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Cozumel Island
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Cozumel Trip Report March trip report (very long--no pictures) This is a trip report from March that I had started working on a while ago. I will say up front that I don’t claim to be the best report writer, but if you’re bored you might want to give it a look This report is heavy on scuba diving.Thursday March 1st Left Nashville and flew Delta to Atlanta and then Aeromexico to Cozumel. I spent the $50 and upgraded to first class on Aeromexico. This was my third trip using Delta/Aeromexico and I have never had a problem. The service on Aeromexico is great regardless of first class or coach. Arrived in Cozumel on time at 7:00 p.m. Went immediately to Baldwin’s B&B to stay with Kathy and Dale. I brought down pipe tobacco for a friend of theirs and 20 pounds of tile grout for the pool they are putting in. Had a couple of drinks, got hold of Steve from Dive Cozumel/Costa Maya Charters on his cell phone and set up a dive for the next day. Then I headed to mini-golf for a quick round. I think some of the chatters were in the middle course, but I played my own solo speed round in about 15 minutes by skipping around the large groups that were on the course. I waited around for about 15 minutes after finishing my round, but then headed back to Baldwin’s. I was still tightly wound after having put in three 90+ hour weeks before heading to Coz (patience also appears to be a virtue absent from my family tree). Hopefully, I will be able to get back on Cozumel time quickly. Friday March 2 Friday I went to the shop went on a couple of relatively simple dives, C-53 and maybe Palancar Caves (I am the world’s worst logbook keeper). I’m planning on going to Micronesia and Australia in May so I talked with Roly at Dive Cozumel about taking a few courses that I might or might not need on my Pacific trip. I wound up taking three courses from IANTD: Deep Air, Advanced EANx, and Overhead Environment. One thing to note is that doing three of these courses on one vacation does tend to cut into your relaxation time. That night Roly and I had a couple of drinks at Prima and then met Steve and his mom (she was in from England) at La Cucina Italiana for Bocce Ball. Somehow I got roped into playing with three 10-12 year olds who were much better at that game than I was (and a lot more sober). Went home with plans to meet at the shop the next morning to do some coursework with Roly. Saturday March 3 Showed up at the shop to do some coursework and found that Roly was home sick. He had left a few books for me to read and I rented a car to go over to the East side. Steve and his mom went over to the East side with me. We spent a couple of hours at Punta Morena and about an hour at Coconuts, where we had the Shrimp Cerviche (good). We parked slightly off the road between Coconut’s and Bob Marley’s to have a quick look around. Our Tracker got stuck in the sand! Thankfully a couple of locals and some people from a cruise ship stopped to help get us back on the road! We made our way back around the island and then met Roly at La Cocay for dinner. La Cocay is my favorite restaurant on the planet, so it was definitely good to eat some of Rob’s (the chef) food again. We shared some duck firecrackers(think this is the right name) as an appetizer, and I had the filet mignon for dinner. Finished with the chocolate tort for dessert. Sunday March 4 Slept late and studied some of my dive course material during the morning. Baldwin’s has a gazebo with a hammock that I love, I really should try to get an apartment with a hammock some day. Roly and I did some coursework at the shop and had dinner at La Choza afterward. I had the fajitas and the lime soup, both were good. Monday March 5 Monday I had one of the worst dives of my life. I believe the port was closed to small boats, but we were planning to do a shore dive to work on my water skills for the course. We got in at Casa Del Mar, and it was an experience just to get in the water as the waves were up and the ramp was very slippery. I was using a steel 120 c.f. tank on my back and an Aluminum 80 c.f as my stage tank. Since we were planning on being in the water for a while, Roly had suggested that I borrow his wetsuit vest/hood to wear along with a 2.5 mil shorty that I have. As soon as I hit the water I had trouble breathing through my regulator. This is the first time I have ever had any trouble breathing with scuba equipment so I was very surprised (particularly since I have a relatively new high-end regulator). I waited on the surface for a couple of minutes before I was ready to go down. To make matters worse, my first skill was an out of air swim on the bottom. I had to swim 100 ft at depth without my regulator, I felt like I was out of breath after 20 ft. and managed to make it a total of about 80 ft. Given that I usually can hold my breath for a long time, this was an unpleasant surprise. Since I didn’t do well, I got to repeat the skill another couple of times. We did a couple of other drills, including a blind out of air drill which went fine. Roly laid down a line and we swam towards each other along the line and then shared air. The last drill was a free flowing regulator drill, the problem was that I was a little short of breath breathing through my own regulator before I had to breathe off the free-flow regulator. This wasn’t a simulated free-flow, Roly brought down a regulator where the high pressure seat was out. I had control the flow by turning the tank valve off and on while bouncing around a little in 10 or 15 feet of water due to current/wave action. I breathed off it for a couple of minutes, but was basically felt like I wasn’t getting enough air. I had had enough, so we got out of the water after a 75 minute dive. When I got on shore I took off the hood/vest that I had borrowed. I could actually feel my chest expand! I hadn’t noticed it when I put it on but it was too tight around the chest (my gut was to big for the the hood). That basically explained why I felt out of breath (the hood was restricting my breathing!). I