Diving Cozumel
My First "All Inclusive" Resort Experience
November 2023
Table of Contents
But First, A Little Ramble...
This trip was conceived during my first pregnancy when I was forced to give up diving for a while. To understand the series of events that made diving Cozumel so special to me, you will have to follow me down this rabbit hole of a ramble…
First, you should know by now that when John and I travel, I am always our Tour Guide Barbie. I find the flights, book the rental car, create an hour-by-hour color coded itinerary (I’m not kidding), and arrange lodging along the way. I am the type of traveler who wants to “do it all” in case I never make it back to a particular destination again. This has led to vacations with lots of hours in the car and not much sleeping in.
John humored me when we were first dating, but has slowly put his foot down on how much “doing it all” counts as actually taking a vacation. (See our Belize trip for the time limit required for me to write “RELAX at the beach” on my itinerary. Turns out, it’s more than the hour I had set aside.)
All this to say, I like to vacation on the go. I don’t mind an early alarm clock if it means I get to spend an entire day having a new, unique adventure, only to collapse in bed when the day is done. Again, John would prefer to do things a little differently.
But our lives were changing as we prepared to welcome our first child. We temporarily gave up diving while pregnant, which I mourned by spending 9 months painting a huge underwater mural on the nursery wall.
On second thought, maybe diving pregnant would have been safer than inhaling all those paint fumes in my grief.
You should also know that I am the type of person who sinks into a deep depression if I don’t have a trip upcoming on the calendar. If I couldn’t dive for MONTHS (!), I at least had to have something to look forward to. Living near Denver, we knew it would be hard for us to dive even once the baby came. Unless we were prepared to pay for someone else’s airfare and other expenses to babysit while we dove, which we weren’t, we realized we were going to be waiting a long time. Grey threw in the additional curve ball when he refused to drink from a bottle his entire infancy, making it next to impossible for me to leave him for any length of time until we stopped breastfeeding. (I once tried to leave for a weekend when he was about 8 months old, assuming he would learn to drink from a bottle rather than starve… Nope, he starved until I got back.) Add in the fact that he has always been below the 1st percentile in body weight, I couldn’t justify leaving him to suffer nutritionally while I galavanted off to have fun.
So! We booked this trip way out in advance when Grey would be 1 and a 1/2 years old. By then, we would be done breastfeeding and he would have had some practice staying with someone else for several days. Actually, when we initially proposed this idea to my Aunt and Uncle who were vacationing with us, the plan was to bring Grey with us. My Aunt Leslie was jazzed to get to spend time with him while we were diving. Then, as the months of being a stay-at-home mom progressed, I decided I needed a complete break and wanted to leave him behind. Sorry Grey! (And sorry Aunt Leslie, who was disappointed to hear her babysitting services were not required!)
We still planned to vacation with my Aunt and Uncle and get to use their member benefits for the Iberostar line of resorts for a discount. (Also, we like spending time with y’all! I swear it wasn’t just for the discount!) Since I had stopped working to raise Grey, we needed to cut our vacation costs. Going to a single all-inclusive location (with a discount!) was going to be a lot cheaper than running around trying to explore an entire country.
And frankly, I was too tired to vacation like we used to. All I wanted was to do the things I felt like I never got to do as a mother: sleep in, read (still in a horizontal position), and eat my meals while they were still warm. Next to those luxuries, diving was barely even a priority for me.
But we were diving! We picked Cozumel because when we were on a liveaboard dive boat in the Bahamas, the other (older and more experienced) divers regaled us with stories of how well Cozumel’s reefs had been preserved. Now, almost 3 years after adding it to our Bucket List, we were going to see it!
On the Way
You know how you hear of people getting Montezuma's Revenge on a trip to Mexico...? Well, John and I got it BEFORE going to Mexico...
We had been… ahem… rushing to the bathroom… for days already when our 2 am alarm clock went off to go to the airport.
What?! You didn’t think I was going to cancel this trip just because of a little tummy upset did you?! Okay, it was more like the entire list of symptoms on a Pepto Bismol commercial, but I had been waiting for this trip through 9 months of pregnancy, an extra 2 weeks because Grey was late, 13 months of breastfeeding, and then several more months for the date to get here!
We were already in Vegas, ready to leave Grey behind with his grandparents for the duration of the trip. He slept right through my alarm and the kiss I gave him on his forehead while I surrounded him with pillows to keep him from falling out of the bed with us gone.
Then I slugged that Pepto like Robert off of Everybody Loves Raymond and started my way through the BRAT diet, eating a banana in the car. (For those of you who aren’t parents, to combat diarrhea, your children should follow the BRAT diet. Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, and Toast.)
John had stayed up till midnight watching shows with his sister in the other room. He called it “conditioning his body to be able to sleep on the flights”. I had been awake all night for a whole different reason, but was optimistic that my symptoms would miraculously disappear in time for me to enjoy my vacation.
In fact, the Pepto was kicking in by the time we made it through security and I got the nerve to try a Wendy’s breakfast sandwich and potatoes.
Hmmm, not on the BRAT diet...
We had no trouble in the airport and in fact had the added blessing that nobody took the middle seat on our flight to Houston. I was able to lay my head on John’s lap and curl up across the other two seats. We both slept soundly.
I woke up right about when we were beginning the descent and the seatbelt light was turned back on. As I sat up off John’s lap, I suddenly got a little dizzy and nauseous. It felt like I needed to use the toilet too, so I figured a walk to the bathroom would kill two birds with one stone and possibly clear my head.
Unfortunately the worst happened and I found myself puking into the bathroom sink since I was already sitting on and using the toilet. I basically had to scoop out everything with wads of paper towels to throw it into the trash and then rinse out the sink. The flight attendant who gave me a bigger trash bag was not pleased and not very sympathetic. But I did feel better thankfully.
