Puerto Morelos July 2009
Mayan Adventure Week
Puerto Morelos July 3 to 10 2009
I decided to name this blog entry Mayan Adventure Week because our diving was more adventure than vacation. From riding out a rainstorm in the dive boat (pictured above), to taking a ten foot leap into Anjelita Cenote in full gear, to being swept two miles while underwater during a drift dive, and more. It was some of the most amazing diving we have done.
I have been trying to plan a trip to Puerto Morelos for a while. I read that it is a sleepy little fishing village with a reef just 500 yards off shore. We checked out Puerto Morelos on our drive from Puerto Aventuras to the Cancun airport last February. It definitely had an Isla Mujeres vibe to it. We had just finished a week of diving in Puerto Morelos and saw nothing bigger than a small sea turtle. We so when we talked to the owner of Dive in Puerto Morelos and he showed us photos of five large eagle rays they had seen the week before we knew we had to dive here. He gave is his card and information about a six unit hotel, Cabanas Puerto Morelos, that his wife managed.
I checked Trip Advisor and both Dive in Puerto Morelos and Cabanas Puerto Morelos were highly rated. All of the reviews for Cabanas were either a 4 or 5 star (highest rating) accept for one and that review seemed unrealistic because they were comparing the hotel to a Westin and for $70 per night you are not going to get a Westin. Trip Advisor had led us astray once before in Turks and Caicos and unfortunately it happened again with Cabanas. I don’t know how fourteen people can be wrong but they were.
Transportation
We flew Delta from Minneapolis with a connection in Atlanta. We were able to get the tickets for $300 each, however, if we would have waited a month to book we could have gotten them for $260.
I had booked a ride through Luxury Vans to get from Cancun to Puerto Morelos. The driver was several minutes late, but we eventually did find him. The driver had a little trouble finding Cabanas because the email that I printed out did not have the address on it, but we did eventually find it.
The driver was right on time for the return trip and it was a short twenty minute drive to the airport.
Cabanas Puerto Morelos
There are several problems with Cabanas, we paid an extra $5 per day for air conditioning but Kris told us that we should only run the air at night, which we did, and it was darn warm in the room during the day. Also, the air conditioner only cools the bedroom, the living room was ten degrees warmer. Another problem was that it literally takes ten minutes to get hot water once you turn the spigot on and the shower head is so plugged with scale that water just trickles out. I guess that we could have asked Juan to fix it but we did not. Several of the Trip Advisor reviews stated problems with ants. We were very careful not to leave food out and we were ant free until we had the bad luck to have a gecko die on our balcony and the ants were all over the carcass. I tossed the dead gecko body into the garden (fertilizer) and hoped that the ants would leave. Most of them did but I pulled my netbook out of my backpack a few days later and it had about a dozen ants on it. I don’t know why they are in my backpack, I did not have any food in it. The only food would have been crumbs in the keyboard and I guess I should be happy if the ants cleaned my keyboard for me. I did not bother shooing the ants from the backpack, they were gone by the time we left for home.
The bottom line with Cabanas is that it is not a terrible place to stay but it lacked character, it could be a much nicer hotel if they paid a little attention to detail, had better air conditioning and more water pressure. We decided it was not worth giving Cabanas a bad review on Trip Advisor since there was nothing that was terrible about the hotel, but we will choose to stay elsewhere next time.
Now that I have trashed Cananas I'll list what we liked about it The gardens area of the property is nice, Juan does a good job of keeping it up. The pool is nice, it is very warm and Juan also does a good job of keeping up the pool. The location is great, it is four blocks from the town square on avenue Javier Rojo Gomez, so it is a short walk to everything, no rental car needed. It is near the beach, the photos at Trip Advisor show a path from Cabanas through some underbrush to the beach but that path is overgrown and not accessible. To get to the beach you have to walk to the end of the block, no big deal it is still a short stroll the beach. Finally, the maid does a great job keeping the rooms clean.
The beach is beautiful white sand and it runs for miles. There is a tractor that grooms the Puerto Morelos beach every morning. Some would argue that a natural beach is better but it is nice not to have to deal with dead sea grass. We took several 45 minute (one way) walks on the beach and it looked like we could have kept going until we reached Cancun. The beach is mostly family oriented but there was the occasional topless sunbathers. On a more deserted area of the beach we ran into a couple, she was topless and he was nude sunbathing. I have just one thing to say to him, if you are going to sunbath in the nude face the other direction!
