The Ultimate guide to scuba diving in cozumel
Today we are going to look at the Beautiful Island of Cozumel Mexico. Pack your bags, don’t forget the sunscreen and cue the music. We are about to takeoff on a tropical adventure of diving and exploring Mayan ruins!
Getting there
For international traveling you will be flying into the Cozumel International Airport (CZM), which is located on the Northwest side of the Island, closer to the middle.

With many direct flights to CZM, including direct flights from cities such as Chicago, Dallas, Charlotte, Minneapolis, Denver, Miami, Montreal and Toronto, getting to Cozumel is not much of a hassle and, at most, may require one layover.
Accommodations
As to be expected, there are many options to choose from on Cozumel. Some good options that include diving are Casa del Mar Cozumel Hotel & Dive Resort, Cozumel Hotel & resort, Allegro Cozumel (all-inclusive), Meliá Cozumel (all-inclusive) and, where we stayed, Iberostar Cozumel (all-inclusive).

The Iberostar was excellent, from the food and drinks to the staff and choices of resort activities you can join in on. Dressel Divers is right on site and it’s a short walk to the dock to catch your dive boat. One more thing about Iberostar was good medical care and treatment, but more on that later.
Cozumel Scuba Diving
Renowned for its reef drift diving, Cozumel has much to offer in its underwater world. In addition to the abundance of marine life divers will encounter, Cozumel offers all the different types of dives you could want including wall dives, swim-throughs and, inland world famous, cenote diving.
Dive Shops
As mentioned above, many of the Cozumel resorts have onsite diving accommodations. If by chance you are staying somewhere that is not linked to a dive shop, don’t worry as there are plenty of shops to choose from. The majority of the dive shops are on the West side of the island and include Maple Leaf Scuba, Barefoot Dive Center, Blue Magic Scuba, Deep Blue, Agua Clara Diving and Nirvana Dive shop.

For our diving excursions, we dove with Dressel Divers who partner with Iberostar (see above).

Dressel was an excellent company to dive with and our Divemaster/guide (Eva) was top notch. She was fun, informative and patient with newer divers. I was highly impressed with all of Dressel’s staff and would gladly dive with them again. They offer free nitrox too!

Gear Up
Water temperatures are pretty warm all year-round in Cozumel. Generally speaking, you are looking at coolest temps in the mid to high 70s and warmest temps to the mid to high 80s. I always preach full wetsuits for protection no matter the water temps. So when diving in Cozumel you’ll probably want to go with a 3mm (summer months) to 5mm (winter months), depending on how hot or cold you run.
Some nice wetsuit options that won’t break the bank include XCEL, SCUBAPRO Men’s Sport Steamer, Neosport, Lemorecen and Hevto. Don’t forget your fins, the Scubapro Go Sport fins travel nicely and are a Jay’s Faves, as well your surface marker buoy and a signaling device.

For our trip in May the water temperature was in the 80s. I wore a 3mm wetsuit with 1mm vest underneath and felt pretty good.
Dive Sites
With over 30 different dive sites you will have plenty to see and do underwater in Cozumel. The majority of the dives are drift dives and the dive sites are primarily located on the Southwest side of the Island. In order to protect the reefs from too much wear, the sites are rotated as to when they can be dove.

The dive sites you will visit in Cozumel are part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System – or Great Mayan Reef – which is the second largest coral formation in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Below are some of the best dive sites to check out in Cozumel.
Palancar Reef
This “Underwater Garden of Eden” is easily on of the most favorite dive sites in Cozumel and is a protected marine park. It is drift dive that is good for snorkeling too and has some wonderful swim-throughs, rock formations and drop-off.

Depths range from about 30ft to 120ft. While this is a dive site good for all level of divers, make sure to dive within your training. Some of the reef’s highlights include the Palancar Bricks, left over cargo from a ship that sank in the 1950s, and the Palancar Horseshoe, a natural coral formation shaped like, you guessed it, a horseshoe.

On Palancar Reef you will see abundant marine life, such as moray eels, rays, hawksbill turtles and tropical fish like angelfish, butterflyfish and damselfish, swimming around the coral and sponge formations.
Santa Rosa Wall
Looking for a spectacular drop-off, then the Santa Rosa Wall has you covered. Starting at about 50ft and descending down to 3,000ft, divers will feel like they are flying next to a mountain range, but with beautiful aquatic life all around.
During this drift dive you will see many barrel sponges, queen angelfish, parrotfish and perhaps a pufferfish or two. Dressel Divers keeps the maximum depth here between 72ft to 82ft as that is where the best of the marine life can be found.
Columbia Reef
Columbia Reef is made up of coral sections of various shapes and sizes. The is definitely one of those geographically stunning dive sites.