didn’t have trouble breathing the rest of the trip. A Canadian named Collin showed up at Roly’s shop after our Monday dive. We ate dinner together at Prima. Tuesday March 6th We did a couple of boat dives today as part of my EANx and Deep Air Certifications. These didn’t go particularly well either. I had trouble reaching and detaching my lift bag, which was clipped to my waist belt behind my stage tank. My hands were very soft from a combination of being under water along with the fact that all I do is type on the computer when I am in the States, when I tried to detach the snaps I managed to cut my thumb rather than undue the snap. This was more difficulty because I couldn’t really see the snaps due to the fact that I couldn’t really see them because my stage tank was in the way. Anyway, I did manage to pull it off in the end, but I was worn out by the end of it. This relatively simple task wound up driving me crazy. On a separate note, Collin had a bad headache after the dive. He evidently used to be an instructor, so his having problems was a little surprising. I noticed that he had a nicotine patch on and speculated that this might be the cause. He dove without the patch later in the week and did not have problems. The one problem he did have was that he smoked cigarettes while the patch was off! Collin, Steve and I had lunch at Island Gourmet after the dive, I had my usual Garlic Shrimp Sandwich, Fries and a Coke. The food was excellent as always. Island Gourmet is an excellent place for lunch. It is at A.R. Salas and 10, across from Deep Blue. Wednesday March 7th Dove again today. Don’t even remember the reef for the first dive (already mentioned I hate log books), for the second dive I did C-53 again. My first skill was swimming through the wreck while sharing air. Having done this, I then had to swim out of the wreck blind by following the line. Actually enjoyed this blind drill. Steve and I ate at Ernesto’s fajitas for lunch. I had the fajitas (big surprise) and some quesedillas. I went to dinner at La Cocay again that night, having the salad, filet mignon and the chocolate tort for dessert. In case you haven’t noticed, I eat very well in Cozumel Thursday March 8th Dove again today. We did a relatively deep dive (165 ft), and then bounced up to the inland side of the reef to work on one of my skills. I had to take off my gear in about 20-25 ft of water, and the go to the surface. I then had to free dive back down and put on my gear. I have been free-diving since I was 6, so I wasn’t really expecting this to be a big deal. As was the theme on this trip, Murphy’s law strikes again. I took off my gear and then swam up to the surface. On my way back down, one of my ears didn’t equalize. Normally I would have just turned back to the surface, but since this was a test I tried to force equalization. Something gave in my problem ear at about 15-20 feet. I did manage to put my gear on, but just deployed my lift bag from that depth instead of descending a little further to make filling the lift bag easier. As I mentioned I have free diving to that depth or greater for a long time and this was the first time I have ever had a problem with my ears. Roly thought the sensation was probably just some mucus clearing. I was a little nervous going down on the second dive, but thankfully my ears cleared with no problems. Friday March 9th As part of my overhead certification, Roly and I dived the Cenote beside the Caleta on the island. We did 3 back-to-back dives here and I enjoyed all of them. I did notice first hand that when you do blind drills you tend to slow down. We were in the cavern, and I was supposed to navigate out by following the line with my eyes closed. The first time I tried I moved to slowly. Roly stopped me and told me to speed up. I sped up some and have no problems. I had noticed that both on C53 and in the cavern it is a really a neat feeling diving blind (but hopefully I will never be forced to this). The Dos Ojos cavern on the mainland is certainly better in terms of view, but this cenote was good for training and a lot more convenient. During our second surface interval some people were hanging out on land by the cenote and we chatted with them while we stood in shallow water in the cenote. (Due to our litigious society I feel compelled to include the following: DISCLAIMER—DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT DIVING IN A CENOTE UNLESS YOU HAVE PROPER TRAINING. ONE THING I LEARNED IS THAT EVEN OPEN WATER INSTRUCTORS HAVE A HIGH FATALITY RATE IN CAVERN/CAVE ENVIRONMENTS. Roly and I ate dinner at El Morro on Friday night, this was actually my first time to eat here. The food was good, but not spectacular. El Morro has a good reputation and I may have just ordered the wrong dish (I can’t remember what I ordered). I will give this restaurant another try my next time down. Saturday March 10th With all of my course dives finished, Steve, Collin (who I had met on Sunday), JJ (a Canadian helicopter pilot) and I dove Punta Sur and Punta Tunich. These were nice, relaxing dives that I thoroughly enjoyed. I finished with a lunch at Island Gourmet and one final dinner at La Cocay. Sunday March 11th I spent the morning in the hammock at Baldwin’s Guest House. I said goodbye to Dale & Kathy and then headed back home to Nashville. I stopped by Roly’s house on the way to the airport to pick up some forms that had to be sent to IANTD for the courses I took. I was very pleased with Roly as an instructor during this course and the in water exercises, however the IANTD written course material seemed to be disorganized. For taking advanced courses I would strongly recommend Roly (Dive Cozumel), but hopefully the IANTD courses will improve their written course material. I have since read similar comments regarding the high quality of the IANTD instructors but the lower quality of the written course material. As I alluded to earlier taking three courses on one vacation was a little much, and I certainly did not reach the level of relaxation that I am accustomed to in Cozumel. Lodging Reviews
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