People always ask, “How was the diving in Mexico?” Well, it’s not exactly a simple answer. One of the things I like most about Mexico is
there is a wide variety of diving, especially in the area around Playa del
Carmen. You of course have the reefs of
the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef off
the coast of Playa del Carmen, but you also have a completely different style
of diving an hour ferry ride over to the island of Cozumel. But that (in my opinion) isn’t even the best
of the diving that Mexico has to offer – that being the Cenotes. Let me elaborate a bit on each.
PLAYA del CARMEN
We did the bulk of our diving during our internship on the reefs just outside of
Playa del Carmen. The reefs here are
what many refer to as carpet reefs. This
means you don’t have much in the form of walls or spectacular topography, but
rather flatter reefs sometimes with gently sloping coral mounds. To be honest, the coral formations weren’t
that exciting. The health of the coral
was so-so, as well as the variety. A bit
surprising, the variety of fish and other swimming life was really nice. There is quite a bit of schooling fish, green
morays and spotted morays nearly every dive, turtles every couple of dives, southern
sting rays every few dives, and on pretty rare occasions a spotted eagle ray.
On our second to last dive we did on the island
we were even lucky enough to see four huge bullsharks! Bull sharks are much more
common during the winter months – in fact they have special bull shark dives
where they take you to a sandy spot to look just for the sharks.
Most of the diving in and around Playa del
Carmen is drift diving. Some of the
sites have ripping currents. The type of current where you get yourself
neutrally buoyant then sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. These are fun but you really have no chance
of looking for small things, taking your time on pictures, or showing anything
to anyone as swimming against the current may not be possible. There are also a few sites that don’t have any
current at all. There is a wreck on the south edge of Playa
del Carmen called the Mama Viña. The
wreck is alright, pretty good for Playa standards I guess. There is usually quite a bit of life around
it including stingrays, eels, groupers, and usually a nice school of glassy
sweepers on the inside. It’s possible to
penetrate the wreck, but not all that spectacular as the ship isn’t very big. Nonetheless, it’s still fun to dive the wreck
to mix things up a bit. The visibility
is generally pretty good, but not spectacular.
On a good day I’d say you can see 75’-100’, and on a real bad day maybe
35’. Surface conditions vary, but
typically not very smooth. It was not
uncommon for the port master to shut all the diving down due to the waves
becoming too large.
So what’s the bottom line of Playa del Carmen diving? It’s a good place to dive if you are more of
an intermediate diver. The reef itself isn't that spectacular, but there
are quite a bit of fish and other wildlife. Drift diving makes a not incredible dive a little bit better.
Cost of one tank: $60-$70 with equipment rental.
Stay tuned for my thoughts on diving in Cozumel and in the
Cenotes!
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