Missing Isla
Missing Isla
You think it is a little odd to call my blog entry Missing Isla when it is about our vacation to Pureto Aventuras (or maybe not)? Read on to find out why I suffered several pangs of remorse while on our Puerto Aventuras vacation.
We had vacations that have started a lot worse than this one but were excellent vacations. For example, our first vacation to Turks and Caicos, we did not get our luggage until we had been there a day and a half and the stores (most all of them) were not open on Sunday so we sweltered in jeans and tennis shoes for over a day before we found an open T-shirt shop and we each bought a shirt and shorts. We also spent $13 dollars for a dusty (but not expired) bottle of of contact solution. Our hotel was a dump, the staff was rude and they claimed that someone had cancelled our reservations. So much for Trip Advisor! We chose the Sibonne because it was advertised as a small boutique hotel, which sounded much better than a large resort. Wrong! We discovered the Sands was just down the beach and we ended up moving there mid-week. After our short move to the Sands our vacation turned out to be one of our best.
We love Isla Mujeres, I have been there three times in the last two years and Karen twice. I think the reason that we love it so much is because it is such an easy stress free vacation. The hardest part of the vacation is getting past the onslaught of vendors hawking rides and trips at the exit of the airport. Last year we discovered a limo service that will pick us up at the airport (a gentleman in a suite holding a sign with our name on it), allowing us to bypass the the barrage of salespeople, and drop us at Puerto Jaurez for a decent price. Once on the island everything was within walking distance or a short cab ride away. Diving was easy to, just a short walk to the dive shop, we did not even need a reservation at Coral Divers.
After three trips in less than two years Isla Mujeres was starting to feel a little small and I had heard about Puerto Morelos, I tried to book a room there but I couldn't’t find a hotel in my price range. The hotels were either $70 per night or $400 per night, nothing in between. I was afraid that the $70 per night hotels might be a little the run-down and we don't spend $400 a night for a hotel!Puerto Morelos is a sleepy little fishing village just south of Cancun, it is a good place to dive because the reef is only several hundred yards off shore and it is part of a national underwater park, as I discovered in Puerto Aventuras, it pays to dive where fishing is banned.
We first stayed in Puerto Aventuras about a dozen years ago, our first trip to Mexico together. We were not divers (we did our first resort dive) so we walked around the town, rented a car, drove to Tulum to see the ruins and went to Cozumel to do a resort dive. It was a nice vacation. When Puerto Morelos did not work out Puerto Adventuros came to mind. I was able to find a nice condo at Porto Bello Marina condos on VRBO.com. It was a nicely furnished one bedroom with a kitchen, granite counter tops and nice balcony with a Jacuzzi. I would recommend the condos to anyone (see pictures below). The condo does faces the marina, our neighbors told us that one night two of the charter boat captains got drunk and started to brawl, luckily our stay was quiet.
Since the condo overlooks the marina it does not have a beach but patrons of Porto Bello can use the beach at the Omni. You need to give the Omni a $200 deposit and you have a month to spend the $200 at the Omni bar or restaurant.
We dove on Friday and this presented two problems, the waves were about four feet, not terrible but definitely a choppy ride out. Of course visibility was bad because of the chop. We dove with Aquanauts, and they do something unique, since the reef is so close to the marina they come back to the marina between dives and that gave us a chance to do a one tank dive, which because of four foot swells and low vis seemed like a good idea. You can get an idea of of what it was like from the picture below.
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| From Purto Aventures 2009 |
I get discouraged easily when it comes to diving. If I start out with a bad dive I am willing to call it quits for the rest of the vacation. The first dive made me want to hang it up, luckily we ran into a gentleman from Canada who was getting his cave diving certification and he raved about cenote dives. The week before we left, Karen was in a meeting with someone who had just gotten back from cenote diving north of Cancun and he tried to convince her that we should do it. I swore that I would never dive a cave, cenote or anything like it. If something goes wrong there may not be light or surface to swim toward. After talking to the cave diver from Canada and taking into consideration the ocean diving conditions, we decided to do the cenote dive.
Cenote diving is different from ocean diving for several reasons. One of the differences is cenotes are fresh water. This means that the visibility is incredible! You will never dive in salt water that is this clear. Normally the cenotes are cooler than the ocean but my dive computer showed 79 degrees for the ocean and the cenote. During parts of the dive you could be in total darkness if your flashlight went out, as I almost discovered.
The instructions before the dive are more complex than a normal dive because cenote dives are more dangerous. We met at Aquanauts for the briefing, Carlos was our dive master. He covered the rules for cenote diving, the main differences between cenote diving and ocean diving are:
- There are a maximum of four divers per one dive master.
- You will need about sixty percent less weight because of the fresh water.
- You follow a line around the the cenote and are generally in single file.
- If you want to get someone's attention during the dive you aim you flashlight in front of them and shake it to create kind of a muted strobe effect.
