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Cozumel trip report

Cozumel has two industries cruise ships and diving. Diving grew up around the reefs in the area. Since sandy and I don’t dive, we were limited to snorkeling which was quite nice, but the very nice diving reefs are all 20+ feet below the surface of the water, and just a wee bit out of snorkeling range.

Despite the nicer reefs being a bit too deep to snorkel, there was plenty of smaller coral formation right along the shore where we could snorkel.

One morning I looked out and there were several very serious swimmers out in the ocean getting a workout. Very strange for a resort in Mexico, but this week was the Cozumel iron man triathlon week, and all sorts of  world class athletes were in town.  For some reason swimming in the open ocean by my self , creeps me out a bit.  I think it creeps most people out. Even fresh water lakes creep me out.  I hate to let fear dictate my life, so I decided  to incorporate a 1 kilometer ocean swim into my morning workout .  The sheer feeling of  freedom of swimming in the clear waters, surrounded by tropical fish, outweighed the cons in this case. Swimming in a pool was so monotonous  and right in front of me was the 82 degree carribean the same water we came 2000 miles to  snorkel in.   The first  swim day I hugged the shore a bit, never really getting more than a couple strokes from the safety of the beach. The second day I decided it would be more interesting to move out away from the shore mostly to avoid the  constant dodging of the rocky outcrops. So I moved out into deeper water. I was cruising along, about 30 yards off shore in about 30 feet of water, when I spotted a school of Barracuda. These slender predators made me a little be jumpy because they a good sized ocean fish.  I picked my head up to get a a bearing on where I was.  You have to do this every minute or so to see where you are going, there is no easy way to navigate as you can’t easily pick up surface landmarks with the small ocean swells blocking your view.  So when I popped my head up, with the barracuda below me,  I catch the tail end of  splash 30  yards off in deeper water, like a really big fish returning after a breach.  And now, already on edge from the barracuda, I am thinking oh shit that was big,  should I stop swimming and float lifeless in the water, should I sprint the 40 yards into shore. Is that thing heading my way.. Then I see it, a big white tourist body flailing fins at the surface in the same vicinity of the previous splash. I never saw how he got out there, it was the first person I had seen away from the shallow beach,  but to my relief he was not going to eat me.

Swim with dolphins

We took our car to chakanaab park because we heard it had a nice beach for snorkeling.  The park is well maintained clean with a nice white sand beach. Note all the white sand beaches on the west side of the island seemed to have  retaining walls to hold the sand in place. It seems without them a consistent white sand beach was hard to maintain in place without a little help.   Although we did not swim with dolphins, we did take a quick tour of the dolphin enclosures which consisted of a a series of piers with netting to separate the dolphins from the open ocean. There were hoards of cruise ship people,  no less than 40 ships came through that week. I am not sure how you qualify to swim with dolphins but once accepted  you  get a briefing and the are lined up to swim with the dolphins . The term swimming, in this case  is a bit  of a misnomer. Swimming with dolphins involves standing  on a submerged platform , three feet under the water,  with a railing between you and the dolphins. You must also wear a bright blue life vest, I guess this is in case the dolphin drags you over the rail into deep water . The trainers  will coax a dolphin over to each person in the group one at a time. In turn, each the person uses a hand signal to encouraging a dolphin trick from the smorgasbord of two available tricks. You could get  a dolphin kiss,  or a hand shake.  Due to strict rules only the staff photographers were allowed to shoot pictures during your encounter.  So any visible proof  of your  Cozumel dolphin trick  were going to cost you. That was the extent of the swimming.

Best thing we did was rent a car and drive to the far uninhabited side of the island.   White sand, unspoiled beaches broken only by the thatched roofed beach bars every 5 to 10 miles with very few people. At the far end of the island where the main road turns back toward the tourist side, there is a little turn off marked by a sign that said something like, “do not drive on this road , even four wheel drive vehicles may not be able to pass.”  This is the road where your rental car insurance becomes void if you drive on it, so what did we do ? We drove on it.  It was getting dark so we only went perhaps 3/4 of mile , as my main goal was to defy the sign. The road was rutted and rough but nothing like the jeep roads in Colorado. It hugged the coast line just inside of the beach.  The only person we encountered was an eccentric British gentlemen in his 60′s that was out birding . We asked him if he had seen anybody else, and he said one other jeep had passed. In the same time, he had walked 3 miles and had seen 20 different warblers.  He also told us to be ware of the cat as he had just seen tracks in the road. In a quick exchange of naturalist speak, we both concurred that there are not supposed to be any big cats in Cozumel, but from his manner, and field equipment,  two expensive spotting scopes, cameras and field glasses, I suspect he spent quite a bit of time in observing nature. When I mentioned that the cat must be a feral house cat, he said “Those tracks were pretty big”, and I had no reason to doubt him. We never saw the cat and had to get back to town as it was getting dark and did not want to drive after dark.

sandy with corona

blow hole

swim with dolphins pier

snorkel beach at El Presidente hotel

Bed Bugs

On our second night in Cozumel, I woke up and noticed a blood stain near my pillow. Strange I thought, this is a 4 diamond hotel , and there was nothing there last night. There was also a rust colored blotch by Sandy’s pillow. During the day I did some more research and also found some dark rust looking black flecks on the mattress.  Bed bug poop confirmed. We got a new  room , with no problems , but the real hassle came when we got home . The more we read the more we realized how sneaky these buggers are , and how a small colony can start from one stow away egg in your luggage. The last 24 hours we have spent throwing out luggage , back packs and sterilizing clothes and shoes. You can kill them with 130 degree heat and so we did.