Burbank Dive Club

A Mexican Island in the Sun, and Rain
By Derek Evanson

This Burbank Dive Club trip started off a bit different from other trips in that Bev and I weren’t travelling with the rest of the group. The plan to meet up with Bev’s brother and wife in Playa Del Carmen didn’t work out but we stuck with our travel arrangements anyway. Given that we didn’t need to take a redeye to get to Cozumel I think it worked out pretty well. We flew into Cancun and caught the ferry from Playa Del Carmen to Cozumel after enjoying a night on the town in Playa Del Carmen. Now admittedly, we could have done the same thing and spent the night in Dallas or Houston, but I have already seen both of those fine Texas cities more than a couple of times!

After arriving in Cancun we caught a taxi and arrived at the Grand Coco Bay Resort in Playa Del Carmen in a little less than an hour. It turns out we were a bit further out of the lively part of the town than I had thought, and there was quite a bit of new construction surrounding the property. The property itself was nice, and it was only one night, so no bother. We were met at the front desk by someone with two glasses of champagne. We needed to take taxi into town instead of walking, but that also worked out well as the cabdriver suggested a seafood restaurant that turned out to be very good. We strolled up and down 5th Avenue, the main drag, checking out the many shops, restaurants and bars, timing things well to be between rain showers. With a Tequila store on almost every corner, it became quite clear that this is a party town. After checking out the full length of the avenue we ended up back at the Blue Lobster for dinner. A nice touch after dinner was the owner bringing over complimentary kaulua and creams for both of us. Bev tried hers but didn’t care for it so I drank both as not to offend our hosts.

The next morning we slept in a bit and then had a nice breakfast at the hotel, followed by a dip in the ocean. The sun hid and the rain came out so the dip didn’t last too long. Just as well as we had just enough time to catch a shower before checkout time. We didn’t bother to ask for a late checkout as we had a boat to catch. We caught a taxi to the dock where we greatly disappointed quite a few porters that wanted to help us with our bags. But all our bags have wheels and we just didn’t need their help.

We had just enough time waiting for the ferry to catch a beer at Senor Frogs. It turns out that the ferry following ours was a catamaran. Ours, however, was not. Given a rather rough crossing, we should have waited. We will know next time. A slightly green Beverley and myself were at the end of the line of passengers disembarking in Cozumel so our bags were waiting for us on the dock. Hawkers lined the dock trying to rent us cars or get us a taxi but going straight to the street where there was a line of people waiting at the taxi stand made more sense than talking to all these middlemen.

We arrived at Fiesta Americana Dive Resort and were checking in when Tom, Colleen, Paul and Eo met us at the desk. The gangs all here! As this was an all inclusive stay, part of the check in process was to acquire plastic wrist bands that we were to wear for the week.

After dropping off the bags at our room we made our way to meet the gang for lunch, checking out the facilities on the way. The large lobby extended into a combination lounge and game room that overlooked the pool with a swim up bar. It was low season and since there weren’t many guests, the swim up bar wasn’t staffed. It would open later in the week, though. The restaurant that served dinner was on the second floor above the gameroom and accessed by a large winding staircase.

Lunches and breakfasts were served in the second part of the complex, across the quiet street, in a restaurant on the beach that we spent quite a bit of time in during the week. Surrounding this relaxing little open air café were the bar and a smaller pool (closed for low season) and the diving facilities. Seated in one of the café’s larger tables we compared our notes on the trip to the island to the rest of the gang while munching on chips and salsa and perusing the menu. We discovered that for some reason known only to American Airlines the other two couples had not been booked on the same flights on the first leg of the journey. Since they were red eye flights where most slept, it was of little concern, just curious.

After lunch we made our way to the attached Dive House dive shop and signed in for our week of diving with the friendly staff. After paying our marine sanctuary fee we were tagged with another wrist band to wear for the week , given the rundown on the diving operation, and signed the usual forms.

We met for breakfast the next morning and then checked in at the dive shop. Four Dive House boats arrived at 8:30 and by 9:00 we were on our assigned boat and off to our first dive. We were given the dive briefing during the 45 minute ride. A majority of diving in Cozumel is drift diving which makes for very easy diving. All divers need to be ready to enter the water quite quickly one after another, where we descend down to the reef as a group. The current is fairly consistent and we just go effortlessly with it, enjoying the reef as it passes by. The boat follows our bubbles, and when the dive is over the boat is there to pick you up. How easy is that?