- Air management for a cenote dive is more conservative than an ocean dive. On a cenote dive you start with the usual 3000 psi but your half way is 2000 psi and you want to have 1000 psi when you get out of the water (I thought this was a waste of air but after the second diveI understood the logic).
Karen and I have met some really nice people on dive trips, this trip was no exception. Unfortunately the people that we did the cenote dive with were some of the grouchiest that we have ever dove with. On a dive trip, if I rub someone the wrong way or they irritate me there is a simple solution, go to the other side of the boat and talk to someone else. On a cenote dive you are stuck in a Suburban loaded with equipment for a 45 minute drive each way. The people we did the cenote dive with were not bad people, they were just plain old grouchy.
Once at Dos Ojos, we suited up and walked about 100 yards (down steps!) in full gear, to the cenote. Unfortunately my camera battery had died before the first dive so I only have movies and photos that we purchased from the professional photographer at the cenote. We did a giant stride off of the wooden dock into the cenote. The cenote dive is not colorful, there are some small fish, silver in color. There are no plant or coral, most everything is monotone. The awestruck affect of a cenote dive is cause by going from almost complete darkness to dazzling shafts of light cutting through the water, it is something you have to experience.
The first dive was incredible. We followed the the rope around the cenote swimming through and around stalactites and stalagmites. The only problem I had on the first dive was my fault, I swam under the rope that we followed around the cenote and my tank become caught in the rope. I struggled slightly, I probably could have freed myself but I decided that I would wait for Gary and Lou to catch up and untangle me. They approached, saw my predicament and with one tug removed the rope from my tank.
We finished the dive and had lunch at the truck. During lunch Carlos mentioned that we would stop in the bat cave on the second dive. No one asked what he meant by "bat cave", was it something to do with Batman? Does bat mean something in Spanish? I guess we will find out.
After lunch we were back in the water for our second dive. We set out to explore another section of the cenote. We geared up at the truck and made the trek to the cenote entrance and giant strided into the water again. The dive started like the previous one, Carlos in front followed by Karen, myself, Gary and Lou brought up the rear. I noticed that the battery in my flashlight had become dim, I thought about asking Carlos for his spare but decided that my flashlight would probably make it through the dive, if not Karen had hers . Looking back I wish I would have traded flashlights.
We again followed the rope threw a different section of the cenote taking in the beauty of the cave. At one point Carlos decided to veer away from the rope and go around a column of calcium carbonate that was no more than 10 feet in diameter. This should not have been an issue, all of us were experienced divers and it was a short deviation from the normal path. I left the safety of the rope and followed Carlos and Karen around the column, when I came around the other side I saw Gary aiming the beam from his flashlight in front of Carlos and quickly moving it up and down, signaling a problem. I looked and I did not see Lou. The only place he could have gone was behind the column so I did an about face and backtracked around the column, I still did not see Lou so I swam back toward Carlos and saw that Gary was pointing in the direction that I had just came from. I took off in that direction, in the distance I saw light. There was an exit to the surface, I swam toward it just in time to see the flashing strobe on Lou's tank. Lou seemed to be heading away from the exit deeper into the cenote, then he was gone. I thought about chasing Lou but decided that one lost diver was enough and decided to return to the rest of the group. I realized that this part of the cave was pitch black and the meager beam of light was barely enough to light my way, and it the flashlight died I would be screwed. It was a short swim that seemed to take forever but I rejoined Karen, Carlos and Gary. Carlos saw that I had returned. I piecemealed several diver hand signals together to indicate that I saw where Lou had gone. Carlos signaled to me to stay and he swam off to find Lou.
As we waited for Carlos to return I got a chance to consider just how quickly everything could go to hell when diving. The closest we have come to having a challenge during a dive is our manta night dive in Kona, when Karen did not return to the boat with me. Luckily the dive master was watching her and accompanied her to the boat (that is the short story).
When Carlos returned a minute later he was alone. I was starting to worry, if Carlos could not find Lou he might really be lost in the labrith of underwater caves. Using my best made up hand signals I again indicated to Carlos that I knew the direction that Lou went. He signaled to Karen and Gary to remain and to me to come with him. I swam toward the small patch of light in the distance and through a passage to the left, where Lou has gone. I was relieved to see light. I swam past some stalactites, into an opening and I saw Lou and his red bandanna. I surfaced and Carlos went to get Karen and Gary. I am not sure what I saw in Lou's eyes; feel, anger embarrassment? I don't know but there was definitely something there. I took out my regulator and asked Lou what happened in a hey dude what's going on sort of way. He snapped back "what do you think happened?". I did not respond.
Carlos returned with Karen and Gary. I don't know if a similar situation has happened to Carlos before but he handled the the situation perfectly. He gathered us together and asked if we were ok and if we wanted to continue the dive, we all indicated that we did. He checked our remaining air and gave us a brief description of our new dive plan. We proceeded a little more carefully and a little more aware of each other.
