Cozumel

About 30 of us went to Cozumel for Spring Break this March. We stayed at the San Sabor Sunscape Resort and did our diving with Dive House. We used two different airlines going down as there were not enough available seats on American. Twenty went on American and the rest of us went down on United. American had a later departure from Cozumel and an earlier arrival in San Antonio. The United flight had a 5 hour layover (became longer with delays) in Houston.

We arrived to warm sunny weather and it pretty well stayed that way all week. We had a few

isolated showers but that was it. The resort is an all-inclusive with five restaurants and numerous bars. Food, accommodations and service was excellent.

We arrived in two groups on Saturday and another small group on Sunday. After checking in (most rooms were not ready until normal check-in time of 3 PM) we went to the Dive Shop to show our diving cards and pay the marine park fee. The rest of the day was spent unpacking and relaxing.

The next day at 8 AM we headed for the dock. The boats now pick you up at a large dock at the next resort. Boats were usually there on time or shortly afterward. Due to the size of our group we had two boats. Some of us dove Nitrox, but the majority were using air since only two dives a day were the norm; with an occasional night dive. It was somewhat confusing on the first day (as usual), getting everyone’s tank, weights, and gear assembled as well as analyzing the Nitrox cylinders. Eventually we got on our way to the dive sites.

Water was clear and warm, and full of marine life. Sting rays, skates, moray eels, angel fish, eagle

rays, groupers, nurse sharks, and an assortment of other fish including many precious toadfish (found only on Cozumel) and the most sea turtles and lobster I have ever seen in one week. We even saw some turtles mating. The day dives were all great.

Only about ten of us went on the night dive and we saw several octopuses, a school of squid, green spotted eel, crabs, lobster, burr fish, et al. Shawn was using the bio-luminescent light and it really gave the reef a different look. The nice part is this one from UK does not require a mask filter.

Everyone pretty much went their own way after diving although Stephanie was able to get reservations for the entire group on Thursday night. Since everyone had an afternoon flight on Saturday and the Borland’s were not leaving until Sunday; about ten people made a Friday morning dive.

The Dive House took care of our gear all week and we did not pick it up until Friday afternoon or Sat morning all clean and dry. A great service done for tips only. Seven of us had a noon departure on United and the rest left at 1:30 on American. The check in and departure went well although after getting to Houston, United (as usual) had delay after delay before we boarded and

then another hour and a half on the plane before departure. They fed us a line of bull about turbulence requiring staying seat belted and no service to San Antonio. Flight was calm of course. If they had just said that it was a short flight and the attendants did not want to try to serve a whole plane in that short time I would have understood. But as long as we sat on the plane at the gate they could have serviced two planes. The BS is what irritated me although since United merged with Continental I have had more aircraft delays, cancellations and mechanical problems than in the 20 years preceding that merger.

I think everyone agrees that Stephanie deserves a pat on the back for doing such a great job of coordinating everything on this trip. We will probably do Cozumel in the fall next year as we are doing Fiji for Spring Break. If anyone wants to do Cozumel for Spring Break we can arrange it for them.