In Houston, I didn’t feel like I could handle much to eat and we ended up in a section of the airport without a lot of options anyway. I got 2 packages of those cheese crackers with peanut butter inside and a Sprite, hoping the fizz would continue to soothe my stomach. John made a last minute dash for a Chick-a-fila sandwich he was very excitedly saving to eat once we landed.
Once again, no one in the middle seat and John fell asleep again. I was upset that John didn’t listen to my instructions while packing and did not leave my Kindle or my headphones or my magazine in our carry on. So I couldn’t watch a show on my laptop and I couldn’t read.
I will never leave any detail of trip planning to a man again... ever!
He had a pair of spare headphones that would plug into my phone, so I watched a movie on my phone like a Neanderthal. It was Life of the Party with Melissa McCarthy, free on the Southwest app. I found myself actually laughing out loud at several parts of it, it was very cute.
It ended just in time for landing.
I quickly stripped off my hoodie in favor for the tank top underneath when I realized we would be deplaning via the ladder on to the tarmac and then walking in. Going through the customs area, a security dog sniffed out John’s Chick-a-fila sandwich that he had been looking forward to eating and it was confiscated. I guess you can’t bring prepared food/chicken products into Mexico. Serves him right for not packing my stuff correctly!
We walked quickly through the gauntlet of “aggressively friendly” tourism salespeople and exited to find our transportation coordinator at the Margaritaville bar. In just a couple of minutes, we were in a taxi and on our way. It was then that I realized I could practice speaking Spanish here, and I made it my priority to speak Spanish with any of the employees every chance that I could.
It was a 25 minute drive, but our driver probably made it shorter by swerving around slower traffic and squeezing in tight places through town and then passing everyone on the open road. As we pulled in, I asked about the meaning of the word Cozumel. It’s not a Spanish word, but rather has its roots in the Mayan language. It means, “land of many hills”.
The driver said that our resort was the best place to come to relax and have peace. That sounded lovely to this tired mother.
I had actually been a little worried about what this resort experience would be like. I am not one to take shots with strangers at the pool bar, so I was really hoping this wouldn’t turn into one big party scene. My husband also has the tendency to transform from the “John” that I know and love into “Boof” who is a party animal when alcohol is involved. I was looking forward to a romantic and (a little) adventurous trip with John… not Boof. Thankfully, John’s stomach troubles kept him on this side of shifting.
Day 1
We sipped some lemonade while we waited for a little to get checked in. They put our room keys on a bracelet on our wrists, which I really liked so I never had to worry about losing it or forgetting it when I left the room. They also gave us a silver band on our wrists that would give us access to the Prestige benefits (said with a bad British accent and my pinky raised like I am drinking fancy tea), since my Aunt Leslie and Uncle Greg had included us in their membership during booking. A bellhop took us to our ocean view bungalow on the very edge of the property and super close to the Prestige lounge. We met our family members (Leslie and Greg as well as my cousins Jonah and Keegan) there.
We still were a little shell shocked from arrival, so they helped us settle in with a snack and reserving dinner spots for the next few days.
We had some time before we planned to meet at the featured Asian restaurant, so I planned to just chillax on the beach and read my magazine for a minute, but I caught sight of the yoga instructor (Manolo) setting up to do a class on the beach and forced John to join with me.
There are moments like this when I truly love my husband. They are also possibly the moments that he truly HATES me.
It was a bit harder than I was expecting and I wasn’t really wearing the best bra, but I made it work. It started raining about halfway through so we made a dash to the covered pavilion to finish up. John made me laugh by groaning and grunting every time we moved into a new position. Do you know how hard it is to hold down dog while laughing?!
I had grand plans to catch a yoga class each day, but that ended up being the only class I attended, sadly. I even wanted to join the Water Fit classes they had at the pool and never managed one of those either. That’s okay. Before landing, I had asked John what he was most looking forward to for this trip, so I knew to prioritize that time. He chose sleeping and eating. (The old Rae in me probably died in that moment, because the new Rae thought that sounded like the best plan ever.) I most cared about diving and tanning on the beach, and I got plenty of time for that instead of exercise classes.
We were running a little late for dinner at this point, but Leslie’s family already had a table for us. There was a buffet area with egg rolls and crunchy gyozas and sushi. Then you ordered a main dish off the menu. I got salmon and really enjoyed it. I did have to run for the bathroom towards the end of the meal, but was at least happy to have something in my stomach.
We skipped out of the evening show to go back to our room for a little peace and quiet. Remember, we’re not used to traveling with regularly scheduled entertainment. What we really wanted was to lay back to back in our bed, each of us with headphones on, watching our own shows that we were addicted to on separate laptops.
Romantic? Maybe not so much. But the bliss of knowing there wasn't a crying toddler on the other end of those noise canceling headphones...? Priceless!
Day 2
The downside of not having a crying toddler was that we barely woke up in time for the breakfast buffet. We even ended up walking through a staff only section of the resort because it was the only way we knew how to get back to the lobby. The paths between the guest buildings were so twisty and convoluted, I got hopelessly lost for the first couple of days. And this is a girl who can successfully navigate in ANY woods, ANY where!
It also was pouring rain on us and we arrived literally dripping all over the floor. Turns out we were supposed to have an umbrella in our room, but we didn’t have one until the end of the trip, when it didn’t rain anymore.
I ate a bunch for breakfast and it seemed to be sitting well. Greek yogurt, French toast, bacon, eggs, some green juice, and a chocolate croissant.
Mmmmm, I would go back for the chocolate croissants alone!
