Cozumel, Mahahual, Roatan by Cruise Ship

Dear Fellow Diver,

I'm in a mixed marriage: I dive; my wife doesn't.

As we age, it's become more difficult to plan a vacation that satisfies both of us, especially my spouse, who has tired of being left alone at home when I go off diving. We've gone together to dive destinations where she and our daughter have spent time at the pool or beach, watching the clock until I return with diving-fueled anecdotes about which they could not care less.

Adhering to the philosophy of "Happy Wife, Happy Life" over the 34 years we've been married, we've alternated tropical vacations where I can get wet with sightseeing trips in America and Europe. I've also taken dedicated trips with my dive club to locales like Cozumel and Little Cayman.

Five years ago, we discovered the joys of luxury cruises, traveling to the Mediterranean and Alaska. But I missed my diving. So, when the opportunity arose for us to join my wife's best friend to celebrate a milestone birthday in the Caribbean in mid-February aboard the Sky Princess, we were enthusiastic, especially since one of the two other couples joining us were divers.

The Sky Princess is an enormous mothership, a 3,700-passenger liveaboard, with 1,800 crew on a 19-deck-high floating city nearly three football fields long and over 50 yards wide with all the amenities you'd expect including spacious staterooms, a private balcony, a dozen dining options, four pools, eight hot tubs, a spa, pickleball courts, a fitness center, an outdoor movie screen, Broadway-style entertainment, a casino, and 24-hour room service. The Lido Deck on at-sea days was akin to Spring Break in Florida - blasting music, SRO in swimming pools and hot tubs, passengers four deep at the bars to order boozy drinks two at a time, and folks loading up their plates from the poolside pizzeria because they had to get their money's worth. The lounges were all taken. People staked out a chair with a towel before breakfast. And the food? It was good considering that 3,700 people were fed three times daily.

Depending upon one's perspective, there's much to like about cruising - and much not to like. For me, I liked the idea that my wife and I could enjoy a vacation with friends - and I could disappear for a few hours to go diving.

I know when I spend a single day in a cruise ship port, I won't be going to the best sites; the diving is dumbed down because dive operators take out people they know nothing about and they don't take risks. Furthermore, the better sites are often far from the cruise ship terminal, and dive operators who take out cruisers tend not to travel far from the port, especially for afternoon dives, because they want to make sure the cruisers get back long before departure time. I don't mind. For me, it's all about getting wet; just about any dive is a good dive, and who knows? These easy dives may be the only kind I'm fit for in a few years.

This cruise offered one guided dive in Roatan. But I feared it might have a score of divers (as it turned out, the cruise-sponsored dive signed up only eight). I figured I could line up good operators myself, and I did.

My new dive buddies had been to Roatan, and they recommended Sun Divers Roatan, owned by an American couple. After emails establishing the date and time our ship would arrive, I paid them $125 through their online portal for a two-tank dive, including gear. We would dive at 1:15 p.m., and they guaranteed we'd be back at our ship by 4:30 p.m., well before our 6:30 p.m. "All Aboard" deadline, which was plenty of cushion.

I prefer to travel light and bring minimal gear: my prescription mask, snorkel, neoprene cap, handheld underwater camera, dive socks, logbook, C-card, and DAN insurance card. The three dive shops I chose included gear -- full-length wetsuits, BCs, fins, regulators with gauges -- in the cost of their two-tank dives. That was important because for cruising, I pack a dress suit and buttondown shirts for formal nights, several pairs of slacks and shorts, golf shirts, and T-shirts. For dive trips, it's usually just sandals, a couple of pairs of shorts, and three T-shirts.

I had dived Cozumel last year, but that resort's boat departed at 8:30 a.m. before my ship docked. So, I thumbed through the Travelin' Diver's Chapbook and joined a Facebook Group to read diver reviews. I was overwhelmed. Cozumel has 250 dive operators! So, I took a fellow diver's recommendation and booked with Papa Hog's Scuba Emporium, with no deposit necessary. Dives would be US$115 each plus 16 percent tax, gear included.

For Mahahual, AKA Costa Maya, I scheduled Amigos Del Mar through another dive buddy's referral, paid US$100 via the Wise mobile app for two dives, including gear, and my dive buddies required no deposit.

For Belize, my wife and I decided to snorkel. The ship anchors offshore, and it might take an hour by tender to get to shore, then a long ferry ride to the cayes, a few hours for two tanks, a long ferry ride back, and a tender ride to the ship. Rather than risk missing the cruise departure, we stayed close.

A week before sailing, I checked with each dive shop to confirm our dives.

Cozumel hosts more than four million cruise passengers annually and up to eight ships daily, which we divers bitch about because of the damage the ships and cruise piers have done to reefs. The morning we docked, more than 20,000 passengers from seven ships elbowed their way to the main street to shuffle through the duty-free shops, tequila tastings, restaurants, hair salons, bars, and boutiques or to get to a cab to spend the day away from the ship. We didn't miss any dives, but I should have built in more time to get to the dive shop on time.

We arrived by taxi at Papa Hog's at 10:15 a.m. A personable staff and a friendly crew got us outfitted, drove us to their boat, and were in the water along Palancar Reef by 11:00. Divemaster Miguelito wanted us to remember the name of our boat, the Iguana, in case we drifted without him to one of the other 20 or so boats in the area.

