Cozumel 2025 (page 5 of 8)

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Day 5: Wednesday, February 12th, 2025

Up and at 'em again at pre-7 am times. We hit breakfast a few minutes after 7 and went to the "made to order" line again. Mike again had an everything omelet, Greta had Motulenos (corn tortillas topped with refried beans, diced ham, green peas, cheese and then two fried eggs). After that we checked in with the dive shop, got our National Park wristbands and headed back to the room to change.

Once we were underway, we had a drive by with the National Park police and we all had to show our wristbands - this was a first but we easily passed inspection as Scuba-Du is definitely a top-notch operation. We then headed further down the island and stopped at Santa Rosa (the location of our first dive) for dive #1. It was rather uneventful - which is good but there wasn't a lot of new things to see and the creatures were hidden quite often. This time we were on Scuba-Du #3, so we had to disembark by doing a backwards fall into the water from a sitting position. It's sort of fun to do that! During our 1 hour break, Captain Willy asked use if we'd seen turtles and we sadly said no. So he said "What about this!" and presented us with a sea turtle carved from cantaloupe rind - it was amazing how perfect it was. Greta got to take the turtle off the boat. He then showed us on his phone, other fruit carvings he's done, including a ray, a shark and a dolphin. All were amazing!

Our second dive was Tormentos. Jonathan was our dive master again but was recovering from the flu and couldn't equalize, so he couldn't go down to the normal dive level. It was a shallower dive - under 40 feet for a lot of it, so he followed us at 10 feet and guided us with his flashlight hanging from his reel. We ended up having an amazing dive! There was a lot of coral to explore as we floated with the current, and we saw a LOT of different things. Jonathan alerted us once to a HUGE eagle ray swimming past behind us (which we've have never seen if we'd all been at the same level). We also saw two separate lobsters walk out across an open area of sand, which is unusual mid day. In the past few dives, we've noticed a lot of conch shells at the bottom, including tracks where they'd "walked" across the sand. This time, nearly all of us witnessed one of them moving (Greta got video) - that was amazing. All in all , even though Jonathan couldn't be at the same level as us and point out specific things, we all agreed it was one of our favorite dives of the week!

The night before, Greta had reserved a car for a one-afternoon rental to go explore Punta Sur Eco Park, and the wild side. We got what is commonly known as a Nissan "buggy" for the day. It is open-air, with no doors - you just sort of slide up and in. We got to Punta Sur with little issue; we'd been warned of bad roads but hadn't really seen anything like that. That is, until you entered the park property and paid your admission fee. The single road in/out is massively pot-holed. It was an 20 KPH speed limit and there's no way we ever got that fast. It was a slow drive to the first stop where the salt water crocodiles could be seen. And there we saw a massive one right by the bridge where we walked up to, at the water line of an in-land pond. There was also an observation tower which was up above the tree line - that gave us a great view plus some cool breezes plus we could see white egrets stalking their lunch.

Then we went in a few km further to the lighthouse. This is where people can swim/snorkel, but there was a red-flag warning so all of that was prohibited. It was amazing to see the massive waves crashing on shore and the beautiful blue waters there. You had the option to climb to the top of the lighthouse, but we opted not to as it was later in the day and we didn't want to hurry back for the closing time. There were a few vendors - including one who called us over and explained that his carvings were made with a clay/paste made from mashed fish bones. Not sure if he was legit or not but some of the carvings were very interesting.

We then headed to a path that was under the trees. Iguanas were constantly scurrying across the path here and there. Once or twice we'd almost step on one; they have great camouflage. We stopped at a pond and saw another crocodile, plus a white egret and a gray heron. Further on, there was another observation tower where you could look back at the lighthouse and out to the crashing waves as well. From there, we saw a cenote, which looks like steps going into water but is actually the entrance to underwater caves. After that the path ended at the road for cars and we walked back to the lighthouse and to our car.

From there, we went to the end of the road, where there was a bar, outdoor food stand and more beach access. It was almost closing time, so we had a quick blue margarita and watched the waves. It was named the "Raccoon Bar" after an endangered species of raccoon - of which we saw one or two wandering about. They look very similar to raccoons back home, but a little skinner and longer-legged, like a house cat.

After that we slowly made our way back to the entrance. It's a narrow 2-lane road but at 4 pm (closes at 5) there weren't really people going the other way, so that helped. We drove up the "wild side", or east side of the island. There are a few shops and such on that side but there's no power or cell phone service, so you have to rely on generators. We stopped at Coconuts, which had been highly recommended. It's a bar/restaurant up on a high cliff with AMAZING views. We had a snack and drink there, then headed back to the inhabited part of the island.

We ended up stopping at Portosal for supper. This was a return to a restaurant we'd stopped at two days earlier, and the original waiter remembered us. We shared some wine, a puffy garlic bread, and then we each ordered a pizza. Mike had "Viva la Mexico" which had sausage and jalapenos. Greta had Pastor, which had pastor pork, pineapple and crema sauce. Everything was wonderful and we got to enjoy another sunset there.

The drive back was a bit tough because we couldn't find a gas station. The one that the gal at the restaurant recommended was south, on the way to the hotel, but Google maps kept directing us north, which made no sense. Eventually we gave up and went south, retracing our earlier drive only to find that gas station closed for the night. They told us we had to go north, so we ended up retracing our steps again, and eventually finding a very busy station where will refilled the tank. The we retraced our steps AGAIN back to the restaurant, and then back past the closed station, and back to our hotel. It was good to be back home, where we quickly turned in for the night.

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