Among the barrel sponges and sea fans you will find all sorts of sea life playing about including trumpetfish, smooth trunkfish, gray angelfish and barracuda. At one point we saw two nurse sharks sleeping under an overhang with a moray eel…nighty night!

Beginner divers can do this dive, just mind your depth as there are some wall drop-offs. During our dive we hit a maximum depth of 81ft.
Cedral Wall
On the day of our dive on Cedral Wall aka Paso Del Cedral the current was booking. However, that didn’t stop us from seeing some pretty amazing things, like a large loggerhead turtle.

We hit a maximum of 77ft during this dive and saw many barrel sponges, two sea turtles, groupers, spiny lobster and schooling horse-eyed jackfish. As mentioned above, this location has a strong current and is more suitable for advanced divers.
Night Dive
I highly recommend taking in a night dive during your stay. The colors are vivid and a varity of marine life comes out to play at night.

Our dive was at the dive site La Francesa, which is perfect for night diving! During the dive we hit a maximum depth of 61ft with a bottom temperature of 83. On the dive we saw octopuses, squids and a nurse shark, among other marine life. Additionally, the toadfish were out and making noise. This was an incredible dive…and we still were able to eat dinner after.
Cenotes
Not all the underwater fun is to be found in the open water. For those adventurous spirits, and let’s face it that is most of us divers, you can go inland and dive in the many world-famous cenotes to be found in the Yucatan Peninsula.

These large sinkholes were used by the Mayans as a water source and place of rituals, including sacrifices, viewing them as entrances to the underworld. There are literally thousands of cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula.
Cenote Chikin Ha
For our half-day trip we did two dives in Cenote Chikin Ha. There are two main lines you follow and both are equally stunning. On the left line you follow, you come up in another cenote, rainbow.

This is cavern diving, not cave diving. For the majority of the dive you can see sunlight, but there are spots where you are in a tunnel, a large one, with overhead blockage. I would say this is not a dive for the very claustrophobic. Water temp. was cooler here, about 77. deepest we went was 44ft.

Diving in this cenote was easily one of my top five favorite dives. The beautiful rock formations with light shining down through crevasses and spots of halocline will make you feel like you’ve been transported to another world. If going to Cozumel, do yourself a favor and do a cenote dive. we booked ours through Dressel Divers, and again it was excellently run.
Other Activities
Of course there are many other activities to join in on while visiting Cozumel. From horseback riding and ATV tours to ziplining and clear bottom boat tours, you will be spoiled for choices for fun activities to partake in.

ATV Tour
Our group choose to do an ATV tour. We went through the resort and used Cozumel ATV Tour, who picked us up at the resort and showed us a good time.

our first stop on the ATV tour was a cenote, where we jumped in for a swim.

Next, we made our way over to taste test various flavors of tequila. The coffee flavor was my personal favorite.

At the end of the tour we came to a small town square with a pretty old church.

Our ATV tour was about two hours and, besides the fun, was very informative. We learned about Mayan culture and how tequila is made. We also learned there are many different flavors of tequila to enjoy as well, but some of the really good stuff is only available in Mexico.
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza is an ancient landmark of Mayan culture and it’s also just one of the most notable ancient landmarks on the Yucatan peninsula in general. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and also one of the New seven Wonders of the World. It is located on the mainland and is a day trip, with a ferry ride, if doing this from Cozumel.
This important Mayan city was being built and added to from about 600 AD to 1000AD. The main feature of Chichen Itza is the Temple of Kukulcan, an amazing pyramid-like structure.

Other main attractions at the site include the Plaza of a Thousand Columns, the Observatory, Great Ball Court, Temple of Warriors, Sacred Cenote and Platform of Skulls, where the heads of sacrificed victims was displayed and still bears carved skulls in its structure.


While these ruins are a few hours from Cozumel and will be a day trip, it is a trip worth taking to step back in time! For our trip we went through Julio Padilla at Cozumel Travel & Tours. Julio was fantastic. He met us at the Ferry to the mainland before and after our trip and made sure everything went smoothly. Our travel guide Tanya Llanes Valdez was equally fantastic. She made sure we saw all the highlights and was very knowledgeable about Chichen Itza and the Mayan culture.
Following our incredible trip to Chichen Itza, we had lunch and a much needed cool off swim at cenote Saamal.


