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Derrick · 03-26-2002, 11:28 AM,

We just got back from a 7 day trip to Cozumel. It was half dive and half tourist trip. My wife dives, but isn't a fanatic (yet :-)). We did get in 7 days, one check out dive that turned into a night dive, and 3 2-tank boat dives. We got great recommendations from several divers I know through the Minneapolis Hammer Head dive club about Alison Dennis, ("Scuba with Alison" ), so we booked three dates with her in advanced. She turned out to be a great choice. Six divers max, stayed down as long as your dive computer let you and had air left. Went to a pier with restrooms during surface intervals. Picked us up at our hotel's pier. If you were low on air, you and your buddy did your three minute stop and returned to the boat while the rest of the divers continued the dive. She has been a divemaster in Coz for 9 to 10 years. She knows where to look for sea life. On our first dive, someone requested to go to a reef where we would find sea turtles because they never have seen any before. So we went to Columbia Deep. We saw three. Plus a ton of other sea life, barracudas, stingrays, etc. Next dive, someone requested sharks. We went to Paso Del Cedral. It was an awesome dive. An incredible swim through (because of the depth and distance, some agencies may have considered it a cave dive :-)). Spotted moray eel, lobster, spotted drum, turtles, all kinds of cool fish I have no idea what they are called, and of course - one 5' nurse shark (my first). Next four dives were to Palanacar Horseshoe, Dalila, Santa Rosa Wall and San Francisco Wall. All very interesting dives. The current was much stronger then my last visit which was hard for the beginners, but not too bad. We stayed a Fiesta Americana, nice hotel, but far from town. Cab ride was $8 a pop including tip. First couple of days we were too exhausted from diving to jump in a cab to town for dinner, so we ate in the hotel which didn't have the greatest food. The rest of the nights we ate at some very good Mexican restaurants recommended to us by Hammer Heads. Two of our favorites were Pancho's Backyard and La Mission. La Mission is very interesting. It is a house that takes up a city block with a cool garden/jungle behind the wall surrounding the property. It even has a lion in a cage. We did the Tulum/Xel-ha tour and also the dune buggy jungle trip on Cozumel which were both retty fun. We also did plenty of shopping. Derrick