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Date: July 26, 2001 - - July 30, 2001
Airline: Continental - -
Austin, Texas to Houston, Texas to San Miguel, Cozumel
Hotel: La Ceiba ($850 hotel per person, double occupancy,
with free breakfast, transfers,and air fare)
Dive Operator: Dive with Martin (3 days of 2 tank boat dives with free shore diving $150)
Tips: $10 for dives
Taxi Fare: $10
Travel Agency: Continental Cool Vacations
Food and Drinks: $145
Parking: $15
Total cost: $1180
Weather:
Hot 95 degrees, Scattered Showers
Divers: Dan W.
The trip was welcome relief after months of diving
in the local lakes where visbility beyond
a few feet was only a dream. Add on top,
it's been over year from the last vacation
and you get a vary anxious diver. Overall,
the trip was great. We managed to avoid any
major catastrophies. It rained every day,
but never really on us. Fortunately, we seemed
to always be in a resturant, in the hotel
room or under the water. The old Suburbans
used for airport transfers have been replaced
by nice new full size vans. A major mall
is currently under constrution just north
of Plaza Las Glorias. The completion target
was the end of the summer. From the looks
of the construction, I would bet on the end
of the year if they are lucky. Our pace was
fairly slow this trip with only nine dives
in five days.
The airline, Continental Airlines, needs to check their
flight schedules. Our return flight to Houston
actually arrived a few minutes early, but
then we had to wait for a gate to clear before
departing the plane. While waiting for our
luggage to arrive and then to clear customs,
we realized our flight to Austin had already
started to board passengers. After a mad
dash through the airport, we managed to squeeze
on to the plane. At least, we didn't have
to wait in line to board our flight. It never
seems to fail when you are running late,
your connecting flight is on the opposite
side of the airport.
Continental's airplanes were in excellent
condition. In fact, the jet on the return
trip could have just rolled of the showroom
floor. The in-flight flight tracker is pretty
cool.
On the flight from Houston to Cozumel, I
met my first person who had an uncontrolable
fear of flying. This is an interesting experience.
At the firsrt bump of turbulance, she almost
jumped out of her chair and had this experssion
of pure fear on her face. I expected her
to get up and try to run away at any moment.
With every jolt to the plane, she would jump
as if she had been scared by someone yelling
boo in the middle of the night. After a few
minutes of some minor bouncing, her husband
retrieved a bottle of pills from their luggage.
She quickly gulped some down. The plane hit
a few more bumps and she began to pour more
pills from the bottle. Fortunately, her husband
quickly removed the pills from her hand before
she could swallow them. After the plane settled
down and the pills began to take effect,
we chatted for a few minutes. I would have
bet this was her first flight. As began to
learn, she actually flys quite regularly.
She was 36 years old and attractive, very
mild mannered. She's a totally different
person on the ground.
The hotel, La Ceiba had been recommended on the rec.scuba
forum by several other divers. A few people
claimed it was a better deal than Plaza las
Glorias. I would have to disagree. The price
really wasn't any cheaper and the room was
smaller. The rooms at the Plaza had an extra
area with a couch and table. The rooms do
not have safes but you can rent one at the
desk. The water pressure is so low the hot
water flows back into the cold faucet if
both are turned on at the same time. My first
shower was quite interesting. The water kept
getting hotter and hotter, no matter which
knob I turned. It took a few tries to find
the trick to setting the perfect shower.
Start by turning on the cold water and then
barely turn on the hot water. The beds are
as stiff a diving boards espeically for some
one who usually enjoys the comforts of a
water bed. And the window air condition unit
was barely able to keep up with the summer
heat and the bathrooms were isolated from
the cool air as long as the door was shut.
Fortunately, we don't spend much time in
the bathroom.
Overall, the rooms were kept clean and were
comfortable. Other than the pungent smell
of pesticide one of the days, we really had
no major complaints. The hotel is closer
to the reef and has a really nice shore dive
directly behind the hotel which includes
a sunken airplane. It's too far to walk to
town but a taxi ride is only $5 one way including
tip.
The food from the hotel resturant was OK. Beer was
over priced at $3.50 a bottle, especially
since the store in front of the hotel sold
beer for $1 per bottle. The lobster bisque
was probably one of our favorite dishes.
