© copyright 2000 by K. Morin and N. Hutt,
Marine Documentation & Analysis Group (MDAG)

We were looking forward to our first visit to Cozumel, because many dive magazines recognize it as one of the most popular diving destinations in the world. Our main concern was that most dives reportedly involve drifting in relatively strong currents, which can lead to confusion and lost divers with unorganized and unsafe dive shops. During our stay, we found the currents not overly strong - we could swim against them and make some headway if necessary.  No doubt the divemasters took us to the gentler sites.

Our dive operator took us to several good dive spots, including the Palancar, Santa Rosa, and Dahlilah areas. Walls were great, with steep dropoffs and swimthroughs. Shallow dives presented us with a good variety of creatures, like moray eels, nurse shark, jewfish, toadfish, lobster, turtles, barracuda, octopus, and lots of various surgeonfish, wrasses, and butterflies.

The worst part of the trip was the loss of our underwater camera on our first dive. Somehow the waterproof case popped open underwater. That was the end of the camera, film, and batteries. This is why we have no photographs from this trip.

Overall, despite the number of divers visiting Cozumel annually, we were pleased with the amounts of coral and fish. This is, of course, not by accident. The dive organizations on Cozumel work hard to preserve the marine environment, and are doing a good job of it. The local people obviously foresaw more overall value to preserving the reef and fishery, than to depleting it for short-term gain.  Congratulations to Cozumel!