We had to shorten the second dive but we still made it to the bat cave. As we approached the cave we saw a small shaft of light slicing through the water. The cave was dimly lit but I could see people swimming. When we surfaced I did not immediately see the cave entrance because it was above us. I eventually noticed a ladder going from the platform in the middle of the cave to a small hole in the ceiling, something you probably could not do in the US. The sparklers had climbed down the wooden ladder with their fins and mask to the wooden platform in the middle of the cave. Carlos pointed to the ceiling and we saw them, several dozen bats clinging to the cave ceiling. There may have been more in the darker corners of the cave but I only saw about several dozen. Some were yawning, others were moving around and most just hung there with their wings wrapped around them. We finished the dive, purchased some pictures from the professional photographer who snapped some underwater pics, and swore that we will do another cenote dive.
If you are interested in cenote diving there are two movies that were shot in cenotes around the Yucatan. The Cave was set in eastern Europe but according to Carlos, the cave scenes were filmed in the cenotes in the Yucatan. I can definitely understand why they would want to shoot in Mexico rather than a mountain cave in eastern Europe fill with water from melting snow.
The other movie is a Imax documentary. It covers caves throughout the world including cenotes that may never been explored by divers.
We dove one more day with Aquanauts. The conditions were much better so we opted for the two tank dive. Natalie was our dive master, she is just shy of five feet tall and I am not sure of her age. She was at the shop when we returned from the cenote dive and she helped unload the tanks. I honestly thought she was about fourteen or sixteen, when were getting set up on the dive boat she made a joke about how young she looks. She is probably at least ten years older than she looks, if you dive with Aquanauts you will see what I mean. She is a tough cookie, our friends Lou and Gary were on both of the dives, on the way back they appeared to be grumbling so Natalie asked Gary if he liked the dive, he looked at his feet and didn't answer. She joked "aren't you talking to me?", and he finally answered that he thought it was ok.
The dives were ok, nothing to write home about. The wind had died down so conditions were much better. We saw several turtles, some fish, eels, and the coral was very nice. My complaint about diving in Puerto Morelos is the lack of fish. We had seen large schools of fish and large fish in Isla Mujeres, the difference is that part of Isla are protected so there is no fishing.
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| From Purto Aventures 2009 |
We enjoyed just about every meal we had in Puerto Aventuras and dining was convenient, just a short stroll from the condo to "downtown" area of Puerto Aventuras. There is a good selection of restaurants in Puerto Aventuras. During our stay we ate at The Pub (burgers), Cafe Ole (rib night), Tiramisu (steak and seafood), and ordered Pizza from the Italian Bakery.
We also had breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Omni. The food is good, but was priced a little higher than the rest of the restaurants in Puerto Aventuras. It took us several days to use the beach at the Omni, we had been to the Omni beach 12 years ago when we last stayed in Puerto Aventuras. We were out for a run and jogged through the lobby to check out the beach, it was a beautiful white sand beach. It is still a beautiful white sand beach but much of it is gone, most likely washed away by a hurricane. It was still a good place to hang out, they have a swim up bar and chairs and paylapas on the beach.
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| From Purto Aventures 2009 |
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| From Purto Aventures 2009 |
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| From Purto Aventures 2009 |
We spent one day on the beach south of Tulum. The beach is beautiful and well worth the drive. It is a little tricky to get to, turn left at the first stop light in Tulum (if you are heading south) and continue until the road Ts, go left at the T. The road is not very wide and eventually dead ends on the south end of the Mayan ruins. If you want to get lunch and a drink you can go to Diamonte K. As you can see below we happened across a Mayan sand sculpture on the beach.
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| From Purto Aventures 2009 |
There is a dolphin encounter in Puerto Aventuras, I have mixed feeling about it. There are a lot of dolphins for the size of the ponds and there are cycling tourists through the entire day without a break for the dolphins so I am not sure this is a good thing. Of course one of the cool stunts that the dolphins do is rocket a person through the water. As shown in the picture below.
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| From Purto Aventures 2009 |
They also have a manatee encounter and a sea lion show. We were lucky because we happened to be passing by the sea lion pen on the way back to the condo and the trainer was applying some salve to the sea lion and gave us an impromptu show. It was very cool because we were within several feet of the sea lion.
We spent a day roaming around Playa amazed at what a sprawling beast it had become. Twelve years ago 5th Avenue went through on the south end of Playa, today is is block by a large shopping complex. We wondered around Playa all day, we had lunch and dinner there. We could have easily spent another day in Playa hanging out drinking caipirinhas and Dos Equis and enjoying the restaurants and people watching.
This was not a bad vacation, the condo was beautiful, the restaurants in Puerto Aventuras were good, the cenote dives were unbelievable but the ocean dives were mediocre at best. It was an average vacation and I would have preferred Isla.
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