The first dive was a typical top notch Cozumel dive on Palancar Deep that took us to about 90’ and included huge corral heads towering above us and beautiful swim throughs. Visibility was excellent in spite of somewhat overcast skies. Ripples on the surface were clearly visible, regardless of depth. One of the things that struck me was how many large angelfish there were. Greys, French, and Queens were all on constant display. Also very common on the reef were something most divers get excited to see – turtles. We saw a number of them on this first dive, and on most of the dives to follow. Usually they were feeding on the reef there with the large angelfish hanging around picking up the scraps.

We finished the dive drifting along for our safety stop at 15’ while the divemaster towed a safety marker on a line. A nice added touch that I don’t recall being used on my previous trips. Up on the surface we just waited and the boat came to us.

The boat captain took his time moving the boat to the second spot on San Francisco reef so that we got a full hour of surface interval. This reef had similar structure with a max depth of 50’ and just as much life and color.

The boat had us back at the dock where we were met by Colleen shortly after 1 PM. The facilities included a large freshwater rinse tank and lockers to stow your gear to minimize the schlepping. Over lunch we compared pictures and talked about all the things we had seen. I couldn’t help but be excited about what excellent shape the reefs were in. A great many divers enjoy these reefs almost every single day, and you would never know it. I think credit goes to the dive shops for how diligently they must watch the divers and work with those that need help with buoyancy skills.

Four more days of diving followed a similarly relaxing pattern. The trick that I neglected to tell Bev is that to slow down to look at something or just let the group catch up you just need to get behind a coral head and out of most of the current. Telling her back on the boat after a particularly strong current that had her “leading” the group wasn’t quite as helpful.

One of the days Tom and I went out without the others who had decided to take time off diving to just relax. The site was Devil’ Throat at Punta Sur, the south tip of the island. Entry to a specific location leads to a series of tunnels that at times hit 120’. This was all very exciting and for a couple of minutes got even more so. As the group of five came out of one tunnel I stopped for few seconds to take a picture of a coral head and when I looked back from the viewfinder Tom’s fins were no longer in front of me! As it turns out the group had made a hard right, dropped down about 10’ and entered another tunnel. It seemed likely this was where they had gone, but as I couldn’t see them I chose to stay put. Tiny bubbles filtered out from the reef directly below me and I was relatively confident these were showing me the path of the divers. A minute later I saw large bubbles that I knew were directly from a diver exhaling and not more of the tiny bubbles filtering up through the reef. I poked my head around a coral head and was just as relieved to see the divemaster as he was to see me. We carried on through more tunnels without further incident.

A wonderful array of marine life was on display in Cozumel. In addition to the turtles and angelfish we saw lots of eels, rays, lobster and crabs. In my previous trips to Cozumel I had looked diligently for a sighting of the endemic splendid toadfish, entirely without success. This trip we saw them on almost every dive.

Dinners were enjoyed most nights in the restaurant at the hotel. It took a bit of prodding and some help in Spanish (thanks Eo!) to get the chef to cook the steaks rare enough for us, but we all had a good time, and for the most part enjoyed our meals. We never went hungry. A couple of nights, for variety if nothing else, we went into town and had very nice meals and excellent wine at a nice little Italian place called Prima.

The last two afternoons we were there the swim up bar opened up and this became the focal point of entertainment. We had planned to go to the spectacular Mayan ruins of Chitchan Itza on Friday, but decided not to when the weather forecast looked particularly grim. Instead, Friday turned out to be the sunniest day of the trip and we all spent the day in, out, and around the pool having a very good time. As the sun set on Friday evening I was left with fond memories of a beautiful sunset, a margarita in hand, and lounging on a stool at the swim up bar. I was very relaxed for the first time in quite a while, and the fact that it wasn’t my first margarita was only a small part of this. Another wonderful tropical dive trip had been enjoyed with good friends from the Burbank Dive Club, and it isn’t a question of if I will find myself in this position again, it is merely a question of when and where. It is a question for which I am already looking for answers.

The Burbank Dive Club