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Cozumel, Mexico
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What are the best beaches to snorkel?
Posted at 11:10PM, 29 August 2009 PDT
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I would like to know the same thing...a friend of mine said that he went snorkeling and it was hard because it was not in a lagoon area so he was fighting waves off the ocean...
Posted 26 months ago.
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Cozumel has always been better for scuba diving than snorkeling (there isn't much shallow area for snorkeling), and this has been especially true since Hurricane Wilma in 2006. Wilma, which ranks among the Caribbean's strongest hurricanes, sat on top of the island for 24 hours and hammered all the shallow-water reefs in depths less than 30 ft. Stuff has barely started to grow back and it will take decades for the corals to re-grow. I was in Cozumel in 2006 several months before Wilma, and Dzul Ha was by far the best place for snorkeling. Great coral heads and plenty of fish in 8-10 ft of water. A friend went back there a few months ago and found mostly rubble with some fish. I'm sure the water will still be very clear in Cozumel, and there will some fish to see and nubs of coral growing back, but the snorkeling isn't what it was. I've heard that the reefs at the southern end of the island fared better, but these can't be reached off the beach. Your best bet is probably to take a snorkeling cruise to these southern reefs.
Your friend must have been there on a bad day when the "norte" blew, because Cozumel usually has very calm water on the west side, where all the snorkeling and diving occurs. Although it's calm, sometimes there can be some current.
Posted 26 months ago.
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Darn, we where thinking about going to Cozumel later in the summer, but with your description of it we will probably pass.
Posted 26 months ago.
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I went snorkeling in both Cozumel and Puerto Morelos (a small village in the way to Cancún with a protected coral reef 100-200m away of the beach) in March 2008 and I can tell that I enjoyed much more snorkeling in Puerto Morelos than in Cozumel, seeing a lot of marine wildlife and preserved corals at 1-3m deep. You have to contact the authorized guides in this natural marine park that take you to the reef. We did it the same day we arrived without any prior booking. We came back another day in our trip in the Maya Rute to repeat the experience! A UW camera was lacking at that moment unfortunately.
Posted 23 months ago.
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