Cozumel Mother’s Day Part 2

About half of our group or so stayed an extra few days in Cozumel. 3 different families brought their mothers/fathers/daughters and we wanted to play “tourist” with the additional family members. One of our excursions were to jump on the ferry and travel across to the mainland. Our destination… Chichén Itzá.

If you ever have the opportunity to go to Cozumel, I’d definitely suggest taking the ferry across to the mainland. It was about 45 minutes. The cab driver that dropped us off at the ferry station recommended to buy a one way ticket since there are multiple ferry companies that travel back and forth and they won’t accept another ferry companies tickets. It just keeps you from getting stuck for 3 tickets when you only need two.

So this is a real pirate ship that travels around Cozumel but it is actually a dinner cruise from what I’ve researched.

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Cozumel Mother’s Day Trip Part 1

In May we headed to Cozumel Mexico. By the time we left I think we all needed a vacation. It was hubby, Abug, my mom, my MIL, and me who were able to go this year along with some other people to round out our trip. It was a lot of fun and after the way my day started I’m ready for some more Vitamin D and Vitamin Sea until my attitude changes!

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10 Reasons to Visit Cozumel, Mexico

I keep mentioning Cozumel and our trip. Are you sick of hearing about it yet without hearing about it? Yeah, me too! haha. So here is 1 of a couple posts on Cozumel… But this one is Why You Should Visit Cozumel!

1. The SCUBA Diving! Oh my gosh, the SCUBA diving in Cozumel is amazing. The water temperature is like 80-84 degrees F year round (26-29˚C). The sealife is out of this world. There are reef and nurse sharks, turtles galore, fish of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and so much more, including if you’re lucky a potential Hammer Head Shark AND Seahorses. No, the sharks aren’t scary. At first I thought they would be, but they aren’t. When people yell or give the Shark sign, others go running, camera in hand. The visibility seems endless. You could be at the surface, see the ocean floor, take off for it and it’s sitting at 80-100 feet down. I mean the visibility is a dream.

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Did You Make It?!?!

You see this pier right here? I have a fun story about this pier…. Hold on….

So in May, I’ve mentioned in passing a few times, we went to Cozumel, Mexico. When you board a dive boat, right there under that roof is usually where people enter the dive boat they are going out on.. that and a little bit to this side even. You know, those big pillars are to tie boats off to to keep them at the dock.

I’m not sure exactly how deep it is right there at the end of the peer, but it’s deep enough that dive boats can get in easily. I’ve heard around 20 feet… I now my friend Grady accidentally had his gear dropped off a boat and they had to free dive down to get it.

Okay, so now that you have a little back ground history…. Let’s proceed with today’s story.

The last night we were in Cozumel, around dinner time I ran out to get sunset pictures (the above photo is from the first night….). There were 3 people, appeared to be a mother and 2 kids possibly. The girl I assume was daughter was probably early 20’s and the guy I assume to be son was late teens. So guesstimate mom’s age by those numbers… if she was near 20 when she had said daughter, we’re looking at least at age 40.

They were getting ready to go out and do a night dive. They didn’t seem real confident in their diving abilities based off their conversations of, how do I put this on, where does this go, did I set this up correctly, etc. Hey, as a new diver I was there too. It happens to everyone until you get some dives in under your belt.

Now, those things on your feet, they’re called fins, not flipper. In our group if you call them flipper’s someone starts singing “Flipper, Flipper, Faster than Lightning”… you know the theme song from the show Flipper form the 70’s…. <crickets>

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Hotel Cozumel & Resort, Cozumel México

Oh my goodness, this hotel was so awesome! Deb and Grady definitely didn’t steer us wrong! This is a view of the lobby. Seriously, the lobby!

As we were checking in, they brought us this drink. I’m not really sure what it was, although I do know that it was virgin (aka no alcohol). It had a pineapple taste and it was good and interesting! At check in they took a copy of a credit card and a copy of our passport or our drivers license. And then we were off to our room. Hubby left me to get the luggage to the room while he and Grady went off to get weights for our shore dive that afternoon, but we had a bell hop to help with that. I was so lost though so Deb took me under her wing, thankfully!

