Cozumel Reef Is Dead. Experienced Snorkelers Will Be Disappointed.
chris...@gmail.com
used to have the best reef in Mexico and maybe the best in the
Caribbean. By best, I mean "colorful, alive, covered with colorful
fans/tubes/fingers/appendges, and teeming with brilliantly colored
fish." Hurricane Wilma killed the reef in 2005 and the scuba/snorkeling
is now awfull. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Wilma
It's no good on the north shore at the Coral Princess Hotel (verified
in person by me in June 2006) and it's worse 20 miles south and mile
out to sea at the Palancar reef (verified in person by me in December
2006). The fancy colorful coral appendages are gone, and what remains
of the reef is an ugly, brownish green, dead stump. If you are an
experienced snorkeler/diver there is now absolutely no reason to go to
Cozumel. You should not trust anyone who says anything to the contrary.
For a good visual, do a Google image search for Coral Reef. Then
another one for Dead Coral Reef. If you are hoping to see the sort of
brilliant coral that shows up in the Coral Reef search, you won't find
it anymore in Cozumel.
scuba...@about.com
underwater ecosystem. But, it will eventually come back, although it
will take years and years to do so. Maybe it's a good thing that divers
and snorkelers stay away from the area to relieve the "human" pressure
we put on the marine life and give it a chance to recover.
--
Melissa Rodriguez
About Scuba Diving
http://scuba.about.com
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On Dec 23, 6:36 pm, chrislar...@gmail.com wrote:
> Cozumel was once a world famous scuba/snorkel destination because it
> used to have the best reef in Mexico and maybe the best in the
> Caribbean. By best, I mean "colorful, alive, covered with colorful
> fans/tubes/fingers/appendges, and teeming with brilliantly colored
> fish." Hurricane Wilma killed the reef in 2005 and the scuba/snorkeling
> is now awfull.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Wilma
jim.p...@gmail.com
less than 40 feet has been severely damaged. However, some coral is
still alive and the waters at those depths teemed with sea life. At
depths greater than 40 ft (e.g., Palancar Reef at 70-80 ft) the coral
appeared to be undamaged. Dive with Martin took us to some great spots
on Palancar reef. We greatly enjoyed the coral canyons and arches at
Palancar Reef; they were spectacular.
This was our first experience at Cozumel, but we plan to go back in a
couple of years. We had a great experience even with the diminished
coral reef at shallower depths. We were very impressed with the
abundant sea life. We saw several types of eels including giant moray
eels, lobsters, crabs, many types of colorful fish, barracuda sharks,
sea anemones, sea cucumbers, rays. It was lots of fun and the
visibility was great.
We've dived the Great Barrier reef in Australia, and the coral at
Cozumel was not as varied or as colorful as in Australia, but the fish
etc. in Cozumel were fantastic. Next we're going to dive Belize, so
we'll see how things are there.
