Scuba Diving in Cozumel

We took a vacation!  I know, I know … it looks like we’re always on vacation.  Our life is all about traveling in our RV, so it has been difficult to justify that we want a vacation from such a wonderful life.  My 60th birthday was coming up though, and I inherited from my Mom a need to mark decades with something special.  Birthdays in general are no big deal, but decades are something I want to remember. 

Here’s Jim and me on my birthday.

We thought about what to do … hike in Machu Piccu?  visit wine country in Italy?  Scuba dive in Galapagos? ahhhh scuba dive, yes! That’s it!  Scuba diving is one of the main reasons Jim and I got together – we both love scuba diving.  We have gone kayak-diving in Fort Lauderdale a few times over the last several years, but we haven’t gone anywhere else for diving since our visit to Fiji in 2006.  Where to go?  Indonesia … no – too far.  Galapagos … no – too expensive.  Bahamas … no, too close!  Cozumel … YES!  Some of the best diving anywhere in the world, it’s close, it’s comparatively inexpensive.  Jim did some research and found Occidental Grand Cozumel. 

Lobby of the Occidental Grand Cozumel

November is off-season, so the price was very reasonable … $2,100 got us one week of staying at the resort plus 10 dives each.  Airfare was another $1,500. It is an ‘all-inclusive’ resort.  That means that breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all 7 days are included in the price … and all tips … AND … all drinks.  yikes, that’s dangerous, but hey! as long as we didn’t drink before diving, all is well.  I discovered my new favorite drink – Mojito!  We’re back home now and we haven’t even had our normal wine with dinner … we had more than enough last week!

The dive operation – right on the resort’s property – is Dive Palancar.  They were great – always happy, always helping.  The dive sites were very close – one of the benefits of staying at the resort instead of in the town of San Miguel which is a 45 minute boat ride to most dive sites.
 
We loved every single dive.  We’ve been to Cozumel before and just the words Santa Rosa Wall, or Palancar Gardens, makes us happy with memories of beautiful coral formations big enough to swim thru.  Jim bought an underwater video camera just before the trip … a tiny GoPro Hero, and he had lots of fun taking hours of video.  Here’s just one little clip that we’ve uploaded to Youtube:

Chris (yellow stripes on fins) swims thru coral canyons at Palancar Bricks

The weather was perfect.  Sunny and warm, but not too warm.  As much as we like diving, I almost liked just walking around the grounds almost as much.  It was so beautiful!


Oh, I can’t just pick a few pictures – you’ve got to see them all!  Here’s a slideshow.  Even better than below, click on this Cozumel Pictures link and then click the Slideshow button and you’ll view them fullscreen.

It was a wonderful, wonderful week.  We’ll post more of the videos in the weeks to come.  I even got to scratch an item off my bucket list … seeing a seahorse!  In 30 years of diving, I had never seen one – till this trip.  We even got video.  Stay tuned.
Better yet, come to our TechnoGeek Learning Rally and we’ll spend a week together teaching you about using your camera, Picasa, smartphones, and other RVing and technology related stuff.  That’s the TechnoGeek Learning Rally in Bushnell, Florida December 2-8.  Come join us – but sign up soon, there’s just a few spaces left.