Finally, we finished off with a quick trip to the small colonial town of Valladolid, were we had some very tasty churros.

we also had just enough time to check out the old church of Saint Servatius, before we had to head back to catch the ferry back to Cozumel.


Whale Shark Snorkeling
From June to about mid-September, you can get in on snorkeling with whale sharks. These gentle giants with large mouths are something to see and people travel all over the world for this type of experience.

KaoKao Chocolate Factory Tour
Chocolate has deep roots in Mexican culture and history. What better way to learn about how this tasty treat is prepared than a tour of a factory in the land where it all began thousands of years ago.

The 90 minute tour of the KaoKao Chocolate Factory includes the history of Cacao, explanation about the chocolate-making process and concludes with making your own Chocolate Mexican disc from scratch. You also get several other chocolate samples. All in all a very cool tour that will have your stomach thanking you.
Cancun and Tulum
Both Tulum and Cancun are not too far and have potential for exciting day trips.
Tulum has the spectacular Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, encompassing over a million acres. There are also incredible cenotes to explore like Calavera (“The Temple of Doom”), Dos Ojos (“The Two Eyes”) and Aktun Ha (“Carwash”).

Additionally, Tulum has many Mayan ruins to be found at places like the Tulum Archeological Site, Zona Arqueológica de Muyil, and Ek Balam.

For more information on Tulum, check out Scuba Jay’s Scuba Diving in Tulum, which can be found here, or the 10 Best Things To Do In Tulum, which can be found here.
Cancun has some nice attractions to offer too, including some famous cenotes like Ik Kil, Zapote and Maravilla. There are also plenty of Mayan ruins to be explored right in and around Cancun. And for those that want a little more history on the Mayan culture, stop into the Maya Museum of Cancun.

The Mayan ruins of Yamil Lu’um (with “The Temple of Scorpion” and “Temple of The Handprint”), El Rey (“The King”) and San Miguelito are all within Cancun’s “Hotel Zone” and are worth checking out.

For more information on Cancun, check out Scuba Jay’s Scuba Diving in Cancun, which can be found here, or The 16 Best Things To Do In Cancun According To Locals , which can be found here.
Medical Care And Treatment
I don’t usually discuss medical care and treatment in my articles, but since I experienced it first hand, I thought I’d mention it here. It all started when Scuba Jay decided to take the last day off from diving and sit by the pool.

Things were going good until the resort staff pulled out the inflatable pool obstacle course. Scuba Jay thinking he was not in his 50s (which happens more often than not) decided to give it a go and dislocated his left shoulder.
The resort staff quickly attended to me and called an ambulance. After about a 30 minute ride on what felt like the bumpiest road ever, we arrived at Costamed Hospital.

I will say my treatment was fantastic from the moment I entered the hospital. The entire staff was attentive from the doctors to the nurses and from the billing specialist (who helped me run everything through my DAN insurance ) to the patient Liaison, Andrea Sekula, who stopped in to check on how my treatment was and made sure I had everything I needed.

Within about three hours I was treated, including before and after x-rays, anesthesia and resetting my shoulder, and back for dinner at 7pm! Thank you staff of Costamed for taking good care of me!!

Finally, get your DAN insurance. This little trip to the hospital would have cost me thousands, but with my DAN preferred plan, it cost me a $250 deductible. Thank you DAN!!

Wrapping Things Up
So there you have it! Cozumel is a wonderful destination to visit for diving and then some.

In Cozumel you will experience top notch dive sites, offering a wide range of diving experiences, and make memories to last for the rest of your life. Even with my dislocated shoulder, I consider this an amazing trip! If Cozumel is on your list of places to travel, I suggest moving it up on that list!
If you like Mexico, check out these other Locations you’ll love:
- Best Things To Do In Cancun, Mexico
- Best Things To Do In Tulum, Mexico
- Best Things To Do In Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
- The Ultimate Guide To Scuba Diving in Cancun, Mexico
- The Ultimate Guide To Scuba Diving In Tulum, Mexico
- The Ultimate Guide To Scuba Diving In Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
“How boring would the world be if everywhere and everyone were the same. Safe travels and good adventures.” Scuba Jay