Diving at Akumal (Second Half)

After taking a day off, our first dives back were at Cenote Dos Ojos. Cenotes are rated on a scale from 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest). Our dives were rated 1 and 2. Both were, at most, within 200m of an opening where you could surface. The first dive, "Barbie Line", was “roomier” and you didn’t have to worry so much about hitting something. The second dive, you had to be more on top of your buoyancy control to avoid getting too close to the formations and risk damaging them. Also on the second dive we surfaced for a few minutes in the “Bat Cave” which was aptly named because there were bats. 

The water was crystal clear but, annoyingly, my mask was fogging up badly, so I didn’t get the full effect of the clear water. 

The cenote formations under water were quite spectacular. Since I really didn’t know exactly what we were getting into, I didn’t take my camera. Between my mask fogging and trying to be very careful, it was one less thing to be stressed about. On top of that, as beautiful as the experience was, it reaffirmed my belief that I’m not fond of enclosed spaces! 

Eduardo giving a briefing on diving in the cenotes. 

Our last two days, we started earlier in the morning and did a deep dive (max. 30m) and then a second shallow dive. The deeper reef seemed to be a lot healthier with larger formations and more fish, which makes sense as it doesn’t get as much diver traffic. 

We again saw lots of turtles, some sharks – a couple reef sharks and a quick glimpse of a rarer bull shark (Eduardo said that’s just the second one he’s seen here), spotted lobster (much more colorful!), sting rays, a huge barracuda, and much more! 

Trumpet fish

Christmas Tree worms

Can you spot the flounder? 

More Christmas Tree worms

Some nice big barrel sponges on the deeper dives.

So colourful!

Lion fish - thankfully there don't seem to be many here. They are an invasive species.

Trying to grow coral.

Love the bright patterns and spots on the spotted lobster.

Trunk fish

Remoras (suckerfish) hitching a ride on the turtles.

This barracuda was huge!

Diving at Akumal (First Half)

We made the right choice of dive companies here in Akumal. There are two big dive shops which seemed to be quite busy and have full boats of new people daily. We chose a smaller company that seemed more personal. Blue Experience Diving also got the best reviews and a nice website (much to Andrew’s scepticism – “Anyone can make a nice website!"). It’s run by a couple, Eduardo and Sarah who were both excellent and personable guides. The largest group we were with was 6 divers including either Eduardo or Sarah, but more often 5. Nice small groups of returning people we had time to get to know a little bit. 

This area is known for sea turtles and we’ve seen at least one on all but a couple of the dives we’ve done. And some of them are HUGE! The largest I’ve ever seen for sure! Most of them are green turtles but there’s been a few Hawksbill as well. 

The dive sites are only a 5-10 minute drive from shore so it’s nice we head back to land for the surface interval. 

We now recognize how spoiled we’ve been on previous dive holidays with gear being set up, put on the boat, tanks changed for us, etc. Here, we put on all our gear in the dive shop and carry it out to the boat. Carry empty tanks back between dives, carry new tanks out to the boat, and then carry it all back again at the end of the second dive. Which is probably good since I’ve been slacking off my workouts on this holiday! 

Anyway, here’s a few (ok, a lot of!) photos from under the sea. 

Akumal, Mexico

We woke up in the middle of the night (2:45 am to be exact) to get to the airport to catch our first flight. We only had an hour layover in Vancouver so when the plane leaving Victoria was late, we started to worry. Landing in Vancouver, we speed walked for 15 minutes to our next gate, from one end of the airport to the other. You literally could not have gotten two gates further apart from one another. But, we made it! 

We overnighted at the Hilton Garden airport hotel since we knew we’d be tired. They had a reasonably decent gym so I did a morning workout. The gym overlooked a very nicely designed circular pool and atrium. 

We’d arranged for a private service, Mayan Traveler, to drive out to Akumal, about an south along the coast where we were staying for the next 10 days for scuba diving. Caribe Akumal Hotel is a very small, older resort and we had one of the bungalows which was very nice. We had no neighbors the whole time we were there, so it was also quiet! 

There were five restaurants within just a few minutes’ walk so we rotated between them. We spent a lot of time at the Turtle Bay Café and Bakery because the wifi was significantly better than at our hotel – not to mention they had good coffee, smoothies and excellent ice cream! 

Cat in her usual spot at Turtle Bay Cafe and Bakery

This glass of lemonade could have doubled as a dumbbell it was so heavy!

Shadows on a wall

Peaceful beach at night

Peaceful beach first thing in the morning. It got quickly got very busy with snorkelers during the day.

We saw this coatimundi near the dive shop one morning. It had stolen a tortilla from somewhere for breakfast.  We also saw a couple agouti but only Andrew managed to get a photo of one. 

This industrious little squirrel was stealing twigs from a palapa, presumably to build its own house somewhere else.

The grackles were noisy!

So were the woodpeckers but we didn't see them as frequently as the grackles.