The most common question we were asked while in Puerto Morelos was "do you want to go snorkeling?". I snorkeled from the beach and the snorkeling was OK. I did see a small ray, parrot fish, a school of large angel fish and many other fish. Bret at the dive shop told us the best snorkeling was directly out from the crooked palm tree on Carmen beach, I never did snorkel there, but I did find the tree.
Cabanas provides two beach chairs in each room and Kris gave me a beach umbrella when I asked for one. We never used the chairs or umbrella, we either walked on the beach or we paid the $150 pesos at Ojo de Agua for chairs and an umbrella.
Diving
Our dive history consists of locations throughout the Caribbean with the exception of several dives in Hawaii. We have yet to dive in the south Pacific or more exotic Caribbean locations like Belize or Roatan. So keep that information in mind when I say this was the best diving that we have experienced.
We planned to dive with Dive in Puerto Morelos but they were booked on Saturday and closed Sunday we did not want to wait that long to dive. We discovered Aquanauts when we were at dinner Thursday night . They are located next to El Coyote in Carmen Hacienda. Cresent and William own the shop (they are not affiliated with Aquanauts that we dove with in Puerto Aventuras), and their toddler Geronimo is at the shop from time to time. I didn’t realize it but Aquanauts is listed as the number one attraction for Puerto Morelos on Trip Advisor. All of their BC looked fairly new (I have seen BCs at other shops that were faded, tattered and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to trust my life to them). The regs were also newer and did not leak once. William was getting over a cold when we arrived and their other dive master had just quit to go back to Europe, so we dove with George who was temporarily working at Aquanauts. By a strange coincidence we dove with George when he was working on Isla Mujueres.
Saturday
Our group consisted of George (dive master), Sam, Karen and I. Sam claimed to dive every weekend in Florida and had some very expensive equipment, but he flailed his arms like crazy while diving. This is a rookie thing to do, once you have been diving a while you learn to keep your arms folded in front of you to conserve energy and air. Also, Sam was never more than ten feet from the dive master. I am thinking Sam did not have as much experience as he claimed he had.
The first dive was called The Bridge, it is named that because of the swim through. It was a good dive to start the week, not too deep, very little current. We saw some nice coral formations, a ray and many fish.
The second dive was called Aquarium. We saw a brown spotted eel out and swimming through the coral, a large school of pork fish, a small flounder and many other fish.
Sunday
C56 Wreck. Our group consisted of Karen, myself and George for entire day. The C56 is an old navy ship that was sunk in 90 feet of water to create an artificial reef. George told us to enter the water, swim to the bow of the boat, and follow the buoy line down. Visibility near the surface was terrible but once we hit 35 feet it cleared up, the vis was excellent and there was no current, which can be an issue at the wreck.
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As we swam over the bow of the boat we saw two large eagle rays flapping their wings and soaring around the wreck. They are such a beautiful pelagic with their upturned snout and white spotted backs. We saw three more sting rays in the sand on the port side of the boat. We also saw a large grouper, a medium sized barracuda, a large school of jacks and many other fish.
Watch the videos of the dive below.
Paridesio was the second dive. To be honest it would be hard to beat C56. We had current and medium visibility but it was still a good dive.
We were so amazed with the wreck dive that we did a night dive making it a three dive day. The night dive was at Aquarium again. We had perfect conditions, a full moon, calm and no current. We did not go deeper than 42 feet so we were able to stay down for 50 minutes. Unfortunately my camera malfunctioned so I did not get any photos.
The first denizen of the night that we encountered was a small translucent squid with large dark eyes. His arms and tentacles were contorted like kung fu master ready to strike. We saw a turtle rising to the surface for air and when he saw us he swam back down to the ocean floor, possibly thinking we were predators. William and George warned us not to point the flashlight directly into the turtles eyes, it could temporarily blind them. We saw several rays with their large green reflecting eyes. I saw a large crab, we also saw several lobsters making their nocturnal trek across the ocean floor. One of the really cool things to do on a night dive is to aim your light at a coral formation and see all of the pairs off red eyes reflecting back at you, I imagine the eyes belong to different types of crustaceans, but I did not get close enough to find out for sure.
During our three minute safety stop George had us turn our flashlights off and wave our hands in front of us, as we did it we saw a shower of tiny sparks in the water. Bioluminescense!
