Playa del Carmen, Mexico

I've just returned within the past few days from a week long vacation in Mexico.  While the purpose of the trip with my wife of 25 years wasn't diving,  I managed to share a suitcase with her for my clothes and to pack dive gear in the second piece of luggage to Wyndham's Viva Maya Resort in the Playacar area. Hmmm.
My first diving with ScubaCaribe was about five years ago when I first visited Viva Maya's all-inclusive resort.  Since that time, they have grown and have partnered with Underwater Technical World to expand their diving and water related experiences to snorkeling, cenotes, trips to Cozumel, fishing trips and, of course, technical diving as it relates to Mexico's cavern and cave diving adventures.  For me, I stuck with the local diving options as it was closer to get to the dive sites and, therefore, involved less overall time away from the resort.  The daily schedule for local diving started with an 8:30am deep dive, then the option for a 10:30am shallow dive, followed by a break for lunch and finally an opportunity to do a 3:00pm shallow dive.  Let's just say that this was the printed schedule and remember that things were on MEXICAN TIME.

Wed 15 June-After a few days to settle in at the resort, I had a disappointing first dive. Wearing a new 3mm full wetsuit and in salt water for the first time in almost a year, I was under weighted.  When I had finally received enough weight from the boat to descend, the dive master candidate had lost the group.  Nearly all the dives in this part of Mexico are drift dives, so staying is one spot to wait for the others isn't always possible.  After five or six minutes of searching, he signaled to return to the surface.  Whether it was my (polite) ranting in Spanish to the dive master and the first mate about the store manager's suggestion for my needed lead (lack thereof) or just luck, UTW agreed to credit the dive and give me another.

The afternoon started with snorkeling with my wife and our friends.  It was an adventure for her, but I am proud of her for agreeing to try it for just the second time ever.  Upon returning--tired--I hopped on the afternoon boat around 3pm to Jardines (gardens) shallow dive site. This was a very gentle drift dive where we bottomed out at 37' in the 86ºF waters for a 44 minute dive.  Along the way, partnered with Omar, we saw the first of our Caribbean lionfish along with brown rays, numerous flouder, angelfish, parrotfish, trunks, and lots of fan coral.

Thurs 16 June-Two dives today included a deep dive at Las Tortugas (The Turtles) and shallow Chun-Zumbul.  Again nearly one hour late to begin, I dove with a German national, Michael, who was staying at Viva Azteca.

Las Tortugas was a nice drift dive with a decent current.  Dropping down to an initial depth of about 60 feet, we immediately spotted not turtles, but two lionfish...and saw close to 20 on the 33-minute dive.  Nevertheless, the dive site did live up to its name.  In the dive briefing the divemaster apologized for "only 50-60 feet visibility", but this was due to increased plankton and other nutrients in the water that attracted turtles to feed upon, along with many reef outcroppings. While not as plentiful as 15 years ago when turtles were numerous, we did see 5 or 6 green sea turtles, as well as several small rays, honeycomb cowfish and more.  I recorded a maximum depth of 91 feet (averaging 57') and had a toasty reading of 85ºF at depth during the 33 minute dive.

Chun-Zumbul is said to be the longest and most shallow of all the reefs in the Playa del Carmen area.  This second morning dives had vegetation and coral overhangs in its 33 feet depths.  We enjoyed many schools of fish inhabiting this area and spent a 42 minute dive exploring the nooks & crannies in the 86ºF warm waters.

Fri 17 June-I did three dives on Friday, as a strong weather front was forecasted for the weekend and the dive shop anticipated the harbor being closed on Saturday (it was, and on Sunday, too, due to the chop & size of waves...good call).

The morning deep dive took us to Pared Verde (Green Wall) and a maximum depth of 98 feet with equal visibility.  This wall is different than the classic "drop off" reef as it has sections of walls that are split by sloping sand hills.  The multilevel dive took me to maximum depth, and still 83ºF, within the first 10 minutes.  Staying at this depth for less than 9 minutes, we made our gradual ascent for 16 minutes (70', 50', 30') and then gradually ascended for the remaining part of the dive to our safety stop.

In addition to a fly by green sea turtle, we saw a 4-5' green moray eel, spiny lobster, and huge barrel corals.  A great dive!

Dives two and three were repeat locations from the previous day, but this was no problem.  The 49 minute Jardines dive took me to a maximum depth of 35' with 86ºF temps at depth.  

While a shallow one, this dive saw rays, a camouflaged stonefish or rockfish, spotted eels, and other interesting life such as the below coral banded shrimp and the small sand crab that the instructor leading the dive spotted.

  And while again a repeat dive, the final dip in the Playa waters netted a 46 minute afternoon dive after nearly a 3 hour surface interval.  This time, I recorded 86ºF at a maximum of 32'.  Trumpet fish, sea spiders, sea cucumbers...and more that I didn't view just a day earlier.                                                                          

All said, the six dives over three days were all nice dives.  I hope I don't have to wait five more years before returning to the Playa del Carmen area for scuba diving.