After breakfast, John had a work call so Aunt Leslie and I headed to the pool to try to catch the water Zumba class, but no one showed. I hung out with her family at the pool bar. My cousins were a little different than me and did in fact enjoy making new friends at this social watering hole. I’m glad the resort seemed to have the right atmosphere to make everyone happy. They found enough of a party scene and some cool people to have a good time, yet I didn’t feel like it was all the place had to offer.
I will admit, the pool bar did make a good frozen strawberry margarita though.
Uncle Greg chatted with some divers who were supposed go out that day, but the weather had canceled their trips. I got nervous that would happen for us the next day, but we knew we still had an extra day at the end of the trip we could use to make up dives if we had to reschedule.
The weather was still pretty rainy, but I made a dash to try to get John out of the room. Uncle Greg and I wanted to walk over to the dive shop and verify we were all checked in and good to go for diving the next day. But it really started to pour when I made it to the room, so we hunkered down for a bit instead.
We eventually did make it over to the dive shop and got all checked in. They wouldn’t get the call from the harbormaster for whether we could dive the next day until 8am. So we just had to keep our fingers crossed and show up at 8 for the update.
We ran into Leslie at the pool snack house and split a burger and a chicken sandwich. I really liked the chicken sandwich and their French fries were great. Nice and crispy, just the way Aunt Leslie likes them.
Some peacocks drifted by to see if we were share those delicious fries and then Aunt Leslie introduced me to a fleshing hawk named Bille and his trainer who were patrolling the area. The raptor’s job was to keep black birds from nesting in (and pooping all over) the little cabana style buildings everywhere. I wanted a picture with them, but was a little nervous when the trainer reached his arm waaaaay out to put Billie right next to me. He had some giant claws and a very sharp looking beak…
John had another work call, so Leslie and I headed to the beach to tan. Yup, the weather changed that quickly. Pouring rain to sunny just like that.
I brought a magazine to read, but we talked the whole time instead. When we got hot, we dunked in the club pool which was FREEZING and felt really good to quickly cool off.
John finally got a break to come join us. I only gave him a moment to drink his drink before herding him off to check out the snorkeling area.
Again, I am sure there are moments when he reeeealllly hates traveling with me.
There wasn’t a ton to see, but we did find a stingray and then what looked like a ray at first, but had a shark tail and would require a little Googling to figure out that it was a skate. We also saw a tiny barracuda and several wrasse parents guarding their fry. One sunken block of concrete was jumpin’ with several fish. I found an old friend, the Sergeant Major fish, which have black and yellow stripes and are always attracted to my flippers that match them.
Then it was the dinner buffet which had a TON of options. Both of us were feeling a lot better throughout the day, so I finally felt like I could stuff myself. It was International Night, so I just took a scoop of everything, especially the vegetable dishes. There was really good tomato bisque soup and some really good desserts, little brownie bites and some dense chocolate cake. Okay, check for the “eating” priority…
Afterwards, we went to the Big Circus evening performance, which wasn’t very circus-like at all. At least not what I was expecting. It was basically a singing performance by people wearing circus looking costumes. Still a good show. I liked all the Mexican songs and laughing at one of Jonah’s new friends he met at the resort who got up to dance with the performers.
We went back to the room afterwards, planning to go to bed early to prep for diving in the morning. But I couldn’t sleep and stayed up till about 1 in the morning watching more See episodes on Apple TV.
Day 3
My alarm had been really quiet for months (I finally figured out the setting to fix this) so I slept through mine and only woke up when John’s alarm was going off. He likes to really push it being on time to places, so I leapt out of bed in a panic. Thankfully we were already packed for diving the night before and I just had to throw on a bathing suit and a cover up. I hefted the dive bag on my shoulder and rushed to the breakfast buffet (again going through the staff area because I had no time to get lost on the way).
I am a slow eater so I knew I needed more time to get enough calories in, whereas John showed up and ate his breakfast in five minutes. We made it to the dive counter right at 8:00 and were there for the announcement that the harbormaster had opened the waters. Cheers all around. Buuuuuut that meant that now the boats could START to head our way to pick us all up, which would be a little over an hour. So they told us to come back at 9:30 and there would be only 1 morning dive. I was trying to figure out why they didn’t just tell us to show up at 9:30 knowing the boats would have to travel to get to us. Uncle Greg hypothesized that maybe there had been a chance the “open” announcement would have come earlier and they could have been there at 8. True, true.
John, who had spent the whole morning telling me I was being ridiculous rushing around and insisting on being on time, used this moment as justification for his point. I disagreed. Growing up with a mom who always made us late everywhere has given me serious heart palpitations when I am running behind. I get so stressed out and anxious over it. Uncle Greg agreed with me that it is important to be on time, so 2 against 1 and I win.
Now that we had time to spare, John went back to the room to work on his other priority, sleep. I grabbed a magazine and headed for the beach and thoroughly enjoyed my peaceful morning, getting tan. I was reading an old National Geographic magazine I had stashed for a couple of years at this point waiting for chance to be read.
When we came back to the dive shop at 9:30, we arranged to do 2 afternoon dives to make up for the 1 we had already paid for that we were missing that morning. We figured if there was an issue with the water being closed the next day (when we were supposed to dive 4 times), then at least we did the extra one that afternoon. And if we got to still do 4 dives the next day, we would just pay for the extra dive at the end.
At this point, I should probably mention that my Uncle Greg got dive certified specifically for this trip! He was about to do his first ever ocean dive!
We followed our dive guide, Ana, aboard the Aquadiver III. We schlepped all of our gear to our side-by-side tanks and Uncle Greg quickly finished up his Nitrox certification tasks. John and I got Nitrox certified while on the liveaboard in the Bahamas. It really helped with back-to-back diving over multiple days. We didn’t feel as tired as we usually felt diving on air. I was glad Uncle Greg had taken our suggestion to just do it right away.