At the Yucab dive site, we tried to stay near the bottom at 70 feet, below the 4-5 mile per hour current. During the 45-minute plunge, I saw a big barracuda, many parrotfish, and huge gray and French angelfish, as well as large spiny lobsters. At first, the landscape was barren, but healthy corals appeared as we drifted along. At Paradise Reef, closer to our cruise ship, we were in a sheltered area that attracted large schools of grunts and yellowtails, a sea turtle as big as a V.W. Beetle, and 18 divers from a neighboring boat trying to pose for a photo on the bottom. On the surface, I inflated my B.C. and let the boat crew haul it onto the boat before I walked up the ladder. One of our divers had never drift-dived - that's what Cozumel is about - and found it difficult. Cozumel currents can be tough on inexperienced divers, even if operators target more benign sites for cruise ship divers.

I should add that no shops provided computers; you track your time and depth with your pressure gauge and depth gauge (the divemasters set a safe profile, and we all stayed in sight). However, if you've forgotten how to do that or want to track your nitrogen load, bring your own.

Mahahual, on the Yucatan Peninsula, was carved out of the Mexican jungle for a cruise ship destination 30 years ago. Today, it's a vibrant port with a huge mall full of shops, tequila bars, restaurants, festively costumed locals, bungee jumpers from a 30-foot-high pole, and a huge swimming pool for day-trippers. It's not historic. It's not old Mexico. Everything exists to extract tourist dollars.

We three divers grabbed a taxi for a 2.5-mile ride to Amigos del Mar. Arriving at 10:15 a.m., the divemaster, Emiliano, was waiting for us, along with two other divers. We were fitted for our wetsuits, BCs, regulators, weight belts, fins, and gauges. All the gear but the regulators were new.

We waded into the warm sea and climbed aboard our large panga for a short ride to the site "Tortuga," close to our cruise ship. With a tank filled to 3500 psi, I went down to 60 feet in 80° F. water for 55 minutes. With visibility up to 100 feet, I saw several spotted eagle rays, and Emiliano speared two lionfish and tried to feed them to a large, free-swimming green moray, but it refused the offering. Between dives, we were offered watermelon, cantaloupe, and a thick zippered poncho with hood that kept us from shivering as we motored to the second dive site, and afterward, back to shore in the wind.

At Cañones, with a depth of only 40 feet, we stayed down for 55 minutes and were treated to huge angelfish and less current than the first dive. Eagle rays were quite active, burrowing with their noses to dig out critters buried in the sand. At both sites, there was quite a bit of bleaching but some healthy corals and reefs. We got back to the ship by 1:30 p.m.

At each port where we dived, I was surprised by the locals' rudeness, brashness, and attitude toward cruise ship passengers. They screamed at us to get our attention to take a taxi or sign up for a tour. It was almost scary as they tried to grab our arms or shake our hands to get our attention. After walking through the gauntlet on Roatan, our Sun Diver driver delivered us to their shop, where we got all new gear and then had a fresh fish lunch at the Mila del Mar Beachfront Restaurant. Because winds were gusting up to 23 mph, the dive shop provided a car to take us to our dive boat and calmer waters on the East End with Captain Orlin, Divemaster Ricky, and only five divers. We departed at 1:15, and the owner promised we'd be back way before our 7:00 p.m. ship departure.

At both sites, we dived for an hour. At Kristi's Cove, Ricky pointed out small stuff like orange-and-green-snout seahorses and lizard fish while we hit a maximum depth of about 65 feet in 80-degree water with visibility of about 80 feet. I saw many sea fans, brittle stars hiding in tube sponges, and a fast-moving Caribbean reef squid. I also saw so many pairs of Caribbean spiny lobsters that I called this site "Lobsterfest" in my logbook. At Church Wall, we dived to 55 feet to swim among porcupine pufferfish, arrow crabs, sea urchins, scorpionfish, drumfish, snapper, grouper, seahorse, and more lobsters. After the hottest year on record, the Roatan's reef health is in "recovery mode."

When it was all said and done, I had six typical Caribbean dives, all well organized and with no drama, a superb respite from the cruise ship. For sheer diving, I would have preferred to hunker down at any of the destinations and log 3-4 dives per day, but as a vacation my spouse and I could enjoy together, it worked out quite well.

Final Tips: I didn't travel with enough cash. While the cruise ship had an ATM, we had not brought our debit cards. My dive buddy did, but all withdrawals were US$100 bills, so he had to buy something somewhere to get smaller bills for tips and taxi fares.

In busy ports, allow plenty of time to disembark, wade through the throngs of locals trying to buttonhole you to enter their shops, bars, and restaurants, walk maybe a half-mile to the taxis, wait for one, and then drive to the dive shop. I naively allotted only 10 minutes in these three ports, but it took at least 30. Luckily, they were all on "island time" and were flexible.

And keep in mind, while you may have a splendid cruise, you won't get the best diving these venues have to offer. But you can get wet, which is what it's all about.

-- A.G.

Our undercover author's bio: The author has dived worldwide for nearly 40 years. He has written more than 225 articles, blogs, and newsletters for dive magazines and websites.

Diver's Compass: We were in port for an average of nine hours - and each pair of dives took five hours maximum, including taxis to and from their shops . . . . Our cruise cost about $2,000 seven nights for the two of us. Incidental ship costs for Wi-Fi and tips were $300 . . . Beers were $7, cocktails were $12 . . . Next time, we'll opt for a smaller ship with fewer passengers for diving and sightseeing . . . Sky Princess www.princess.com Papa Hog's Cozumel www.papahogs.com Amigos del Mar Costa Maya amigosdelmar.net Sun Divers Roatan sundiversroatan.com