Our Travels in 2018

Cozumel - February 6 - 20

The year begins with a trip to Cozumel in February. This has become an annual destination for us. We returned to the Iberostar Resort, the southern-most resort/hotel on the island of Cozumel, Mexico. The service and staff are wonderful, the food is tasty and varied, the accommodation is comfortable, and the dive shop, Dressel Divers, is excellent. Unlike other resorts we have been to, there is ample shade on the beach under which we can spend enjoyable afternoons reading, watching the ocean, watching the dive boats go and return, and sipping a nice gin and tonic, or a mojito. Although there has been substantial staff turnover, the dive shop, Dressel Divers, continues to provide excellent service. I strongly recommend these folks. Their professionalism is refreshing. It was very nice to be recognized and welcomed back by the staff who still there who were there last year. I have a new flash unit as part of my underwater photography equipment and I am still learning how to select the optimal settings. I have posted some of the pictures I took on line and they can be seen here. The diving on the Cozumel reef continues to be remarkable. The water is so clear and blue; the marine life abundant and fascinating. I would love to dive the Red Sea and places in South East Asia such as Thailand and Indonesia, but the Caribbean is orders of magnitude more accessible from Nova Scotia. The one disappointment with the Iberostar is that the snorkelling is not great right off the beach. For subsequent trips we may have to rent a car as part of our vacation package so we can head out to better snorkelling opportunities in the afternoon following my morning dives. Although the future is never certain, our travel plans include a return to Cozumel, the Iberostar, and Dressel Divers.

Akumal - April 26 - May 10

As noted before, Akumal is one of our “go to” places. We have made friends there, both local and fellow regular visitors, and we enjoy the bay, village, people, the accommodations, and the restaurants. The snorkelling is excellent and the diving continues to be thoroughly enjoyable. This year we stayed at the Akumal Bay Beach and Wellness Resort for the full two weeks. As always, I did my diving with Ivan and Natalie. I reach yet another marker with my 600th dive. While the probability or reaching 1000 is extremely low, the number does continue to grow. My underwater pictures from this trip are available here.