We attached our gear and got our dive briefing for the Yucab site. We would be at 50-60 feet, swimming with the current. Uncle Greg was assigned a buddy who was also on her first ocean dive, so we estimated they might need to come up together early for their air consumption. Our group was the 3rd and final to leave the boat. A big step and then we were in the ocean!
I was sooo excited!
We descended all together and I was immediately struck by the speed of the current. Even as a pretty experienced diver, I found myself struggling to have complete control of where I was going. There were a couple of times I dropped down to observe something more closely and almost ran right into the coral wall down stream because the current was pushing me so hard and fast. There were also several times I thought “ooo, I wanna go under that ledge” but by the time I thought it, it was too late and I was already passed it.
Thankfully, the visibility was phenomenal, so I was able to see a lot even as we rocketed past. I saw several scrawled trunkfish and filefish, angelfish, lobster, and big silver triggerfish.
John at one point called me backwards to something and I struggled and swam for FOREVER against the current until I got to him to see…. a spotted trunkfish that I had already seen a dozen of.
Bless his heart, they are his favorite fish so he was excited to point it out.
Uncle Greg got to see me swim through a pretty big group of blue striped grunts in one of my more controlled moments. He thought that was cool. He also liked the black durgeons. I told him those were the fish that first inspired me to learn to dive. I had fallen in love with their unique movements while snorkeling in Hawaii and wanted to be able to spend more time in their world. Only once I could dive and get closer did I learn that they are not actually black, but a mosaic of colors. From a distance, it all blends into black. (It’s nearly impossible to tell in this video. Just take my word for it. Or better yet, go diving and see for yourself!)
Uncle Greg did end up ascending early by himself when he was low on air and skipped his safety stop. There was some miscommunication with the underwater sign language about what he was supposed to do. We also hadn’t been given computers with our rentals, which would usually beep at him to do a stop. He had never done a safety stop before because his dives for his classes were only down to 30 feet in a quarry. And without a computer beeping at you as you ascend and telling you when to stop and for how long, he was at a bit of a disadvantage. Ana had told us before the dive that her buoy had knots to help us find where to float during the safety stop, but he had missed that part.
Hey! It’s a lot to keep track of on your first dive! Where’s my regulator? How deep am I? Should I have more weight or less weight on my next dive? Should I add air to or dump air from my BCD? Watch out for that coral! How much air do I have left? Where’s my buddy? What’s that fish called? Why is this current so fast?!
Anywho, he got a reminder from Ana when we were back on board. Honestly, I was very impressed with his management of the current and his buoyancy control for a first real dive!
John has VASTLY improved his air consumption since our first days of diving. We made it till the end of the dive each time when normally we’d be coming up halfway through. That felt great, to really maximize our time underwater since we always have to travel so far and pay so much for the experience.
I warned Uncle Greg that not every dive site is as stunning as that one was.
I was super impressed with the health and color of the coral there. It was VIVID!
And there were so many fish that I often didn’t even know where to focus my attention. It was all just so amazing and quite the bar to set for future dives for Uncle Greg.
We came ashore and found Aunt Leslie and the kids (who are fully grown men, but as their older cousin by 8+ years, I will always think of them as the “kids”) to have lunch at the buffet. I had a big salad (anyone a Seinfeld fan?!) and 3 pork tacos and some chicken thighs and a little scoop of pasta. Plus dessert! Any weight I lost with my upset stomach before this trip was quickly being packed back on and then some!
That was pretty much all the time we had, so it was back to the dive boat, this time with guide Martin. We went to a spot called Palancar Horseshoe Crab. We didn’t see any horseshoe crabs and I’m not even sure if there are any there, but that was the name. I would guess we were around 70 feet on these next two dives. Thankfully Martin was able to bring us up on top of the shallower reef towards the end of the dives and did safety stops with Uncle Greg before continuing on the dive with the rest of us. Uncle Greg did say at one point the wrong boat was coming to pick him up, so I was glad he paid attention to the boat name.
This site had TONS of awesome terrain to explore. These types of dives are my absolute favorite.
John happily stays a little above me while I look under every ledge and zoom around every coral monolith. Martin had told us ahead of time that there would be several swim throughs and explained the options to either follow him through or follow along up top by tracking the stream of bubbles. John mostly did the latter, simply preferring not to have to get in a line of divers. I LOVED the swim throughs and could not believe that Uncle Greg was having such success with them.
Thankfully the current was almost non existent at this site. While the terrain was mostly the highlight of this dive, we still did see a lot of quantity and variety of fish. I found one of my favorite fish, which I have seen labeled both as snub nosed or sharp nosed puffer. (You’d think those two descriptions are actually opposites, but whatever.) I love their little defensive attitudes they have and the unique way they swim.
John saw a giant puffer up on top of the reef while the rest of us were in a swim through. I was so sad to miss it. I saw a drummer fish, which is pretty rare and this weird millipede thing crawling over the coral that I have never seen before. (I don’t have footage of either of those.)
There were tons of blue chromes flitting about everywhere…
and I got to see a cute butterfly fish couple swimming along together.
This was a really awesome site because the reef got shallow enough to do our safety stop while still exploring and seeing everything up close. All of the dives we did in Cozumel were clear enough to still keep our eyes out for bigger sea creatures, even while waiting for the boat at the surface.
The dive sites were all close enough to the resort dock that we actually went back in between dives for a 10 minute shore break. I thought that was so weird, like what was I supposed to do with 10 minutes, get to my room and turn around? But John made the journey to grab me a Payday that Aunt Leslie had gotten for me as a plane snack for the way home. I don’t think any of them actually made it to the plane ride home. They were the perfect in between dive snack!