Monday
We had another couple (Jill and Temo) diving with us and William had recovered so he was assuming the dive master responsibilities. Jill had just completed her open water certification so these were her first two open water dives. The first dive was called Grouper. I knew it was going to be a tough dive because I had to kick hard to get down to the reef and it felt like I burned through half a tank by the time got there. We saw a large eel, drum fish, and a baracuda to mention some of what we saw. During the safey stop Jill was holding on to Temo and William noticed that Temo was checking Jill's gauges. William Swam over and and saw that Jill was almost out of air so he gave her his octopus. William had been checking our air throughout the dive so I think Jill was not being honest about how much air she had left.
The second dive was Manchones/Spots. It is named spots because the reef consists of many little coral heads. We saw a large barracuda, a hole in the reef that was pack with at least ten lobsters, a queen angel fish, a queen trigger fish and more. During the safety stop William once again checked Jill's air gauge and found that she was almost out of air, so he gave her his octopus and shared his air for the three minute safety stop. Since the rest of us had more experience than Jill we were better at conserving air and I think she did not want to admit that she was the first one to run low. It is kind of crazy when you consider what happens when you run out of air.
Tuesday
Tuesday was a rest day, we went to Playa del Carmen.
Wednesday
With us on the dives were Blago, an UN cameraman and Danny, a friend of William and Cresent's from Vancouver.
We went 45 minutes south of Puerto Morelos to a dive site called Marones Wall/Los Archos for our first dive. On the way we ran into a summer squall, we had to tie to a buoy and ride the storm out. We had our wet suits on, the rain was warm but the wind was so strong that the rain drops stung as they pelted us. Danny and Blogo did not look too bothered by the rain but Karen sat on the floor of the boat for protection.
The second dive was called Mini Reef, it was shallower 35-40 feet and it was more of the same, many fish and beautiful coral formations. We were down for almost an hour and we traveled almost two miles underwater. There was another squall while we were under and the boat captain lost site of our bubbles, when we surfaced our boat was nowhere in site. We were only bobbing at the surface for several minutes before our captain found us.
Thursday
We were flying back on Friday so this is our last time to dive this vacation. We dove Anjelita cenote for the first dive and Grand cenote for the second. Cresent had shown us pictures of Anjelita and described it to us- it looks like the planet where Luke Skywalker met Yoda. The pictures and her description did not come close to describing Anjelita, I don't think there are words that can describe it, it is someting you have to experience. Anjelita was not a usual cenote, it was a sink hole that was two hundred feet deep. Grand cenote was part of a cave system with stalactites and stalagmites that had filled with water.
It was a fifty minute drive to get to Anjelita, it is located south of Tulum. We were suppose to meet Blogo in a shopping mall in Tulum but were were late and he must not have waited. It rained most of the day and it down poured when we go to Anjelita. The rain caused the dormant mosquitoes to hatch and they were hungry. We got out of the truck and immediately zipped up our wetsuits to protect as much skin as possible from the ravenous mosquitoes. We donned all of our gear,while we were slapping and swearing, accept for our fins and made the trek through the jungle swatting mosquitoes as we went.
When we arrived at the jump site (yes I did say jump site) we were told to walked up to the rocky overhang, don our fins while standing on slippery rocks overhanging the cenote and leap ten feet to the water below. William went first, I wanted to go before Karen in case she had problems when she jumped in, but Karen could not be last because she was afraid of heights and may not jump. Karen went third and Danny last, she did not need help jumping in, she valiantly braved the leap.
As we prepared to descend another group of divers surfaced. Danny asked them how they liked it and they said "great", "unbeleiveable" and "it's Yodatown down there". We released the air from our BCs and started our descent. It was still raining and overcast so there was little ambient light to be had and as we pointed the beam from our flashlights down the light was quickly absorbed by the dark waters. We descended ninety feet quicker than I thought possible, did we descend that fast or was the darkness playing tricks on me?
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On a sunny day we would only need our flashlights when we went below the halocline, but the storm clouds blotting out the sun and the light was comparable to a night dive. It definitely did look like Dagobah, the planet where Luke Sky walker met Yoda. There were tree branches sticking out of what appeared to be an island and a murky greenish brown mist surrounded the island. I almost expected to see an X-wing fighter sticking up out of the mist.
The greenish brown layer was caused by trees and leaves that had fallen into the sink hole and decayed. The gas from the decaying matter is trapped by the halocline (area where salt waster and fresh water meet), and it creates a opaque layer of gas that is about four feet thick.
