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February 2010 Trip Log
Trip Host: Todd
Hollerud
It was
another great trip for our group from Adventure Sports Scuba
& Travel. We had 18 people traveling in our group and
several others who joined us in Cozumel. The diving was really
nice and we certified several new scuba divers while in
Cozumel.
I've created a daily trip log of our groups
adventures. I will write a little bit of a summary of
each days activities, to go along with the photos.
There were a lot of still cameras and a video camera on this
trip, so more photos and eventually a video will be added to
this page. I hope you enjoy looking at our photos and
I hope that you can join one of our future group trips.
We have picked the dates for the 2011 trips and will announce
them shortly. So, please enjoy our 2010 Cozumel Trip
Log!
Friday, February 19th,
2010
The anticipation came to a peak as we
prepared to leave the cold, snowy weather of Minnesota and
head toward the sunny warmth of Cozumel. We gathered
at the airport and awaited our flight to the island.
We were a bit unsure what to think as the plane flew over
Cancun and headed for Cozumel. There were lots of
clouds and grey skies, but that didn't diminish our
excitement. We checked into the Vista del Mar and were
greeted by their great staff. They really made us feel
welcome. Then it was time to hit the water.
Several people were completing their Open Water
Certification Dives on this trip and the rest of the group
did a "welcome shore dive" from our staging area at the
Barracuda Hotel. The evening continued with dinner at
Guidos, a great local restaurant that features Italian
dishes prepared in a wood fired oven. The night
finished watching a local band perform in the town square.
This is a lot of fun to watch the islanders dress up and
enjoy some great music. The lead singer is Eva, one of
the workers at our hotel. And so ended our first day
of the trip.
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to view Gallery 1
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view Gallery 2
Saturday, February 20th,
2010
It was finally time to board the
boat and head out for some dives where you can see more that
5 feet in front of your face. We boarded Dive
Paradises boat, Paradise Diver, and with our dive masters
Jose and Miguel and the captain and mate. We set course for
our first dive site, Chankanaab Bolones ( The Chankanaab
Balloons). This site features a sand bottom with
numerous coral heads that resemble balloons scattered across
the bottom.
Our second dive was on Paradise Reef. Then we
returned to shore and certified 2 brand new scuba divers!
Our group finished the diving for today with a night shore dive
from the Barracuda Hotel. There is a sunken pier that
was being built as a dolphin enclosure, but a hurricane
toppled the pier before it was ever used. The fallen
concrete and fencing have created lots of hiding places for
numerous marine life. You usually see spotted eels,
puffer fish, crabs, lobster and lots of other fish.
Finally dinner for the evening was at Costa Brava. A
small, family run Mexican restaurant.
Click to
view Gallery 1
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view Gallery 2
Sunday, February 21st,
2010
Today started out with our newly
certified scuba divers joining us on the dive boat.
Eager for their first non-training ocean dives. Our
first dive for the day was on Tormentos Reef. This is
a wall that drops to around 85 feet. Our dive started
out very exciting. As we were dropping down, we saw 2
sting rays swimming past us. One bigger ray and a
smaller one following it. We also saw more eels and
lots of angel fish.
Our second dive was on Villablanca reef. This was
a nice 50 foot dive with lobsters and lots of neat stuff to
see. Dinner this evening was at the French Quarter.
Known for their New Orleans style cuisine, my personal
favorite is the Mahi Mahi.
Click to
view Gallery 1
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view Gallery 2
Monday, February 22nd,
2010
The new week started with our
group heading to Santa Rosa Wall for the first dive and then
to Chankanaab Shallows for our second dive. This was
one of our group's favorite dives of the week. It's
about a 40' flat sand bottom with lots of coral scattered
around the area. We saw lots of fun stuff, including
one very big lobster. It's a good thing that the
waters are a national preserve, because otherwise most of
our group would be enjoying some lobster for dinner.
Some windy weather moved in early in the afternoon and even
a thunder storm came in around dinner time. Luckily,
the conditions weren't so bad that we had to cancel our boat
night dive. We headed out to Paradise reef and got
geared up for the dive. I've been certified for almost
20 years and have done hundreds of night dives all over the
world, yet I would have to say this this dive ranked in the
top 5 night dives ever. We saw several octopus, eels,
lobsters, big crabs, fish galore and a very adventuresome
grouper. This grouper followed our group for quite a
long time and as we would shine our lights around the reef,
some of the smaller fish would swim away from the lights and
more than a few of them ended up being dinner for this
grouper. Glad we could help out! Another great
day of diving ended with a very nice dinner at Pancho's
Backyard. This is a very nice restaurant featuring a
wide variety of food offerings.