The next site was called Punta Dalilah and I am ashamed to say I didn’t make note of what we saw. Martin identified it as his second favorite dive site and it was really awesome. Perhaps we had already seen everything on the other dives so I didn’t write it down.
This might be a good place to pause and give a little nod of acknowledgement to lots of the amazing fish species that I see on dives that I don't give a lot of credit to.
Sometimes I don’t know their species, so I don’t often talk about or write about them later since I have nothing to call them. Sometimes I do know their names but they are so common (grunts, yellowtail snappers, small groupers, tangs, wrasses) that they just blend in to a blur and don’t get the attention they deserve. As I was categorizing my photos for this article, I actually made a group called “not a STAR fish”, which was my punny way of labeling them. Well here’s their little moment of recognition. Thank you, all you non-star-fish, for always being there.
There was still a good amount of fun terrain and we did see a splendid toadfish which is endemic (only lives) in the Cozumel reef system. It was always hiding in its little caves, but you could see it sort of had a bunch of whisker-like features under its jaw, a wide mouth like a toad, and cool yellow trimming on its fins. Martin later told us that you can sometimes hear them croaking underwater. I don’t think I was very attuned to using my ears underwater, so I never noticed it. (No footage of that either, darn!)
But speaking of toadfish, here is also a good spot to send a little love to the ever present "Frog Man".
It’s a name John earned for himself in our early days of diving when he would struggle to control his buoyancy and find himself floating away to the surface. He always had this funny spread-eagle shape about him as he sailed away. I find myself glancing over one shoulder and then the other and then stopping and doing a full turn around, but still missing him. It’s only when I roll over so that I am facing the surface do I find him. Of course HE has had an eye on ME the whole time. And he’s been trying to point out cool things to see the whole time, if I would ever look his way. He has learned he just has to come get me when he is running low on air.
He's my dive buddy.
Although that’s too mild of a term to describe someone who keeps us safe while I follow a fish or decide that I have to check out what’s in that cave. He’s always checking in on our air consumption and making sure I can see where the group is going when I am hanging back, working on my photography. He had to physically restrain me from leaving a safety stop to go chase after a shark I saw swimming by beneath us. He held my hand the time that we lost our dive group and surfaced in a lightning storm.
Perhaps he is why I feel so at home underwater, because I've brought a little bit of home down there with me.
Once diving was done for the day and we were back on shore, we showered up and gave our gear a little rinse before heading to dinner. That evening we had a reservation with the BBQ restaurant at the resort. I got another big salad while I waited for Aunt Leslie’s family to arrive and for the platters of food to come. John had a plate of dessert while he waited. I do not know where that guy puts all the sugar he eats, he always looks the same! I’ve officially decided that BBQ is my favorite cuisine, if I can even call it that. I smashed some pulled pork and some brisket and a piece of chicken all smothered in sauce. There were also hush puppies and baked beans and creamed corn and a mustard-y cole slaw that was all really good.
THEN I had dessert like any respectable citizen. And John had seconds.
We were pretty tired and excused ourselves from the evening performance to head to the room. I managed to not watch shows all night and fell right to sleep. (Maybe the Nitrox doesn’t make as much of a difference as we thought?)
Day 4
I got my alarm figured out, so I was bright and early for breakfast. I couldn’t bear to put on a still damp bathing suit, so I just went in my PJs with plans to change after eating. Once I was seated with my typical plate of a little of everything, I overheard one of the waitresses complaining in Spanish to her coworker that I had sat myself at a table for 4 when I was just 1 person. I just covered up a little smile although I was surprised they are not more careful with that. There are a lot of people (even white Americans!) who can understand Spanish. Uncle Greg and Keegan showed up to help fill the chairs and I was hoping John would come so then I could politely inform her (in Spanish) that now we had 4, but he didn’t. He was satisfied with the banana he had stashed in the fridge and probably some candy knowing him.
Once dressed, we walked across the beach and got our rental BCD and regulator and pretty much walked right on board. Everything was fully operational that day, so we would get in our 4 dives and just pay for an extra. I am never one to complain about more time underwater.
We were on the Aquadiver III again, now with Gera, who said we could just call him G. Our first site of the day was Palancar Horseshoe Crab again. I would normally prefer to see someplace new, but I had really enjoyed that spot the day before and was excited to go again. I was actually surprised that I recognized any of it, but I did notice a couple of spots as places I had intentionally filmed the day before.
During the dive briefing, Gera said that he and one of the other divers would be going past 100 feet for some color comparison and dive computer calibration. We were welcome to follow or just hang out above them until they were done. Later, I talked to the woman and learned she was finishing her Advanced Diver certification and those skills were a part of her test.
So on Uncle Greg’s first ocean dive, he battled a ferocious current. On his second dive, he was doing swim throughs. And on his fourth, he went over 100 feet deep. Incredible!
He was also able to make it to the end of the first 3 dives on this day as he became more at ease in the water and was breathing smoother. At one point, he was asking me how I breathe and I referred him to John who had gotten advice before from a guide about taking little sip breaths. Like sip, sip, sip until you were full and then exhale.
I told him I don’t really breathe for oxygen under there. I breathe to go where I want to go.
I exhale to drop down and inhale to rise up over something. And of course I am getting oxygen along the way, but that wasn’t really helpful advice to someone who was trying to strategize their air consumption.
