A couple of Quick Trips to Cozumel
Cozumel has never been on our bucket list, been there once for work many years ago and again to meet a friend for lunch who was on a cruise ship. During both of those times Cozumel simply did not impress me. It was rather run down and over-run with day tourists. Recently, however, we have had two opportunities to visit Cozumel and thoroughly enjoyed both, and we see many more trips in our future. It is close enough to pop over and far enough away to make it feel special. For us, there are 3 ways of getting there: we can take the passenger ferry, which we did on our first trip, we can go by tour boat – sailing or fishing vessel, which we did our second trip, or we can take our car on the auto ferry, which we plan to do in the future.
Both of our recent trips were related to fishing. Day one we went with our friend, Brandi who was going over to meet up with friends, family and crew of some fishing boats out of Puerto Aventuras that were competing in the Annual Cozumel Fishing Tournament. We drove to Playa del Carmen and hopped on the passenger ferry. Due to Covid there are half as many ferries going between Playa and Cozumel so they leave hourly and often have long lines and are full. The other thing that is new during Covid is there are no drinks or snacks allowed on the ferry, and you must wear your mask at all times. The trip is about 45 minutes and the ferry dock in Cozumel is conveniently located in the heart of town. Starving when we arrived, we stopped at the first place we found, Restaurante Palmeras right across the street from the ferry pier, which ended up not only having a great view, but also an incredible burger and an excellent Bloody Mary.
Full and ready to see what Cozumel had to offer, we wandered briefly in the central area which was full of tourist shops and vendors hawking their special treasures, nope, we were not interested! You can find the same things in every tourist spot up and down the Riviera Maya, so we opted instead to hire a cab and tour the island. We made sure to mention we were locals and lived just over on the mainland, this did give us a little bit of a discount. The first stop on our tour was an incredible, well-kept secret, tequila tasting spot called Tequilla Los Tres Tonos. It sits in the incredible garden of a beautiful restaurant, Casa Mission Restaurant, which we will be sure to eat at next time we are there. This spot would also make an incredible venue for a private event, but today we were there only for the tequila tasting. The free tasting was short but extremely informative and their tequilas are well worth the visit. They do limited production and use only organic materials so they are a bit pricy, but if you are looking for a nice sipping tequila to add to your collection, you won’t be disappointed.
Feeling now fully charged, off we went to discover some of the best beaches on Cozumel. The south end of Cozumel has some of the best snorkeling and diving so you will find incredible Beach Clubs which offer everything you need to spend the day on the white sandy beaches - swim up bars, restaurants, water toys, snorkeling spots and more, all at very reasonable prices.
As we headed to the east side of the island, we found little cove beaches nestled in the rough and rocky shoreline. Many had beach bars and restaurants. Great fun to do a beach pub crawl along the east shore road at a different time of year. But this sargasso season is really bad, and no place is it worse than the east coast of Cozumel. The waves crash on the rocky coastline here and that means the sargasso is literally thrown up on the shore creating stinking, green mounds of weed. The smell was so overwhelming at spots that we couldn’t even stop to take photos. Disappointed by the current conditions, we vowed to return once the sargasso disappears.
We made it back to town just in time to watch the first boat arrive for the weigh-in. Fishing conditions were not great, and though there were several boats that had caught fish, no one got the prize bill fish that day. We left Brandi to go meet up with her friends and crew and we got back on the ferry for a sunset ride back to Playa del Carmen, vowing to return soon.
Not long after our day in Cozumel, we decided to do a day trip on The Berzerker, a 41 foot Viking fishing boat. There were 8 of us and the crew, Captain Danny, Sanny and Pablo who took off for 8 hours of fun on the Caribbean Sea. We hopped on board in Puerto Aventuras - Berzerker is docked near the dolphins and sea lions in the marina.
Captain Danny did an incredible job of both steering us away from the squalls and finding us the fish. We fished our way for 2.5 hours over to Cozumel, pulled all our lines before getting to the preserve near El Cielo. El Cielo is a special spot off the south end of Cozumel known for its white sandy bottom which is full of gorgeous starfish. It is a very protected spot, beautiful to snorkel, but as Mike pointed out, starfish are not exactly exciting to watch. What was amazing to watch this day was the incredible change of colors as the skies went from dark black to blue with the whites of clouds and the sea showing us every shade of blue imaginable. While we were snorkeling, the crew was preparing two types of incredible ceviche from the Mahi Mahi we caught on the way over.
On our way home we caught more Mahi, bringing our total to 7 for the day. We rounded out our day by taking our fresh fish to Hippo Restaurant for an incredible family meal with Mahi Mahi prepared 3 ways – garlic and butter, blackened and coated in coconut.
Cozumel, I am glad you changed my opinion of you, and I hope once the cruise ships return you will still hold a special place in my heart. I can’t wait to have more special days of sunshine, crystal clear waters, tropical breezes, good food and good friends along your shores.