Cozumel Dive Trip, Day 2 ctd: Down, Down, Down.

By the time dawn broke the next day, the wind had died, the seas had calmed and John and Matthew had learned a valuable lesson about conmingling Cohibas and Coco Locos. (Okay, they were margaritas, but there's no alliteration there.)

The dive boat, which was supposed to leave at 8:15, left at 8:45, because Mexico.

No wind, no waves, not a whitecap in sight!

Next stop: Palancar Bricks at 80 feet.

 John hovering over the deep blue. Cozumel has spectacular reefs between 35 and 100 feet,
 then the bottom drops out, all the way down to 3,200 feet. Swimming to the edge and
looking into the abyss is always a humbling experience.

 Matthew, happy to be alive.

 Twiddling my thumbs as the world floats by. A strong current runs north along the west coast,

 making every dive a drift dive. Very little swimming to do, you just float through the

 constantly-changing wonder.

The reefs around the island have been protected environments for a very long time,

so the coral is incredibly profuse and healthy and the marine life is abundant. We saw turtles,
a couple of free-swimming, five-foot moray eels, barracudas, huge lobsters and crabs,
as well as all manner of dazzlingly-colored reef fish. Just before we came up from the
second dive of the morning, a five-foot nurse shark swan right past us.

Normally, the two morning dives are over in time for lunch. Aqua Safari, however, has a very slow boat, so it took us about an hour and a half just to get to the first dive site, while watching other boats crammed with divers zipping past us. Every day, between 1,500 and 2,000 divers descend on the reefs around Cozumel, so there's a lot of boat traffic. The reefs are so expansive, though, it never feels crowded. 

We finally got back to port at 2:45, starved for lunch. Donna at Aqua Safari recommended a little place close by called Sabores.

It turned out to be someone's house with a beautifully funky backyard. Everything is cooked
 fresh with mostly local ingredients, including coconuts from the garden!

Look at that deliciousness! First round of margs already consumed.

Happy to be alive.

Cozumel went from a Mayan-era population of around 40,000 to under 100 after an epidemic of smallpox. For a while it was a notorious pirate hangout. now it's a tourist mecca, mostly for divers, but also for cruise ships. San Miguel now has piers for as many a six giant cruise ships, and much of the town is geared to cater to the passengers: tourist bars and restaurants, Cartier, silver and souvenir shops, and, of course, Cuban cigar stores. Behind and around the tourist strip, however, there's a charming, sleepy, shabby/funky (in a good way) Caribbean beach town geared more to locals, with cheap and delicious food. Sabores is one of the best, and we returned there many times over the course of the next few days. Especially when we found that the made the island's best pina coladas. From scratch.

P.