A fellow diver in our group name Steve sort of became our buddy, helping Uncle Greg check his gear and complimenting my air usage. He and I were typically the ones about 10 feet lower than everyone else, zigging and zagging through tunnels and under ledges. I do enjoy chatting with other divers and finding commonalities or learning little tricks or getting inspired by them. We met 2 other couples from Colorado on this day as well. (Further evidence that even as a land-locked state, Colorado has the highest per capita of divers in the nation!) One of the women asked how I liked my Henderson Wetsuit because she was about to purchase a new one and the one I had was on her short list. I highly recommended it. (Links to all of our dive gear from this trip can be found in The Gear section below.)
Anywho, on to the dive. John ended up doing one of the swim throughs when Gera beckoned him in and I’m glad he did because that was the one that spit us out at 105 feet, so he got to be there too with the group. There were lots of butterfly and angelfish on this dive. Uncle Greg was excited to see a queen angelfish and hadn’t realized before that they came in those colors.
I later asked Gera about a group of blue fish (not blue chromis) who were always swimming together in a little line with black lips. They moved their fins like parrotfish, so I was wondering if they were juveniles who hadn’t changed color all the way yet.
He identified them as creole wrasses, which was not at all what I was expecting, but he showed them to me in his identification book and that’s exactly what they were.
There were tons of those groups on this dive and the subsequent dives of the trip.
They became one of my favorite things to see and I would always try to get up close to their little line and swim with them. Sometimes they would just break around me on either side which was fun.
While the creole wrasse was becoming a new favorite, I also was able to find just one of my older favorites, a juvenile damselfish. On the underwater mural I painted in my son’s room, both John and I are depicted in our dive gear above the crib. We both got to pick our top 3 fish that I would paint directly beneath us. John chose the lionfish, a spotted trunkfish, and a triggerfish (also some of my faves.) Under my figure, I have a giant puffer, a snub-nosed puffer, and the juvenile damselfish.
Also on this dive we saw a green sea turtle! John was frantically beckoning to me when I was much lower than him, around the lip of some coral. Once I popped up over the edge, I saw it immediately and got to see it swim away for a while.
Right as I turned back around there was a little school of barracuda floating there too.
To anyone who is afraid of all the creatures in the ocean and wonder how we can possibly dive with all these "terrifying" predators, I offer you this photo of a barracuda within inches of my face who didn't care to attack me at all.
Check out our Bahamas dive trip to see us getting up close with some beautiful reef sharks who, again, didn’t seem to notice the fact that we were potential appetizers. (This trip isn’t written yet. Subscribe to get notified when new content is released!)
We got to do our safety stop again from the top of the reef. My black and yellow flippers attracted some close up inspection from the black and yellow sergeant major fish.
Usually these flipper shots are the only footage of me, taken when I drop my GoPro to adjust something with my gear and it spins chaotically, capturing whatever it wants. I kinda liked this shot it got of me…
I played around with some backlighting shots of my own on these dives and this one turned out the best. It’s probably my most artistic underwater shot, because normally I’m just trying to capture what I see for my own recollections later.
Then we were back on board for our 10 minute shore break. I ran to see if the beach snack bar was open for a plate of fries, but it wasn’t and neither was the lunch buffet yet. I settled for another Payday and a Coke.
Our next site was called Jurassic Park, although Gera did say there was another name for it that was more complicated and Jurassic Park was just easier to remember.
For this dive, I switched from 14 pounds on my weight belt to 12. Usually when we rent gear, we get the weight pockets that go in the BCDs. I think that helps distribute the weight better. On the weight belt, which is what we were using here, I felt more like I was being bent in half. I know that is more weight anyway than I need, but I do prefer to be over weighted than under. I HATE that flyaway feeling of rising up to the surface and your air is expanding so you get going faster and faster out of control. I want to always be able to sink immediately when I want to. I can always swim up to rise. John and Uncle Greg also dropped some weight. I think Uncle Greg regretted it a bit and will go back to being overweighted because he did have float away issues after that when before his buoyancy control had been spot on.
Right away when we were gathering at the surface, Gera spotted a loggerhead sea turtle that was being closely watched by another group. So we dropped down nearby and got to see it grazing on the sea grass.
Next to it was a pretty big sting ray with a remora getting a free ride.
As we left the sand and grass behind and followed the reef, I was noticing there were a lot of fish that were half black and half white. I looked them up later and according to Google they are called chromis iomelas, or simply black and white chromis. I spent some time just enjoying watching them. They were another fish that wasn’t a “star” fish before, but now I was giving them their due. They were really fun to watch, and now that I know they are chromis, I can see the similarities to their blue cousins that I usually love watching.
John and I also noticed (and were able to point out to each other in our underwater sign language) that the black durgeons in this particular area were SUPER colorful. It made me wonder if they had control over their displays and could brighten their color at will.
John frantically motioned to me again and I was really hoping it was more than just a trunkfish this time. Sure enough, it was a giant puffer, my favorite! Usually they are pretty shy and will run away and hide as soon as they notice me. This one was intent on crunching through a conch shell and didn’t seem to care that we stopped to watch. It picked up the conch and broke off a piece once and then again. But after the second time it dropped down into a hole in the coral. The pufferfish couldn’t get to it anymore. I felt so bad, I wanted to reach down and pick up the conch and hand it to the puffer, but I wasn’t sure if the puffer would even get close enough to take it from me. And we were diving in a National Park and had been warned not to touch anything before each dive, so I just let it go.
Earlier when we had been snorkeling by the resort, I had found a conch shell all broken to pieces. I had hypothesized that perhaps a sea turtle would be a creature with a sharp enough beak to crunch through the thick conch. Perhaps even an octopus could wrap up the conch in his arms and squeeze it to pieces. Now I was realizing a puffer could have done that damage. (No footage sadly.)
