Sinking to New Lows: Water Sports on Little Corn Island

---

---

We arrived on Little Corn shortly before sundown and walked up to our hostel. The restaurant was closed since they'd had a going away party down at the beach for an old employee so we had a quick bite in town and found a great lending library at Tranquilo, one of the major hangouts on the main strip. We grabbed a Mexico travel book and Mockingjay; finally we'd be able to finish a book that we were half done when we left home.

Water Sporting

The next week and a half was awesome. We didn't have a ton of ways to pass the time but we made alright use of our time there. One of the main things we wanted to do was get a couple more dives under our belts. We ended up doing seven more dives, including a night dive. Some people had mentioned that the diving was quite shallow and not necessarily worth paying for when you could just snorkel. On average the dives were about 10m deep, but we definitely enjoyed them nonetheless. On some of our first dives we saw multiple groups of spotted eagle rays with up to six members; it seemed like every time one was pointed out to us we'd have to turn around for the next group. We saw nurse and reef sharks, barracudas, and loads of other reef fish. A fish that became a favourite for Dan were new to us on these dives; he thinks he's I.D.ed it as the Yellowtail Damselfish. Our night dive was a great new experience. Originally we were a little worried about it because we thought the darkness would make it more difficult to react if something went wrong, or make us feel claustrophobic. With three of us on the dive with one dive master it was a great group size and we were each equipped with an underwater flashlight. We quickly got comfortable with the night aspect of the dive and really enjoyed having the spot lights; sometimes it's so hard to tell what a dive master is trying to point out, but the light makes it much simpler. It's also much easier to keep track of your buddy since you can see the beam in he water. It was hard to imagine, but the reef seemed even more alive at night. We got to see large groups of Remoras and even a Sea Turtle cruising along the reef. Since it was a night dive one highlight was supposed to be bioluminescence, but we unfortunately went on a cloudless night with a full moon so the bioluminescence we saw were limited to the microscopic sea crabs that light up to scare away predators; we waved our hands quickly through the water to set them off. The other different dive we did was in some swim throughs. They were too short to be considered caves and weren't sealed all the way overhead. It was a strange feeling to try to know what was above you so that you didn't bump the reef. We both did really well with the new types of dives.

We did do some snorkelling off the North side of the island at the Yemaya beach. It was reportedly the best area for it and it didn't disappoint. We had bought goggles (just the over the eye kind, not the nose) and snorkels when searching for turtles in Akumal so we gave these a try first before shelling out for rentals. We found swimming without the fins a lot of work, and Ashley has a hard time with water going in her nose. We were directed to go straight off the beach from the main path to Yemaya, and when the water got deep and sandy turn to the west. We just kept going and going farther out until we didn't see much and we headed back. The current had gentle moved us west as we were on the way back and we encountered a large reef blocking out way back to the beach. We got to see a spotted eagle ray from above which was a new angle for us, so we got to see his spots and the shape of his head and beak were much more defined to us.

We did finally do some paddle boarding as well. It was a little too warm and relaxing for Dan so he often made a point of falling off (sometimes more on purpose then others) and swimming about. The boards themselves are quite sturdy, and wouldn't flip but it wasn't hard to topple off ourselves when standing; a kneeling or sitting position worked well.

With heat, beaches, and a laid-back lifestyle like this it's no wonder people get caught up here.

More pictures here .

---

Comments

[John L]

Ahhh !!!! Shark !!!!
Beautiful Underwater photos ! And above water photos as well. Surprised to see long pants in that warm area - we are currently in a 39 C heatwave here in the Okanagan and no long pants in sight! See you soon in cooler parts of the World!