My 100th Dive trip
7/25-7/28 2008
Back in North Carolina, I booked my 96th Dive. SingleDivers.com was having the re-do of the Cozumel/Cenotes/Holbox trip, I was able to find some inexpensive airfare, so I came down for the weekend to do the Cozumel portion.
We stayed at CasaDel Mar. I arrived on Friday, checked in at the dive shop (DelMar Aquatics) and did a shore dive that afternoon with two of the women on the trip. The dive was surprisingly good. First we went and blew bubbles at the glass bottom boat. Then we followed the fish over to the snorkelers watching a couple get very territorial with each other. After the snorkelers left, we then hear this loud noise and in comes the Atlantis submarine. This is my third shore dive in the last couple of years and the marine life seems to be getting better each time. We ate at La Chorzo that night to celebrate the birthday of one of our divemasters, Fernando. I had a great fish filet, and they put a candle in the flan for Fernando’s b’day and had the local musicians play happy birthday.
Day 2 I did two dives, Dalila and Paradise Reef. Both good dives. Given that most of the group arrived on this day, I dove with four of the women who arrived early. Nice warm water and abundant marine life. Saw turtles, nurse sharks on every dive this trip. We had 10 divers on their large boat with plenty of room to spread out.
Day 3 was Dive 100. WW hired a videographer to celebrate the occasion. We dove Palancar Bricks as our first dive. One of my favorites with large coral formations and plenty of swim throughs. We did a number of activities underwater, including each lady on the dive giving me a kiss underwater to commensurate the event. Dive 101 was at Cedral Wall. In addition to the Turtles competing with the Angelfish for food (it was looking like the angels were basically waiting for the turtle to do the work and then the fish would grab it once it was loose in the water). We also saw a moray eel in the open stand off against an angelfish wouldn’t let it pass. Not sure what was into the angelfish on this dive. Also had a shark swimming out in the open watching the eel.
Having spent a few times in Cozumel, I decided to take a boat ride over to Playa Del Carmen. Scouted out some dive shops and hotels for doing some Cenote diving on our next trip down here. As far as food goes in Cozy, we were AI at CasaDel Mar which consists of a buffet for breakfast and ordering from a menu for lunch/dinner. A decent variety can be had, especially for a long weekend like this. Getting to San Miguel was a $4 cab ride or a 45 minute walk.
While brief, another nice trip to Cozumel. With SingleDivers.com scheduling another trip over Halloween, it may be just in time for another visit. They really made an effort to make my 100th dive special and succeeded in that task.