Cozumel, Mexico

by Trevor Thorpe

My name is Trevor and I’m a slightly physically disabled scuba-diver. I normally travel alone as none of my friends like the places I want to visit and I don’t have a girlfriend. I don’t mind travelling alone but I do mind being hammered for a single person supplement. I try to plan holidays to avoid this by picking a period when it is not being charged. This entire holiday without spending money cost me £1200-1300.

I’ve been to the island of Cozumel twice. The first time was in June 1997 when I was lucky enough to do 4 days travelling around the Yucatan Peninsula visiting places like Uxmal, a Mayan ruin, Merida, the capital of the Yucatan and then Chitchen Itza, another Mayan ruin, before boarding the ferry from Puerta del Carmen where I spent a further 10 days on the Island of Cozumel.

After a 10/11hr. flight from Gatwick we landed at Cancun Airport and after going through baggage reclaim and customs we were met by the courier and shown which coach to board. I spent the first night in downtown Cancun where after checking-in I went for a walk around and to get something to eat. After dinner I went back to the hotel and got a good night's sleep. After an early breakfast we set off on our tour through the Yucatan each night stopping in hotels which I thought were excellent. Uxmal was fascinating and after we had checked into our overnight hotel we went back for the laser show at night, which was really fantastic, before going back to the hotel for the night. After breakfast we headed off to Merida and an escorted tour around the Mayan museum and the rest of town.After checking into our overnight hotel we were given several hours to explore the town on our own before going back for our evening meal.. After a few drinks I went to bed as we had another early start after breakfast, this time to Chichen Itza.. After an escorted tour we had time to explore on our own before boarding the bus to go to our chosen destinations, be it Puerta del Carmen, Playacar, Cancun or in my case Cozumel.

I chose Cozumel as I have always fancied scuba-diving and had heard that Cozumel was very nice. After boarding the ferry at Puerta del Carmen for the 20 minute voyage to Cozumel myself and two elderly ladies were taken to our chosen hotel, the all-inclusive Allegro Diamond resort. The hotel itself is family friendly and has nightly entertainment which is really top notch as is the food, the rooms, the pool, the service - everything.

Anyway the next day after breakfast I went looking for the dive shop to register for a PADI. open water course. Over the next 4/5 days I had several more pool dives, interspersed with some open water dives and a lot of theory/classroom work. The first two open water dives were only 5m dives to familiarise myself with the equipment and then the next day I did two more open water dives, this time to 15m. After completing these I had to do a 100m swim which took place in the ocean, which I thought was very hard as on the return leg when I was shattered it was against the current. Luckily there were some divers going out for a night dive who gave me plenty of encouragement and motivation to complete it. After passing that and treading water for 10minutes the following day I was told I had passed and was now a fully fledged scuba-diver.

In total I did the 4 training dives and then another 4 pleasure dives. The on-site dive shop is run by Dive Palancar, a very safety conscious and professional organisation with some very good boats which can get you to the dive sites in 20 minutes. As I was just learning, I rented the kit which was very good and well maintained. I wore a wet suit although I didn’t need one as the water temperature was extremely warm.

The second time I went to Cozumel I stopped at the Allegro resort again but by this time (May 2000) I was an advanced scuba-diver and had my own kit (BCD., Regs. Fins, Mask etc.) I was also able to dive deeper and enjoy the diving better and dived Santa Rosa, San Francisco,P alancar, Chankanab Pinnacle, Cedral Delia, Columbia, Yucab, Dalia Wall and Chancanaab Reef. These are all beautiful walls where you just drift with the slight current. I can highly recommend Cozumel – I have been there twice which speaks for itself.

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