he was skunked that time. We returned to Costa Brava for breakfast...bad idea. Great seafood, poor breakfasts. On or second day of diving we were met at the boat by a really cute, young, cute...did I mention cute girl with a big underwater video camera. Looked like something you could take to 300ft. She got on the boat and kept shooting video. We all never were sure why, but could guess. She got into the water with us and continued shooting. This day we were taken to reefs that were much more spectacular. I guess we passed our first day test. These reefs were more like giant thrusts up from the sea bottom into the water. In places 50ft tall. It was quite the experience swimming in between them and exploring the life on their surfaces. Dive two was a drift dive. I had been told since getting at Cozumel that most, if not all, the dives would be in very strong current. Guess this one was going to be the great drift dive. I left my camera on board the boat. I've seen wild drift dives at Hornby Island, and it's no place for a camera. Well...this wasn't Hornby Island. It was a decent drift with a current of about 1.2 knots. We flew along the edge of a wall that dropped off for about 30ft. Always staying on top of the wall, never knowing where our dive buddy was. At one point I found myself all alone and was interested to see more of the wall, so I moved out about 20ft from the edge. Not descending, but out over the abyss. Don't know where that pesky dive master came from, but he wanted me to come back. And that is when I got the greatest photo opportunity of the dive. As I approached the edge of the wall I could see several very large fish going wild over something. My path was taking me right over the action. When I got there there was the largest turtle I've ever seen in the sea. Must have been over 5ft long. Tearing apart some coral. Flinging debris into the water, much to the glee of these fish. Perfect shot! Great moment! All I needed was my camera and enough warning to get it set up before flying over the scene. Great shot! But sadly, only in my head. Back to Costa Brava for seafood. Dive three was a shallow reef. When we got back from the last dive of the day we were told there would be a preview of the video that was taken. OK...6:30 preview...7:30 supper. We met in the dive shop classroom and watched her DVD. At the end she asked how many of us wanted to purchase a copy (no surprise). There were 11. OK...at that price it would only be $60/copy. The room fell silent. Sixty dollars? Each? Hands immediately went down. Well...we could buy the master for $350 and make our own copies. She left empty handed. Eating is important on these trips and Loogpla had heard of a great restaurant...La Perlita, a short taxi ride away. Was the food there tremendous, or what! Do these guys know how to eat!! Mexico is a VERY Catholic nation. We're approaching Christmas. Every night groups of kids were out doing their version of Caroling. The kids made a sort of retablo that they carried around. Often decorated with balloons and tinsel there were religious pictures and icons on it. The kids would find an audience and sing for them,then take up a collection. Several bands of kids were out each night. It was so cute to watch them... Breakfast the next day was an interesting problem. We were to take an 8am ferry to the mainland. The plan was to eat before we left. However the restaurant by the ferry hadn't opened by the time we arrived. So we decided to take an earlier ferry and eat on the other side. It would be later. Restaurants wold be open. Good theory, poor practice. What few restaurants on the other side didn't open before noon. So we snacked as we could and were then picked up for diving at Dos Ojos. Dos Ojos is a series of sink holes, or caverns on the mainland. I've been hearing lately a lot about the importance these sink holes had on the Mayan culture. The Manya's were the only major culture to have evolved in the history of civilization that did NOT arise along a river. These sink holes seem to be the reason. As we drove out we had quite a long discussion with our dive master/driver. One of the popular activities in the area consists of diving with dolphins. These dolphins live in artificial pools and eco-tourists are invited to get into the water with these wild dolphins. There were several of these pools behind the dive shop. Our master/driver was telling us that in reality these dolphins lead a short life once placed in the ponds. Because of the handling and the confinement of the animals the quickly get sick and soon die. Once they get sick they are abandoned back to the sea (where they are soon fish food) and the animals are replaced with healthy ones sold on the black market. I've seen many examples of eco-tourism of this nature since coming to Central America. Capitalism flourishing! We arrived at the dive site, in the middle of the jungle. Walked down to the entrance and received a rather illustrative dive briefing. Another situation where I wish I had my camera. You really had to be there. We had two dives in these caverns. Both no more than 45ft in depth and for me, my first experience in a cave or cavern. Something I've always said I'd never do. Wasn't that bad. It was very much like slowly flying threw regular, above ground caverns. The water was so clear as to not even be there. That plus the dark made for an interesting experience. Above us, trapped by the ceiling, were pockets of air from all the divers. Now the water was perfectly clear. The interface between the air and the water was exactly like the interface between air and water. The impression was very much like we were moving upside down through the air above small ponds of water. Few fish, much geology. We were taken through in groups of four plus one dive master. Most of the caverns were very twisted so you couldn't see very far ahead. But when it opened up so you could see more of what was around us you could see the constant parade of divers. All in a line, following a rope on the bottom of the cavern. Reminded me a bit of Disneyland. But it was a really great introductory experience of cavern diving. Final day of diving...only two dives. The first was the Devil's Throat. This WAS the trip of cavern diving. The Devil's Throat is a series of short, narrow caverns the begin at 95ft and descend to 125ft in depth. The inside of THESE caverns were like the reefs we've been diving, but very much enclosed. The walls were covered with what looked to me like very large tube worms. Fish were hiding along the way, and at one point a very large lobster. We took two of these caverns and ended our dive at small, but lively reef. Our final dive of the day and of Cozumel was on the wreck of the Felipe Xicotenctal. The next day was about packing up and packing out. I had the last flight scheduled and used much of the day to spend time with my brother and his wife. They left around noon and I at 1pm. You'll recall that I had to purchase a duplicate ticket for my flight in San Jose. My original ticket had me leaving Cozumel on the 8th of December, returning to San Jose on the 9th and I had school starting on the 10th. OK...my DUPLICATE ticket had me leaving on the 9th and returning to San Jose on the 10th. This was the first I knew of it! I was stuck. No way out of Cozumel until Sunday. But what the hell, there are worse places to be stuck. I returned to town in a van full of Texans that were beyond belief. They made the cohorts in Brother Where Art Thou? look like college professors. I have never been around such ignorance and stupidly before. They made the skits on Saturday Night Live look like poor imitation of the reality of... Of whatever that was. Saturday night and Sunday in Cozumel is not like any other time in the week. The partying during Saturday night is wild and out of control. The bars are in full tilt until about 4am. Then the party ends and the town is abandoned. No cruise ships, nobody on the streets, no shops open anyplace. The only thing that is open is the church. I WAS able to find a place to eat breakfast (the quiche place) and made my way BACK to the airport. This time I flew out without incident. Eleven hours in Miami and back home...finally! Great diving, great friends, but I'll NEVER fly that rout or use Travelocity.com again!