Escape the Winter Cold, Let’s Go Scuba Diving in January!

It is sometimes hard for me hard to believe that I used to be an avid skier.  In college, I spent a number of weekends, a week around Christmas and Spring Break skiing.  It was fun, exhilarating and challenging.   My underwater camera saw more frozen moisture than liquid.
After mneung to Houston in…well let’s not go there…I changed from a skier to a sailor and a diver.  White powdery slopes were replaced by soft sand beaches, boats, bikinis, dive equipment and clear blue water.  Oh, and yes the warm weather.
Winters in Houston are a far cry from the cold wind-blown snow and ice of Lubbock, but I still find that winters can be cold.  I guess I have just gotten used to the warmth so the mild winters here seem cold to me at times. 
Despite the executives from Continental trading in their shorts and t-shirts for wool sweaters, wool pants and poly-propylene long underwear, Houston remains the gateway to the Caribbean and the soft sand and clear blue waters I discovered later in life.  In the Caribbean there is plenty of warmth to go around and diving on some of the worlds most beautiful reefs.  The walls stretch for miles down the coasts and in some places for miles down as well.
While Bing Crosby is singing “Let It Snow…” I am picturing a boat parked over a tropical reef, the top of the reef opening up eighty feet below me with the nearby wall plunging down 400 feet and the current guiding me along this natural aquarium.  The fish are swimming, feasting in the current and the corals are gently swaying in the water.
The easiest place to go for a long weekend is Cozumel, Mexico a limestone island once home to the Mayan Oracle and a Mayan pilgrimage destination.  Cortez removed the Oracle and used the island as a staging area for his conquest of Mexico.
Jacques Cousteau helped make the island a diving Mecca when he first visited the island in 1960.  He found the sleepy little island a paradise above and below the water.  Of course he probably would not recognize the Cozumel of today with 2 cruise ship terminals which can accommodate up to six ships.  The current economic slowdown in the United States has thankfully reduced the number of ships visiting the island but unfortunately to the detriment to the local people.
Cozumel is the home of the second Marine Park founded in Mexico and is the first not to allow local fisherman to spear fish or line fish on the reefs.  The primary industry in Cozumel is tourism with divers making up a large part of the tourist business, especially with the reduced cruise ship traffic.
The reefs, which took a beating in Hurricane Gilbert are still beautiful.  The southern end of the island has steep walls and beautiful corals and fish, while the North end of the island was sloping walls and fast currents with up and down currents to boot.  For rebreather divers especially, the areas without the up and down currents are more enjoyable and my favorite dives are in the vicinity of Palancar Gardens and Palancar Caves.  It is really special to come up from the stark limestone depths into a garden of colour and lives, swirling around you as you swim in, out and around the pillars of coral.  You float along, the currents carrying you along toward the north (generally) with the scene constantly changing and renewing the colour and life.
Hmm, I think I need to go diving!  Luckily for me, the travel department at Oceanic Ventures, namely Ann, has put together a long weekend in Cozumel so I can complete some training for some students who are also looking forward to warm water and wetsuits instead of the cold water and dry suits I have been making them use for training up to this point.  But, despite my being involved in a training class, there are a number of people who, like me, want to escape the cold and enjoy some warm tropical breezes.
If you can get away, you are welcome to join us in Mexico 13-17 January 2011.  If you cannot make it this time, keep your head warm and remember someone else is staying warm for you.