Once we reached Yodatown we examined the outer perimeter and swam to a branch located on the sudo island, where Karen and I and posed for photo. It is funny that after our drift dive on Wednesday I kidded Karen that every time I looked for her she was twenty yards away and swimming the other direction. She did not have a problem staying close to me at Anjelita, the darkness and general eeriness of the dive effected her equilibrium and she held on to me or William once we landed in Yodatown. We took turns sinking below the murky halocline and rising back up. Sinking into the misty layer is a surreal experience weather you are the one transversing the murk or just watching. When it was my turn I discovered that once again got the flashlight with the weak batteries, that happened on our last cenote drive also. As I sank through the pea soup liquid the inefectual beam from the flashlight emmited almost no light. I never made it completely through the halocline before I finned back to Karen, William and Danny but the water is suppose to be crystal clear but no light makes it through the halocline so it is pitch black. We all had the same experience as we rose back above the the halocline into Yodatown- it seamed like we were not underwater and we did not need a regulator. None of us went as far as taking the regulator out of our mouth but each of us did have the distinct feeling that we were not underwater.
Since we were so deep we did not get a lot of bottom time. We began our slow ascent circling up the walls of the sink hole, Danny and William went into an opening in the wall. I checked my air gauge and I was at 600 psi, I wasn't that far from the surface but I was not going to enter the opening in the wall. I looked at Karen and shook my head and she nodded in agreement. We saw William and Danny's lights dim and than extinguish as the went further into the opening, Karen and I hung in the water and then noticed lights from another opening in the in the sink hole wall. The opening was a swim through and Danny and William were coming out the other end. William noticed that Karen and I did not follow him through the channel and flashed a the dive signal for what is you air, I signaled six hundred psi and William signaled that we should do our three minute safety stop and surface.
Once we surfaced we still had to climb out of the sink hole. Opposite of where we entered the cenote is the exit point. It is a steep and the rocks are slippery but we managed to climb out with the aid of a rope. The mosquitos were still voracious so we almost ran to the truck in full gear, stopping to pick up our sandals on the way. We shed our gear as fast as we could, hopped into Williams pickup and sped away from the hungry swarms.
We stopped in Tulum for lunch, Crescent packed sandwiches and ice tea. While we were eating a large roach climbed on Williams shoulder and William freaked, he swatted the bug and it flew into our pile of dive gear in the back of the truck. William warned if we did not find the bug before our second dive to breath out before breathing in, in case the roach was in one of the regulators. I am not making fun of William for being freaked out by the bug, he has probably grown up with them his entire life and he had not gotten use to them, I think I would be the same.
Resturants
We usually avoid all inclusive resorts (not that I am comparing Cabanas to an all inclusive resort) so we can explore the nearby restaurants. There are a good amount of places to eat in Puerto Morelos, they are all reasonably priced and most of them are good.
As soon as we checked in and unpacked we walked to Pelicanos for a late lunch. Pelicanos probably has the best location in Puerto Morelos, it is on the beach next to the town square. The food was good, not fantastic but good. Later that night we ate at El Coyote Apache, it is located in Hotel Carmen Hacienda. This was the most expensive meal that we had in PM, my wife loved her fish. I on the other hand learned a lesson, I don't like traditional Mexican grilled fish. It is not the way Coyote prepared the fish, I tried grilled fish at La Petita later in the week and did not like it any better than Coyote.
Most mornings we ate breakfast in our room, we did not have a lot of time to go out for breakfast before diving. We did eat breeakfast at El Pirata one morning. The restaurant is located on the town square across from the taxi stand. Breakfast was very good, I wish we would have made it back another day.
We also ate at the following restaurants during our week in PM:
Casa del Pescador- We ate there twice, we had fish the first time and lobster the second. This is our favorite restaurant in PM both meals were excellent and the waiter (I think he may have been the owner) was congenial, attentive and just an all around good waiter.
La Petita- William at Aquanauts recommended this restaurant, he said it was a favorite of the locals. The restaurant specializes in fish,caught fresh daily by the local fishermen. It has plastic table and chairs and a sand floor, like many of the restaurants in the caribbean. It is inexpensive, and Karen liked her fish, and I figured out that I do not like Mexican style grilled fish.
La Suegra- It is a small restaurant located across from La Petita, and on the beach. We stopped in for lunch one day after diving, not really having high expectations but the food was good and the beach view was nice.
Hola Asia- This restaurant it located on the square across the street from Pelicanos. It was highly recommended by several people but neither Karen of I cared for the food. Karen stepped out of comfort zone and ordered fish, but it was the entire fish head and all, that is a problem for her. I had sesame chicken which is a favorite of mine but this version was kind of bland.
Ojo de Agua- We had lunch here several days then rented chairs and an umbrella in front of the restaurant. The food and service were good.
Spaghettinio's- Good Italian food.