This whole time I was noticing strange tracks in the sand. I wondered if a stingray was creating the trail as it swam by, but I was able to follow one of the tracks and found the culprit at the end. It was a conch shell that was now occupied by a hermit crab. I also found a giant colorful empty conch shell just laying in the sand. I thought of my cousin Sarrah who spent our whole vacation to Florida looking for an intact conch shell to take home without any luck. She would have loved to have found that one! (Forgive my camera strap in the video!)
Also on this dive, we found several lobster under a ledge and a couple of big crabs clinging to coral overhang. I did my own swim through and surprised a truly GINORMOUS crab spider walking in one of the tunnels. It froze like a deer in headlights, it certainly hadn’t been expecting me to come swimming by.
A turtle, a stingray, 2 types of chromis, colorful durgeons, a puffer, big conches, lobster, and a giant crab all in one dive? Ya, Cozumel was really living up to its reputation!
We had just 30 minutes for a lunch break before the afternoon dives. I was looking forward to maybe rinsing off and putting on dry clothes while luxuriating in the all-I-could-eat lunch buffet, but instead settled for wrapping a towel around myself and grabbing a chicken sandwich, fries, and a Coke from the beach snack shack. It did not disappoint. John right away went to the room to plug in my GoPro and then I grabbed it and the rest of the gear after I was finished eating. Before we knew it, we were back on board looking for a guide named Flo.
Flo turned out to be male which I narrow-mindedly had not been expecting. He got us seated and we started going through our set up routine that was getting pretty fluid. This dive site was called Palancas Caves and would also feature dramatic topography and swim throughs.
As we dropped back into the water, I was reflecting about how strange it was that we hadn’t seen any eels on this trip. Usually we see one pretty much every dive. Perhaps they weren’t on this reef for some reason??? Nope, I was wrong.
I could hear John vocalizing through his regulator and turned to see an 8 foot, free-swimming moral eel.
It went around a monolith of coral and I went around the other side to get some good footage of it. It let me get decently close, although I didn’t want to push it with those snapping jaws and sharp teeth.
There were a lot of big silver triggerfish that were fun to watch glide by and a big barracuda hovering above us. At one point when we were swimming along the coral wall with the drop off to our left, we saw the silhouette of a reef shark cruising along. I absolutely LOVE when we see sharks!
John found a lion fish, one of only 2 that we saw out of the 7 dives. And they were both really small. Hopefully they won’t infest this reef like they have been doing to other ecosystems.
Uncle Greg excitedly pointed out the biggest grey angelfish I have ever seen, easily double the size of normal ones!
I chose to skip one of the swim throughs and stay on top with John. It was actually super fun to swim through all the bubbles filtering up through the coral.
At the end of the dive, there was a big bait ball of bar jacks swarming at the surface. It made for perfect entertainment while we waited for the boat to pick us up.
Flo made me smile with a shark glove that he made swim by my mask.
Sadly, it was then time for our final dive of the trip and very likely mine and John’s last dive for at least a year and a half as we plan to start trying for our second child soon. It did not disappoint.
While the coral wasn’t as dramatic at this site (called Paseo del Cadrel), we saw so many cool animals to make up for it. At one spot, Uncle Greg and I zoned in on a location that the others had been circling, obviously looking at something. When we got there, we didn’t see anything of note, so we looked at each other and shrugged. One of the other divers directed our attention to where the biggest lobster I have ever seen was out walking around.
We also saw a couple of sting rays. Uncle Greg pointed out one really cool one with stripes.
There was another moray in his cave and this long white fish I hadn’t seen anywhere else. I think they are a sand tilefish, based on some Google Images searching.
Flo stopped us to see a pretty big nurse shark slumbering in its cave for the day. There was more of a current on this dive again and I didn’t make a good approach on my first pass, almost getting pushed into other people trying to film. So I circled around for another go and got to see it better.
And then, something happened that I had been waiting for during my whole 7 years of diving…!
Flo stopped us at a little fan coral where a reddish brown SEA HORSE was swaying with its tail wrapped around the branches. It was pretty perfectly camouflaged, but thankfully would probably be considered big for a sea horse. So once Flo pointed it out, it was easy to see. My GoPro battery was dead, so I just got to enjoy it with my own eyes that were actually welling with tears I was so happy. I ended up getting footage from another diver.
With that icing on the cake of our diving here, we surfaced and headed back to the resort.
There were tons of amazing creatures I didn't have space to feature here, but do check out the full photo gallery to see them all. There is a link at the end of the article.
It was again a bit of a rush to get to dinner. I showed up with wet hair from my shower to our reservation at the Mexican restaurant and happily gushed about our days of diving. I enjoyed a couple of frozen margaritas (one strawberry and one passion fruit) since I wasn’t diving anymore and got a little tipsy. Either that, or I just still felt like I was on the boat and hadn’t gotten my land legs back.
John was still jonesin’ for some sweetness, so we went to the dinner buffet and I watched him smash 2 whole plates of desserts. I got waylaid by an artist selling little painted surfboards outside the building. There was one that had a couple of divers on it and he personalized the empty space with a turtle and a couple of fish and a sea horse in honor of the coolest things we saw diving. (John griped that he put 2 sea horses when we only saw 1, and I had to reassure him that perhaps that meant we would see another again sometime.)
Then we were back in the room for more shows since we could sleep in the next day.
Day 5
Suddenly it was our last full day, and I was kinda glad we didn’t have any dives planned so we could just chillax. We showed up around 10am to breakfast again that we got to savor with most of the group. Keegan was still snoozing. But the buffet ran out of chocolate croissants! No!
I immediately changed into my tanning bathing suit to get a little sunburn with my magazine. John had a work call, but Leslie’s family came to sweat it out with me. Thankfully the pool at the clubhouse was freezing cold so it was a quick refresher to get back out there.
