Text/HTML

Dive, Dive, Dive !!

Dive, Dive, Dive !!
By sv Prairie SeaShell on 25 Nov, 2012 10:07 PM

We originally booked our trip to Cozumel, we only booked a week as I really expected to find that the reefs would have been badly damaged and I thought we would be disappointed in the diving.

When we originally booked our trip to Cozumel, we only booked a week as I really expected to find that the reefs would have been badly damaged and I thought we would be disappointed in the diving. Well, after our second day, we discovered we were very wrong. In fact, the reefs are now protected as a National Park, and the small fish life is even more plentiful than years ago.

It was a real treat to be able to swim with a turtle, something we had only seen once on a trip to Hawaii. This week we saw many very large turtles,and they must know they are in a protected area as they are not frightened off by the many curious on lookers.

In years past, we would never have seen a lobster as big as this one, they had all been fished out. Large grouper were very common in the past, and we did find that most every restaurant offered a grouper dish. Most of the grouper now are a little on the small side, although we have seen a few that are getting to be quite a size. Again, the protection of a national park is helping to re-establish the species. No fishing, spearing, anchoring allowed.

Another first for us was to see a sea horse. They are so adept at camoflaging themselves that I was right over top of him and couldn’t see him until the Dive Master pointed him out.

The diving is a little different now, we still do two dives in the day, the boats are smaller, they are faster, and we no longer spend our surface interval between dives at the beach with a buffet lunch. Now, we have a granola bar or some fruit and wash it down with a bottle of water, but the good news is that the price really hasn’t changed in 20 + years.