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view Gallery 1
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view Gallery 2
Tuesday, February 23rd,
2010
Today was our off-gas day for
the group. Many of us took advantage of the
opportunity to explore around San Miguel and look through
some of the shops for those "must have" goodies. This
was also a chance to watch one of the very talented local
artists that do their work in the town square. These
artists create some stunning works using spray paint and
brushes and other tools, all done by hand and in just a few
minutes. Rolando Sanchez is the artist featured in the
pictures and our group has picked him as our favorite
artist. Many of us have tiles or paintings of his work
in our homes now. We trekked further into town this
evening for dinner. Our choice tonight was Casa la
Mission. This is the home of one of the older families
on the island, that has a courtyard that covers an entire
city block. The restaurant is on the porch of the
home. There used to be lions and monkeys in the
courtyard, but they went away several years ago.
Click to
view photos.
Wednesday, February
24th, 2010
After recharging our batteries
and getting rid of some excess nitrogen, we were excited to
get back on the boat for another day of diving. Our
first dive for the day was on the C-53 wreck.
Officially named the Felipe Xicotenantl, this 184' long,
former Mexican Navy Minesweeper has become a well populated
artificial reef and a great dive site. Sitting in 80'
of water it provides a chance to explore inside a shipwreck,
that has been opened up in numerous places, making for a
safe wreck penetration. As we descended toward the
wreck, a large stingray was cruising near the screws.
We also saw a barracuda and numerous large groupers that
have made the wreck home. Our second dive for the
morning was at Los Palmos. This is an easy 40-45'
sandy bottom with lots of coral formations. As we
returned to the dock at the Barracuda Hotel, the wind had
picked up quite a bit. The captain of our boat did a
great job getting us to the dock without incident. As
the afternoon passed, the weather really whipped up with
strong winds and huge waves. This ended the
possibility of another night dive that evening. Dinner
this evening was at La Veranda. This was a new
addition to our dinner rotation and the group gave it all
thumbs up. The menu features a wide variety of
offering, from seafood to pastas, to Mexican food. I
would highly recommend checking it out when you are on the
island.
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view Gallery 1
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view Gallery 2
Thursday, February 25th,
2010
We were not able to dive today,
because of weather. The port was closed in the
morning, so no dive boats were allowed to go out. The
weather did clear by about lunch time and some boats went
out. But we were not able to go diving because of the
24 hour rule for flying after diving. For those of you
who don't know, you are supposed to wait 24 hours after you
finish diving before flying in an airplane. This is to
allow some of the nitrogen to leave you system before
ascending to lesser pressures. Since our flight was
scheduled to leave on Friday at 11:40am, we couldn't go out.
The one plus was that it gave our gear plenty of time to dry
out before packing it for the flight home. It's easy
to be overweight with your gear bag if there's some water
soaked into your wetsuit of other gear. So our group
enjoyed some more shopping and sunning themselves for a last
day on the island. We finished our restaurant tour of
the island with Pepe's this evening. This is a
steakhouse featuring a nice prime rib and all the trimmings.
It was a great way to wrap up the week.
Click to
view photos
Friday, February 26th,
2010
Time to go
home today, Yuck! Our group headed to the airport
after saying goodbye to our hotel and dive staff and a few
friends we made this week. Wouldn't you know it, our
flight was delayed for about an hour and a half. So we
caught up on logging our dives and played some spades at the
airport while waiting for our flight. After an
uneventful flight back to Minnesota, we were home. And
so closed the book on our February 2010 Cozumel Trip.
Click to
view photos
I wanted to
take a moment and thank everyone in our group for a great
week in Cozumel. We had a lot of fun diving and
enjoying the island together. This group was kind of a
combination of our groups from the last several years
blended together with some first-time group members.
Hopefully everyone will be able to join us next February in
Cozumel. The trip will fall right before Carnival this
time and I'm willing to bet that more than a few of us will
stay a few extra days to partake in some of the festivities
of Carnival on Cozumel. We will post all the
information about this and other trips that Adventure Sports
Scuba & Travel will be hosting throughout the next year.
It all kicks off with a "Long Weekend" Trip this August back
to Cozumel. For more information of this trip, click
here. Also we are working to put together a trip to
Palau, in the Central Pacific. This is some of the
best diving in the world. I lived in that part of the
world for several years and can attest that if you are a
diver, you have to see this once in your lifetime.
More on this trip soon. So, I hope you enjoyed reading
our trip log and looking at the pictures. A video of
our trip will be coming as soon as we can get it done, and
we will post it in the website. Thanks again to the
Vista del Mar and Dive Paradise staffs and to my entire
group.
Until Next Time,
Todd
Todd Hollerud, Trip Host
Adventure Sports Scuba & Travel
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