Then Aunt Leslie and I walked down the shoreline looking for shells.
We found some nice pieces of coral and some intact clam shells and lots of little snail shells and small conches with cool colors.
Afterwards, I went back to check on John who was trying to sneak off into a nap when we were supposed to be getting to the spa for our free massage. It was a 50 minute Swedish massage that was super relaxing. It was included with our stay under Aunt Leslie’s Iberostar membership.
John went back to work and I went back to the beach. Aunt Leslie’s family spent the remainder of the day by the pool and I attempted to tan just the areas of me that weren’t already burned until the sun set.
We arrived in Mexico in November, but John and I had actually left our house in August when a long term renter booked our house on Airbnb. So I packed for this trip months ago. Aunt Leslie gave me a cute dress to wear since I didn’t pack to match their level of looking nice at dinner each night. I was looking forward to wearing it to our last night of dinner, but she overestimated my skinny-ness and gave me a size that I haven’t been since college. Oh well, a friend of mine will fit it and I just threw on my black jeans that I hoped could pass for slacks and a nice top.
After dinner, I wanted to just sit on the beach some more and watch the waves come in. Jonah brought a bottle of champagne and toasted to family. I had a Coke and my dark chocolate that was in our welcome package in the room.
It was relaxing to just listen to the surf and observe all the different shapes and sizes of the waves.
Day 6
WAAAAAH! Time to go home! As the man checking us out said, “back to reality”.
We bid farewell to Aunt Leslie’s family after breakfast.
I was mostly packed from the day before, so I got one more half hour to lay on the beach in the sunshine. I didn’t even read much, just watched the waves some more and the boats bobbing around and a pelican (my favorite bird!) fly by.
Before we knew it, our wristband room keys were being cut off and we were in the golf cart with our luggage being taken back to the lobby. Only as I was munching on a plate of meat and cheeses there in the waiting area did I see that there was a tattoo parlor in the lobby the whole time!
If I would have known earlier I would have made us all get matching sea horse tattoos!
Uncle Greg simply replied, “next time”. I’ll be holding him to that!
They Way Home
Our check out was quick and our drive back to the airport was smooth. Our flights were on time and we had an empty middle seat in our row for both flights. There was no line for customs and everything went flawlessly smooth.
You know, how it would NEVER go if we had been traveling with Grey and needed things to be easy!
It was my last airport experience for the 2023 year, and I was happy it all ended on a good note. I even got my favorite airport food, Aunt Annie’s pretzel bites, when we landed at the Vegas airport.
When we arrived back at the house, Grey was so excited to see us that he sort of screamed and cried at the same time and ran to us. Once he settled down a little bit, he spent some time running to and from the two of us, leaping and jumping on us for a squeeze and a kiss.
We can’t wait for him to be old enough to appreciate joining us on a trip like that, and especially being able to share scuba diving with him.
In Reflection
I am now back at home writing this article after our first month of “trying” again for Baby #2. While I am very much looking forward to pregnancy again (I had it easy with Grey) and adding a new little one to our family, I am already starting to grieve all the adventures I won’t be able to do for a while. Don’t misunderstand me, I am still very active during pregnancy and with Grey we were back out hiking when he was 4 weeks old. But there is only so much weight I can put on the waist strap of my pack over a very pregnant belly. So backpacking gets cut at some point. And it’s hard to find a partner for rock climbing PLUS a babysitter for a newborn (cause usually who I would ask to babysit is who I would ask to climb with me), so that gear gets used less and less.
But it’s diving that is out from the very beginning and feels like it’s out for a while afterwards too. This time though, I am going to be less hesitant to call in favors. My Aunt Nancy lives part time in Florida and hosted us and babysat for us this past year so that we could go diving. Hopefully she’ll be okay with watching 2 someday! And now that my Uncle Greg is into diving too, we have even more reason to meet up with Aunt Leslie’s family on their regular Caribbean vacations. Maybe I don’t wait until I’m done nursing to leave Baby #2 for a few days. (Please let this one take a bottle!) Maybe I just bring Baby #2 along and Aunt Leslie gets to babysit and I just have a different sort of beach vacation than I’m used to.
However it works out, I am vowing that it won’t be 30 months before I am breathing underwater again.
Additional Reading
The Gear
We rented BCDs and regs, but we otherwise bring our own gear that we know fits us well and suits our individual needs. We both use Atomic Split Fins, which we pair with Deep See dive boots. I love my Henderson 5 mm Wetsuit because I get cold so easily, even in the tropics. John had a triathlon wetsuit he used for a while, but he recently upgraded to this O’Neill Wetsuit with a chest zip to make it easier for him to get on and off without help. John’s mask is the Tusa Freedom Ceos, but I like my Scubapro Sub Vu Mini better. It doesn’t have a blind spot over the nose and it also has side view panels. We both dive with snorkels on, although we have been told by guides before that we shouldn’t. I prefer to have it in case of an emergency where I am out of air and still need to swim far at the surface to reach safety. Mine is a Mares Ergo Dry and John’s is a Tusa Hyper Dry. I highly recommend the GoPro Hero with this Dive Case and Handle that I use for filming. I have been down to 105 feet with this set up and never had an issue. Also, at the time, I did not have a Dive Flashlight, but I do now. It’s great for illuminating creatures underneath coral overhangs for filming. All of this gets hauled around in our Stahlsac Dive Bag.
Some other beachy stuff we brought besides dive gear…
Reef Safe Sunbum SPF 30 Sunscreen
Sunday Afternoons Ultra-Adventure Hat
Links provided will take you to Amazon to purchase. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Anything linked here is something that I actually own and used on this adventure, unless otherwise noted.