The great Yucatán escape

Sonrisa en el Sol
Throughout the ancient land of the Maya, only one place did not feel the spill of blood from human sacrifice — Isla Cozumel.

Cozumel sits at the far-eastern edge of the Maya’s world. Here, the sun was born anew each day, and as a place of beginnings, sacrifices were strictly forbidden. It remains a place of beginnings and renewals, a place used by the Maya for honeymoons (and still used for that today). The current washes the coastline fresh each day, bringing life to the reef, a reef that explodes with the colors of the sun — bright orange, red and yellow sponges — a reef that swells with the movement of marine life. Here, the Maya greeting, ki tanta ba (best wishes), comes alive. And for divers, Cozumel has always been a place where best wishes come true.

Divers come and keep coming. For legions of underwater adventure-seekers, it’s an essential annual pilgrimage. And we come to Cozumel the way all travelers should, the way the Maya came, the way the Spanish galleons came — from the sea.

We catch the ferry in Playa del Carmen. When approaching Cozumel from the sea, the island seems to remain distant, on the far edge of the horizon, almost until you dock. But you sense its unique charisma for the entire journey, so that by the time you arrive, you’ve undergone a transformation, and the transition from the pace of the mainland to la isla is complete. Boats of all sizes roam up and down the coast over water so clear that it seems more like blue air.

In the water, it feels as if you’re being swept along by an unseen hand. It’s all drift diving here. I love it when the current picks up and I feel the sense of speed. But mostly, I just like being carried along for a ride. All I need to do is breathe leisurely and enjoy the view. There are a couple of reef systems we are visiting here with Sand Dollar Sports at the Wyndham Cozumel Resort & Spa: Palancar Reef and Tormentos Reef. But you can dive almost anywhere along the coast and be swept away.

I always seem to find my way to Palancar Caves (probably because I ask for this multifaceted and multi-level dive again and again), one of my favorites along this reef system. When you first descend, you don’t really notice the appeal of this site. Then, as the guide leads you into the folds of the reefscape, you quickly realize just how much this place has to offer. There are hundreds of ways to approach the nooks, crannies, overhangs, coral pinnacles and spur-and-groove formations. And because of all the little twists and turns, it’s a place that you can take time to explore. I love to hang out under the overhangs, and that’s exactly what I do on this dive. I spend some quality time following a pair of French angels through a little maze.

The colors under the overhangs don’t just come to life with a dive light, they practically explode with color. You’ll find loads of sponges — rope, encrusting, branching — along this dive, and when I finally make it to the drop-off, a spotted eagle ray wanders right past a green sea turtle nibbling on a sponge. Our divemaster finds a splendid toadfish, endemic only to Cozumel waters. And at the end of the dive, we just let go. The current catches you in its net and draws you along.

There are some eddies, though, some places along this coast hidden from the current. And in one such place they sunk the C-53, an old 184-foot Admiral Class gunboat, in 1999. Sitting upright on the sand in about 80 feet of water, the C-53 has just begun its transformation as an artificial reef. Wrecks always attract at least one big barracuda and, sure enough, old snagglepuss and I greet one another as I settle on this one.

Slide show   A Mermaid’s Playground Presented by Sport Diver Magazine. more photos

As artificial wrecks go, the C-53 possesses a quiet poise. Moray eels have settled in quiet corners along the deck, and schools of juvenile reef fish rise, fall and aggregate around the wreck. I like to swim a bit away from wrecks to see them in their entirety. And the sharp bow of the C-53 still seems to be plying and parting the waters on its way to an unknown conflict.

Between dives along Palancar Reef, we head to the main town of San Miguel, which has held on to its quiet charm. Here, even one block off the main square, you can find the everyday world of Cozumel: locals living their lives seemingly immune from tourism. It’s a warren rife with tacquerías, small markets, pharmacias and mom-and-pop grocery stores.

Around the main square you can find a thousand creative ways to spend your money — from authentic crafts to T-shirts to refrigerator magnets. Tourism has also had a good influence on the quality of restaurants: Cozumel offers a long list of great places to eat. One afternoon, we follow our stomachs to a newly opened restaurant called Sonrisa, or “Smile,” just off Front Street. Owner Francesco Morello came to Cozumel from Italy, and Sonrisa is a paean to his Italian heritage. We lunch one day over octopus carpaccio, and homemade Italian ice creams. (Why not? I get a double scoop of lemon and coconut.) Francesco is so proud of his fresh, icy desserts that he brings me into the kitchen for an impromptu tour of the ice-cream maker, imported all the way from Italy.

On our final dive of the week on Cozumel, we venture out to the deep side of Tormentos Reef. The current rips today. We get flung along the wall while passing schools of bluestriped grunts and squirrelfish hiding in eddies, a few spotted eagle rays pass with the swiftness of a tail wind, and all the barrel sponges we encounter in the shallower depths have been twisted and sculpted into wild shapes by the constant pressure of the flow. I tuck into the eddie behind some of the bigger ones, and in that quiet spot I find interesting macro worlds — gobies, blennies, arrow crabs and others hiding in small, quiet kingdoms surrounded by the rush of water. I imagine thousands of such Lilliputian communities, unable to escape their little ecospheres, trapped by the current, wondering what giant with a head surrounded by raging bubbles has passed their way.

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