Cozumel - January 3rd, 4th and 5th

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Here we are, third day on the road, and we still haven't put anything but our feet in the water!!! We arrived safe and sound in Cancun, on Sunday, January 3rd. Somehow =) and I'm not sure how, I managed to book myself in first class, while Jim was in Row 24!!! I flew on miles and we purchased Jim's ticket. I wasn't assigned a seat at the time we booked but found out the day before we left the airline assigned me a seat in first class!!! If I could fly first class every trip, I would fly every week. But for once United Airlines didn't disappoint us and we and our luggage arrived safely and on time to our destination. We met our friends Dave and Donna at the Comfort Inn, spent the night and the next day (Monday) took the shuttle to Playa del Carmen to get the ferry over to Cozumel.

Monday was windy - gale force winds, and the waves were probably 4-5'. I didn't think it would toss the ferry boat around, but it might as well have been a toy boat. We rocked and rolled across the channel to Cozumel, with the little stewardess handing out barf bags right and left. Luckily I didn't need one. I usually will get sea sick in rough seas, but we made the hour crossing without incident. We walked up the sidewalk until we found a little bar/cafe called Wet Wendys, had a "God I'm glad I'm off that Boat" Margarita and some nacho's and did a little bartering with the local vendors then headed to our resort.

We are staying at a dive resort called Scuba Club Cozumel, which is an all-inclusive resort for divers. As all inclusives go, it's very minimalistic, no flash or bling, but the rooms are clean, comfortable and the meals have been excellent. It's the weather that hasn't cooperated. This morning the seas were still pitching 3-4', and white caps where everywhere. They even closed the port this morning to the big cruise ships until 9:30 which meant the dive boats couldn't go out until then either. However, all 4 of us decided at breakfast we weren't going to go out because we knew the dive boats were going to get tossed around and didn't want to live that hellish experience for an hour out and an hour back. In fact several people canceled today, and they sent only 1 large and 1 small boat, even though the resort is full. So with diving off the menu, we decided to rent a jeep and tour the island.

The jeep arrived at the resort, the guys signed the paperwork and looked it over, then came and got Donna and I and said, "let's go". So we all walked out to the jeep, which had open sides and back and a canvas roof. No problem. But it only had two doors and to get into the back you had to be a circus contortionist. Only one seat lifted up and you had to literally pull yourself in with your arms because it was just high enough off the ground, you couldn't step into it. The nicest thing I can say about that jeep is it was a worn out piece of crap. We went around the island, getting out here and there, and by the time we got back I was so disgusted, worn out and beat up from crawling in and out of that broken, heap of machinery, I was fit to be tied. So I called the rental company and told them exactly what I thought of their $116 a day piece of crap and said we wanted something different. The agent was highly offended and I won't go into details of the conversation that ensued, but will say we got a different rental, which was a new car with air conditioning for the same price as the heap of a jeep they first gave us. We spent the rest of the day touring the island, visiting the ruins at San Gervasio, and stopping at Alberto's for a drink on the beach, all of which took place in the rain.
Tomorrow is another day. The forecast says sunny and 81 degrees with only 7 mph winds. We're going to do a checkout dive in the morning and are scheduled for two dives in the afternoon. Weather is always the unknown when you take a vacation, HOWEVER it doesn't help for us to hear from the other divers at the resort who have been here several times, "they have never experienced weather like this on Cozumel". Must be that global warming...............
This is our first trip to Cozumel and I'm not ready to give an opinion of our experience here yet, but I will say this; if your looking for a quiet, unhurried pace, Cozumel is not it. Today alone, 7 huge cruise ships pulled into port, and unloaded thousands of people onto the island, to shop, sightsee and tour. By 6:00 those people were safely tucked back on the cruise ships and the entire island shrunk back to it's normal size.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Cozumel
Have fun diving.