We ordered one night and they brought another
seafood soup with a bunch of tenticles pertruding
from the liquid. When we told the waiter
this was not what we ordered, he told us
it was good and to eat it any way. We were
not happy with this answer and told him again
this is not what we wanted. He then took
the soup away and corrected the mistake.
The hotel served a free breakfast but no
one told us it was free so the first day
we had coffee and went on our way. The hotel
served was the typical breakfast buffet.
We also ventured to one new location next
to the hotel called Ernesto's. This establishment
was also recommended in the forums but we
weren't really impressed at all. Fortunately,
we managed to eat a La Mission and Palmeras
in the middle of the San Miguel. Both places
still manage to maintain their reputation
as fine dining establishments. Guido's, as
we so sadly learned, is not open on Sundays
which we had set aside this specific time
to enjoy their cusine. There's always next
year...
The dive operator, DIve with Martin gets an "A+" for bottom time and
limiting the number of divers per boat to
6-8 divers. They were fairly flexible in
letting us choose the dive sites and did
a great job as tour guides of the deep. My
only complaint is the dive masters on 4 occasions
either harrassed the marine life or let other
divers harrass the marine life. In an effort
to "show off " the local critters,
they grabbed and held turtles, a slipper
lobster, an eel and an octopus. As soon as
we unpacked our luggage in the hotel room
we headed out for our checkout dive behind
the hotel. We stayed fairly shallow but managed
to see part of the airplane, a sharp tail
eel, porgies, a spotted eel , sting ray and
a scorpion fish. Not too bad for a checkout
dive. Now if I had a few more pounds of weight
it would have been perfect. Turtles should
have been the theme for the week. We saw
at least one on every boat dive. The turtles
ranged in size from 12 inches to several
feet in diameter. Palancar Caves was my favorite
dive. I decided to for go all the swim throughs
and swim over the tops of the reef which
turned out to be a great idea. I didn't have
to fight with all the other divers who struggled
to make their way while stirring up the silt.
Instead, I was rewarded with an opportunity
to see a greater variety of fish and coral..
One of my favorite sitings was a toad fish
which usually are hidden but this one happened
to be perched in clear view. During the week,
we saw several Alpha Parrotfish, Baracuda's,
Groupers, King Crabs, huge lobsters, school
of squid, 2 octopi, and of course all the
regular inhabitants, such as Angelfish, Grunts,
Parrotfish etc... On our last night dive
behind the hotel, we saw our first Medusa
Worm inside the main section of the plane.
The only creatures we missed on this trip
was a Moray eel and a seahorse. All of dives
were great though we manage to miss diving
on Paradise reef, which is a first. Usually
we end up diving Paradise at least twice
during each trip.
The boats in Cozumel can always be interesting.
On our last two dives we had one of those
boat that made you glad you could always
close enough to the shore to in case of an
emergency. This floor on this boat had cracked
and separated along one entire side of the
boat. Every time the boat hit a wave, you
could see the floor raise up an inch or two.
The captain had to slow down every time he
approached another boats wake in order to
keep from swamping the front of the boat.
When the boat was in motion the back of the
boat actually was lower than the wake of
the boat. During our commute between our
last two dives, we hit a wake and the ladder
bounced out of the boat and sank into the
abyss. Much to the amuzement of the people
on a boat from another diver operation, we
were able to borrow a ladder for our last
dive.
Daily Dive Log
Bare Tropical Shorty or Polartec Skin
12lbs of weight
New Mares Vectra 1000 BCD
Water Temp: 80+
Dive Log No.
76-84
Computer Dives
July 26, 2001
Dive Location: La Ceiba Hotel - Checkout
(46mn@37ft)
July 27, 2001
Dive Location: Santa Rosa Wall (40mn@92ft)
Dive Location: San Francisco (48@73)
Dive Location: Chancanab (night) (55@46)
July 28, 2001
Dive Location: Palancar Caves (43mn@83ft)
Dive Location: Cedral Pass (48@54)
Dive Location: La Ceiba Hotel (night) (59@36)
July 29, 2001
Dive Location: Columbia (42mn@109ft)
Dive Location: Chancanab (55@50)