Emily Cohlmia's Dive Log

Pros--One of my top 10 dives ever because of the iron shore. Right off the entry point on the south side, there are HUGE caves that you can swim through. When we were there, there were resident Tarpon in these caves and it was so cool diving, in a cave, with fish four/five times the size of me....a little intimidating, but really cool. Cons--Really expensive. Not only do you have to pay to get it, they require a dive guide, which is stupid on a shore dive where you cannot get lost unless you are a total idiot, but they have got you because if you want their tank, you have to pay their prices and dive with a guide. When we dove, it was like $29 to get into the park and then each shore dive was $50 apiece (and we have our own equipment). Nice steps down the iron coast for easy entry. I've heard about people watching the dolphins at the dophinarium at the north side of the park while diving, but our guide never allowed us to go that far north. I would love to dive the caverns again, but probably won't for the cost. I wish they would let you rent a tank and go....I would dive all day there.

While shore diving is never as awesome compared to the boat dives in Cozumel, this shore dive kept us entertained every afternoon. They have this weird concrete pods with holes in them to create artificial structure for animals, as well as other structures put there to entice reef life to show up. There is a small wall at about 30 feet, which has lots of small caverns and crevices for lobsters, crabs, eels, etc. If you like looking for micro life, this is a great dive. the days we dove in June, there was very little current. We were shallow enough that my youngest son snorkeled above us and free dove down to us many times. We had 75-90 minute dives here (as long as our tanks lasted) since it was so shallow. The entry stairs are very slippery and we had to be really careful going up and down not to fall. They told us we could giant stride off the pier, but it seemed like a really long way down to giant stride. For $10 per tank, you can't go wrong here, especially if you like the little critters.