Playa del Carmen
We took a break from diving on Tuesday and went into Playa for the day. From Puerto Morelos we took a taxi to the bus stop on the highway, about a twenty peso ride and took the local bus (ADO) to Playa for 18 pesos each. It was about a half hour ride and the buses are clean and comfortable, I wish the local buses in the US were as nice. The buses are more like Greyhounds than city buses. They have large comfortable seats that recline and there is a monitor in front that plays movies during the trip. We watched the Rock in The Game Plan, it had been dubbed in Spanish, Karen and I were the only ones on the bus that were laughing. It is about a forty-five minute ride to Playa and the bus drops you at the bus station on 5th Avenue, the main shopping street for Playa.
Playa has many shops, bars and restaurants to enjoy. We got to Playa just in time for lunch, it was sweltering hot so we ate at one of the larger restaurants on the beach. The breeze kept us cool while we enjoyed margaritas and ate lunch. After lunch I wanted to check my email so I found a Internet cafe located across from a back packers hostel. I am a little to old to stay in a hostel but if that would have been there in my twenties I would have been all over that.
We shopped in the afternoon, we had to pick up several souvenirs for people back in Minnesota. We eventually made it to the far end of 5th and stopped for ice cream, enjoying the breeze from the ceiling fan. We eventually wandered down to one of the many beach bars and relaxed (vacation can be exhausting) with a couple of cervesas. The only isse we encountered while hanging at the beach was the bar we were at was playing jazz and the bar next to ours was playing classic rock so we listened to an irritating mashup of jazz and oldies. The bars should realize that this is really irritating and one of the bars should turn off their stereo.
Since it was July, Mexico had the swine flu scare, and the states were suffering from a recession the streets in Playa were almost deserted. That means you're fish food and it is feeding time for the sharks (the people trying to get you to buy something). The people working the shops in Playa have figured out that they get a better reaction with humor than high pressure sales so as walk down the streets you hear the usual "cheaper than Costco" which use to be cheaper than Kmart, and "hey honeymooners, want to check out my shop". My favorite line was from some guy trying to get us to eat at his restaurant, "You come to my restaurant and you get a home cooked meal, made by my grandmother but you better hurry because she may die soon". It was funnier when he said it.
For dinner we use the theory the restaurants off of the beaten path have to have better food to stay in business and it worked. We ducked into a side street off of 5th avenue and we found a little Italian restaurant that was great.I had my favorite, pasta putenesca. This is my favorite dish at out favorite Italian restaurant in Minneapolis, Broader's Pasta Bar. This is the standard that I measure other Italian restaurants by and this restaurant was nearly as good as Broader's. This is the only that has come close.
After dinner we picked up several souvenirs and caught the ADO bus back to Puerto Morelos. It was a simple and cheap way to get back to Puerto Morelos, much better than paying for a cab.
Last Day
We had to depart Puerto Morelos by 11:30 AM so we could catch our 2:30 flight. We had breakfast in the room and went for a final walk on the beach, then it was time to catch our shuttle. Luxury Van was right on time and there was no traffic so we were at the airport in twenty minutes. The Delta check in line was huge but we eventually made it through and then it was upstairs to clear security. Unfortunately, Karen had forgotten that Cancun security ahd taken her nail file when we were there last February, they did it again. She has flown all around the us with a nail file in her purse and had it confiscated, but Mexico seems to have an issue with it. They also took a bottle of Clear Care contact solution that was in a bag and less than three ounces, but we figured it they want it they can have it. I do like Cancun security because I don't have to take my laptop from my backpack. We bought some Toblerone at the Duty Free shop and had lunch at Margaritaville before we caught our flight.
Recap
Liked:
Diving- the best ever, both ocean and cenote diving.
Aquanauts- good equipment and great dive masters.
The beach- beautiful and you can literally walk for hours.
Food- Most of the food and restaurants in Puerto Morelos was good.
Puerto Morelos- It is not Isla Mujeres but it is a close second.
Disliked:
Mexican Grilled Fish- don't like the texture of the fish.
Helpful Links
Puertomorelos.com- Has a lot of information on restaurants and hotels
Locogringo.com - Lots of good information on P.M. and the Riviera Maya
There are some things about Cabanas Puerto Morelos that we really liked, the pool and gardens are nice, the price is nice, the rooms are large and they are very clean but I was annoyed that only the bedroom was air conditioned and we were not suppose to run the air conditioning during the day. I would not recommend against anyone staying at Cabanas but we will opt for a different hotel or condo when we go back to Puerto Morelos.
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