Cozumel has officially made it onto my list of top places to dive! Granted we haven’t been to that many dive spots yet, but I would definitely come back to check out all of the other dive spots around the Mexican island.

Why Cozumel?

Cozumel is a small island just east of Playa del Carmen, a little to the south of the main Cancun hotel zone. The sand near Cozumel is made of coral rather than limestone, making it a bit heavier (harder to kick up) and creating great visibility for diving. You can take a quick 30 minute ferry from the Playa del Carmen station using one of three companies (I’d recommend Caribe for the utmost cleanliness and comfort).

Who to dive with

It’s always a good idea to go diving with an expert on the area, whether you’re a beginner or super experienced. We booked our guided dives with Scubatotal Cancun many months in advance, and the team there made everything extremely easy. They even worked around our travel schedule of staying in Isla Mujeres and switching hotels to Cancun.

Our guide, Aldo, picked us up promptly the morning of our dive and gave us the run down of the day. We planned for two dives in the reefs of Cozumel.

The Dive

The visibility in the waters of Cozumel was insane! The moment I hopped into the water and looked downwards, I could see all the way to the sea floor (more than 50ft below me). The water was so warm that we were in 3mm wetsuits but probably could’ve just gone in shorties.

The first reef we dived was about 80ft down and had quite a strong current. We rode the current and swept past tons of animals, including a sleeping nurse shark, a green moray eel, and a huge lobster that would’ve been easily a $200 meal. At one point a loggerhead turtle swam against the current towards us, gliding through the water with ease and saying a chill hello before we were swept away by the current.

Moray Eel

Huge lobster

Pufferfish

Our two hours of diving felt like it went by in 15 minutes and I can’t wait to come back to Cozumel to see more of the reefs around the island!