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Cozumel México: Cozumel Marine World – The Nuria

When it came down to the actual dives, we let Deb and Grady help us out. They chose the dives as well as who to dive with. They always use Cozumel Marine World, and why would I question that? Seriously! Grady said that he’s now made 50 some dive trips just to Cozumel… Think about that. So Deb requested the Nuria for our boat with Clemente as our Dive Master. Again, who am I to question! They did us good too!

Now with Deb and Grady, Cozumel Marine World knows their routine. When Grady tells his people boat time is 8am, that means your butter better be there and you better be on the boat. When Grady told them he wanted the boat there at 9 that first morning, they didn’t believe him I guess because they were at the doc 30 minutes early.

So about the boat. Deb requested the Nuria. This is the mid size boat that probably holds 16 max comfortably. Deb said the small boat is about 8 people and the larger boat is about 20 people.

Grady also said that any group he takes can be on the boat in 5 minutes whether there are 5 people or 25 people. The gear goes in the middle, people get on, and once the boat is off, then you situate your gear as you please.

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Cozumel México: The last day and trip home {Monday}

Friday night Jared mentioned that we had the Jeeps and I should get up Saturday morning and go to the other side of the island to take sunrise pictures. I laughed at him and told him he was out of his mind, I’m not a morning person. Then Sunday night Doug mentioned I should get up with him Monday morning to take sunrise pictures. Again, I told him he was crazy.

Jump forward a few hours and 5am Monday morning and I was almost not quite wide awake. I had looked up sunrise for Monday which was just after 6am so I decided to stay awake since I was already up. I guess I dozed off because at 5:50am I jumped out of bed, threw on my shoes, and took off running down the hallway of the hotel. Doug had told me there was a “tower” where I could get good sunrise photos. I halfway thought about waking Doug up and dragging him with me, but I didn’t. Turns out he was awake and would have gone.

Even though I’m not a morning person, there is something so peaceful about the early morning hours. I watched a couple people drive by on mopeds and saw someone sitting in a doorway and couldn’t help but wonder what they were up to. It was so peaceful and quiet and just amazing. So then I started complaining that I didn’t take up the chance to use the Jeep on the other side of the island for pictures. Grady told me, don’t worry you’ll be back. No one makes this trip just once.

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Cozumel México: Our Last full day of dives {Sunday dives}

Hey, if you’re getting tired of reading about Cozumel, the end is near…. muahahahahaha. I don’t know, don’t ask……

Sunday morning when we went down to breakfast, for some reason I paid attention to the placemats which I hadn’t the rest of the week really. Then I started giggling. Of course, that makes all of our people question what I’m seeing or what I’m thinking… and that’s when I pointed out….. this phrase on my placemat….

At the shop we have a joke. The joke is instead of saying asshole, you say assolay… So reading the mat, this is what I saw…. Oh dear. Maybe it was… well maybe it was…. maybe there is no explanation.

Anyway after breakfast, same routine, grab our stuff and head for the dock to board the boat for the last time during the trip. It was very surreal! While we were standing at the dock, we noticed all the boats running this way and that. Grady heard that there really weren’t any prize fish caught the day before in the tournament so people were racing about trying to get that prize. I wonder if our friends ever got their boat up and running….

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Cozumel México: Casa Mission Restaurant

On our last night in Cozumel, Grady made reservations for Casa Mission, which is a sister restaurant to La Mission that Deb, Jared, Karen, Hubby, and I ate at Wednesday night. We went to the concierge and he got a van taxi so we could all ride together. I hate to say it, their driving is a bit scary to us, but it doesn’t seem like they have the accidents we do at home, which is weird to say the least. We drove around most of the building and there was artwork like this all sides we went past. Someone has serious talent.

It was a little bit of a walk into the restaurant and they had the yard beautifully landscaped. Wow!

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Cozumel México: Afternoon Diving at it’s Finest {Saturday Dives}

Because we had the Jeeps for 24 hours and we picked them up around 1pm on Friday, we decided to do afternoon dives on Saturday so we could venture out in the Jeeps Saturday morning if we wanted. The boat was to pick us up around 1pm on Saturday. When we got back to the hotel, we went and ate real quick and then headed to our rooms to change and get ready for the afternoon dives. As per usual, the boat was right on time (read that as early!). We loaded our stuff on the boat and we were outta there.

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