October 1998 Cozumel Trip Report

My wife and I, along with two friends, went on a 4-day trip to Cozumel from Friday October 16 to Monday October 19, 1998.  This is a report of that trip.  All of the images below are hyperlinks.  Click on any image to see a larger version.

I have more photos than I can use on this page...So check out the Cozumel Photo Gallery to see the complete set of pictures from the trip!

We flew in from Houston on FunJet ("FOON-yet", the locals call it), arriving in Cozumel at about 11:30 AM.  We picked up our bags, trotted through customs, and met the Lomas representatives outside the airport.  They loaded us into Chevy Suburbans, and whisked us off to our hotel, the Reef Club Isla de Cozumel.   More on the hotel operation later.

The Dive Operations

Once we checked into the hotel, we met up with the dive shop people at the hotel, namely Sand Dollar Divers.  They claimed to have dive boats leaving every hour on the hour, but the truth turned out to be that they had boats leaving three or four times a day, max.  We barely snuck in on the "late" boat for that afternoon.   We managed two dives that afternoon, then three with them the next day...All of the dives were somewhat mediocre in terms of the DMs and where they took us, although I did think Santa Rosa wall was a great dive.  Generally, though, we were somewhat dissatisfied with the dive operation.  The DMs were terrible at finding interesting things, and made sure to get us out of the water and back on the boats on their schedule, not ours.  In general, I prefer not to dive with DMs, but if I have to dive with a DM, I want that DM to be someone who can find interesting critters to see, and one who understands that I expect to stay in the water for as long as my air and no-deco time will allow.  Sand Dollar's DMs do not fit that description.

The last straw with Sand Dollar was when they refused to commit to a night dive on Saturday.  Furthermore, they refused to commit to diving any part of Palancar on Sunday, and one member of our group had made it his personal mission to dive Palancar on that trip.  As a result of these refusals, we decided to find another dive shop with which to do our last few dives.  We called Aldora Divers because some of the people in our group had had good experiences with them in the past. 

Aldora instantly agreed to a night dive for that night (Saturday), and said that if Palancar is where we wanted to go on Sunday, then Palancar is where we would go.  We drove into town because Aldora needed to modify our regulators to accept the DIN fittings their tanks use.  We dropped off our regulators, and proceeded to wander around town for a little while.  We met back with Aldora a couple of hours later, and they graciously agreed to take us back to the hotel on one of their boats, and then wait at the hotel dock long enough for us to get the rest of our dive gear.  I'll cover the dives later, but they were, as a group, fantastic.

The Hotel

They served meals three times a day, for about two hours each time.  Breakfast included all the American favorites (cereal, pancakes, scrambled eggs, etc.), along with fabulous local specialties like a mild carne guisada (meat stew), fried bananas, and breakfast beans.  Fresh juices and milk were plentiful.  Lunch had more robust fare, ranging from chile rellenos and roast beef to barbecued chicken and fried potatoes.   Dinners were even more elaborate.  The hotel also has a fancier restaurant on site, which is included in the price, but which requires reservations.  We ate there two nights, and were only slightly disappointed to discover the same "Italian Night" menu on both nights.  If you want variety, it seems, stick to the main dining room.  If you want higher cuisine, though, the specialty restaurant was great.

It seemed like most of the guests at the hotel were not divers, as there was plenty of drinking going on, and people were always playing in the pools.  As for us, we were either diving, eating, or sleeping.  Normally we don't drink at all until the last day of a vacation, but since "all inclusive" includes booze, we found ourselves unable to resist the "free" drinks which were always available.  We limited ourselves to one or two a night, usually right before dinner, but the wonderful coladas and daiquiries the bar served up were always calling to us.

The Island

We love the island.  We've been to a couple of places where the scenery above ground doesn't even remotely compare to the scenery below the water.  Cozumel is not one of those places.   We weren't there long enough to explore much, but we liked what we saw.  The town of San Miguel is quite picturesque, at least when the cruise ships are not in port.   The south end of the island is rugged, windswept, and beautiful.  we're looking forward to going back for a longer stay so we can do more exploration.

Dive Log Excerpts:

Dive #6: Paso de Cedral.  What a dive!  After two days of visiting reefs within eyesight of the hotel while following idiot DMs, Aldora took us to Paso de Cedral for a night dive, and Oracio showed us exactly what divemastering is all about.  We drifted in the blazing 3.5-knot current for an hour, while Oracio found lobsters, shrimp, crabs, puffers, morays, brittle stars, trunkfish, you name it.   About the only thing we didn't see was an octopus.

Dive #7: Palancar Caves.  Palancar Caves is an awesome dive site, and Oracio is an awesome divemaster.  The dive started in shallow water, swimming deeper through sand chutes.  The wall was completely vertical, and covered with soft coral, gorgonian fans, sponges, and all sorts of other goodies.  There were lots of swim-throughs and sand chutes, big fish, small fish, and plenty to see.  Oracio found a pipefish (our first) in of the sand chutes!  Very small, skinny, with red bands.   The pipefish was an amazing sight, really.

Dive Log Details:

Last Modified March 3, 2000