Cozumel Snorkeling

The point of going to Cozumel was to get to see some of its apparently amazing marine life on the many reefs that stretch along its westerly edge. No fewer than a hundred world class dive sites have been identified within 5km. I had been desperate to get in the water as soon as the peg was off, and we had booked in advance a decent sounding snorkel trip (3 reefs over 3 hours) with the deep blue dive shop before we arrived.

Unfortunately deep blue dive shop was run by Gary from Barnsley who turned out to be a rather grumpy and totally useless type. Even though we had phoned 3 days in advance and he'd taken our card details for payment he couldn't guarantee us a place on the morning we had asked to do it. In the end after 3 trips to the shop he finally got us on the afternoon one.

The boat was another of the little covered lancha's that bomb around all over the place, but we shared the journey with various others, most of home were doing a couple of scuba dives. This actually worked out fine, and of the 3 reefs we got to snorkel, 2 were top notch with loads of coral and fishes galore.

We finally got to try out the underwater case for the camera, and were well chuffed with the results.

Here's a small vid I took at the first reef. That's Clairy at the end.


Oh hi! Nice mask.


It was beautifully blue and clear. Lots of loverly coral.


Clair got these pics of shells nestling in the coral.


So blue!




All kinds of coral formations.


These little stripey beasts were well inquisitive and swam right up to you.


Oh hi too!


Not sure what this big fella is, maybe a barricuda.




Unbeknownst to us (and I don't think he really should have been), our pilot was chucking bits of banana and watermelon in the water around us, so these big ones were swimming right in front of our noses.


Love the colour on these ones.


The fish below was an absolutely stunning array of pinks, yellows and blues, but only when the light was coming from the correct angle.


This shows it a lot better.






This one was Clair's favourite. They had such precise little checked patterns.








Just so much life. It was immense.


I adored swimming down as far as I could (remembering to squeeze the air out of me ears first!). In some parts the reef was really deep and if you got all the way down there you got to see some stunning stuff.






Who's hiding down here?


Bloody tonnes of you!


And here we are totally pooped at the end. Absolutely fab!