Snorkelling on Isla Cozumel — the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Just Plain Silly!

Intro

Isla Cozumel is a tropical island located off the Caribbean coast of Mexico and on the MesoAmerican barrier reef (the second largest coral reef in the world). It’s no surprise that it is known for world-class snorkelling and diving in its turquoise waters.

As two water babies, asking if we were going to pay it a visit was like asking if a bear shits in the woods. I’d read about some of the wonderful locations and couldn’t wait for a full-day snorkel excursion.

Unfortunately for us, the day did not turn out quite like we imagined…

Take this as a cautionary tale to do some proper research on your tour operator. Sure, they go to the same locations but you sure as hell don’t get the same experience.

Here’s a breakdown of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the just plain silly!

The good

The actual snorkel locations themselves were beautiful and teeming with marine life. I can’t fault nature and her creatures. Isla Cozumel truly has something very special to offer.

In my personal favourite spot, the sea floor was littered with just one thing. Giant starfish! The most gorgeous starfish I’ve ever seen. They came in every warm colour possible, deep yellow, bright orange, and terracotta red. They looked rich and sumptuous like they were made from velvet and beaded with studs. I could have stayed here forever, diving down to say hello to each starfish and marvel at its beauty.

The finale of the trip was a picture-perfect tropical beach with white crystal clear water and soft sand. It looked like the kind of place that shouldn’t be allowed to exist in real life, only on picture-perfect postcards and travel brochures.

Alex (our “guide”) took our snorkels from us and declared that we didn’t need them there. “No snorkelling, just relaxing”.

Seconds after stepping into the water, one of the biggest stingrays I have ever seen effortlessly glided by. I was speechless. Joe leapt on the boat to grab back our snorkels and we both shot Alex a look. I can’t believe we nearly missed this, I could have killed him.

Luckily the ray circled back along with a few others over the time we were there. We spent our time being hypnotised by both the beauty of the beach and swimming with these majestic creatures. Perfection.

The Bad

The lady who ran our hostel said she was friends with a snorkelling place and that she could get us a good deal. Looking back I wished I’d asked for more details or the name of the company at least. Any information at all, instead of blindly going along with her recommendation.

In the morning we were to head to the port to meet Pamala. Pamala just palmed us off onto someone else who weirdly lead us away from the port. We followed along in a little people train walking around the town, picking up various people from different spots to join our conga line. Then after 40 minutes of this, we headed, you guessed it, straight back to the port.

We spotted a beautiful boat and exclaimed how lovely it was before it promptly rode straight past only to be replaced with our actual boat. The boat looked like the punchline to the joke. It was a big rusty bucket of a boat. It didn’t even look seaworthy.

I couldn’t quite believe how many people they managed to pile onto it. Every time I thought, OK now it’s full, they still managed to pile more people on.

To make matters worse, it was perhaps the world’s slowest boat. It was over two hours before we even reached our first snorkelling spot. Uncomfortable, achy, and bored, we were elated to finally hop into the water.

We shouldn’t have been…

Forty people all at once, trying to snorkel in one small spot just doesn’t work. It was a mess. A tangle of limbs and flippers. An aqua version of bumper cars.

We had a “guide” (I’m using the term loosely here) who just stayed in a single spot screaming his own name over and over again. ALEX! ALEX! ALEX! Then screamed blue murder if you even dared to swim 2cm away from the throng of uncoordinated people. I can’t even count the number of times I got whacked in the face or the side; it was not fun.

We were in the water for less than 15 minutes. We then got back in the boat for another hour to the next spot to repeat the same nightmare.

The ugly

As alluded to in the bad section, the time on the boat vs the time in the water ratio was abysmal. After a nine-hour day trip, we had spent a total of one hour in the water altogether. It’s the least snorkelling I’ve ever done on a snorkel trip.

To make matters worse, they didn’t have enough plates or food for everyone. They ran out before they got to us and all we had to eat the whole day was a few slices of leftover watermelon. There was no acknowledgment or apology that five of us had nothing to eat.

To add insult to injury, the whole time we were on the boat, the “snorkel guide” and crew spent the time patting themselves on the back, asking for constant rounds of applause, and coming up to each individual on multiple occasions with their hands out for tips.

The silly

Something I found funny was at the beginning, we were asked if we could swim and I thought, well, yeah of course. You wouldn’t go on a snorkel tour if you couldn’t swim, would you? That’s silly.

Turns out about 40% of people did just that.

Alex was just dragging around a rubber ring of bewildered-looking people clinging onto it for dear life. Occasionally placing their face in the water before almost immediately taking it back out again.

Perhaps that’s why they were so obsessed with keeping us all so close together?!

Another thing that made sure they weren’t getting tips was the treatment of one of the passengers. A blind woman and her sister came aboard. What ensued was like something out of a slapstick sketch show. Like I was watching an episode of Fawlty Towers.

The staff kept pointing and laughing at her, saying that she was sleeping when they passed her, making a pillow out of their hands, and doing snoring sounds. It was her sister’s birthday so they poured tequila down her sister’s throat. But then without warning unceremoniously poured it down the blind girl’s throat who wasn’t expecting it and nearly choked to death. She was at risk of drowning in tequila, never mind in the water!

She joined the non-swimmers on the rubber ring. She was just bobbing away there and I was thinking that I couldn’t think of a more pointless activity for someone who can’t see. I was mid-thought when Alex just unexpectedly pushed her face down into the water. I was shocked.

We laughed in a hunger-induced delirium that day at the sheer horror and outrageous ridiculousness of it all. In the future, whenever something bad happened we said that it was our karma for laughing.

Final thoughts

Snorkelling on Isla Cozumel was a mixture of frustration, the bizarre, and a select few beautiful moments.

I can wholeheartedly recommend it as a place to visit but I can in no way recommend the tour we went on. This is probably a good job because I still have no idea who on earth these cowboy tour operators were!

My advice to anyone heading to Isla Cozumel is one simple thing.

Do your research.

Make sure your tour operator is reputable and read the reviews.

Ask about the boat and how long the trip takes (trust me you don’t want the world’s slowest rust bucket like us). Ask about food (so you actually get some). Ask what the maximum amount of people is (you don’t want to play human bumper cars).

I would love to go back and do the trip the right way.

So ask, ask, ask, and that way you’ll get longer in the water than we did, doing exactly what you’re there for, with people who will actually take care of you.

Thank you for reading! Hearts and tips are always welcome and your support is very much appreciated.

This story was originally published on Medium

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