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Dive Review of Blue Angel Dive Shop in
Cozumel and the Mexican Yucatan

Blue Angel Dive Shop, Mar, 2009,

by Tom Carlson, WA, US (Sr. Reviewer Sr. Reviewer 9 reports). Report 5562.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 3 stars Food 4 stars
Service and Attitude 4 stars Environmental Sensitivity 3 stars
Dive Operation 5 stars Shore Diving 3 stars
Snorkeling 3 stars
Value for $$ 4 stars
Beginners 5 stars
Advanced 5 stars
Comments This was our second trip to Cozumel and we chose to stay at Blue Angel because it was a small hotel and got very positive Undercurrent reviews in the past. Blue Angel is a small dive resort (25 rooms) just south of the main part of town. The hotel was clean, well maintained, staff was very friendly and helpful. It has a small pool that was clean with good places to layout in the sun. Small restaurant attached to hotel above the dive shop was very good, some of the most consistently good food we found on the island for lunch and dinner. Breakfast was included as well as lunch on our dive days. Breakfast was buffet style and was nothing to write home about, but we enjoyed lunch there every day. We had a couple of dinners there, which were also very good but opted to go find good places to eat around town every night. There are plenty of options out there too!

The dive shop, also attached to hotel had staff that were friendly and knowledgeable and we were provided with locked storage for our dive gear with a handy rinse tank and shower nearby. We bring our own equipment and did witness several issues with the rental gear from the shop malfunctioning on dives. The Blue Angel has several boats and we opted everyday for one of the smaller six pacs, especially the Chiquimax, which was a very fast boat. I was impressed with the promptness of the dive boats, with just a couple days of leaving the dock a little late. We typically found ourselves dropping into a dive site early with no other boats around. We only crossed two other groups of divers underwater during two weeks of diving. Dive masters on the boats were all very conscientious about asking where we wanted to dive and trying to keep less experienced divers together. They would let us dive our own profiles while they kept track of novice divers and would bring them to the surface when they were low on air so we could continue our dives. The majority of our dives were an hour or more of bottom time followed by surface interval on the boats eating fruit and pastry. Note to photographers: No rinse tanks on these boats!

We did many dives with them and hit all the typical sites like Palancar caves, bricks, gardens and deep, Paradise wall, Yucab, Santa Rosa Wall and shallows, Tunich, Tormentos Reef, Chakanaub, La Francesca Reef, Las Palmas Shallows, Columbia deep and shallows, etc. We ended up doing several dives at Columbia shallows which I like because of excellent light and extremely long bottom times for taking pictures.

We saw Yellow Sting Rays, big Southern sting rays, Blue, Queen and Gray Angels, Rainbow Parrot Fish, Blue Parrot Fish, Hogfish, Glasseye Snapper, Blue Chromis, Clown Wrasse, Yellowhead Wrasse, Reef Butterfly Fish and Hawksbill turtles, Palometta, Jacks, Yellow tail, king crab, nurse sharks, silver and black grouper, lobster, many octopus and many other tropicals. We also saw many wonderful corals and sponges. One of the highlights was being able to find a half a dozen Splendid Cozumel Toadfish to get pictures of, with several of these coming on night dives. One of our night dives was just off the beach in front of the hotel and was also a lot of fun with many things to see and photography opportunties.
Websites Blue Angel Dive Shop   

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience 501-1000 dives
Where else diving Florida, Hawaii, Puget Sound
Closest Airport Getting There

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy, dry Seas calm, choppy, surge, currents
Water Temp 78-80°F / 26-27°C Wetsuit Thickness 3
Water Visibility 150-200 Ft/ 46-61 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile yes
Enforced diving restrictions [Unspecified]
Liveaboard? no Nitrox Available? yes

What I Saw

Sharks 1 or 2 Mantas None
Dolphins None Whale Sharks None
Turtles > 2 Whales None
Corals 5 stars Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 4 stars Large Fish N/A
Large Pelagics N/A

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 5 stars Boat Facilities 4 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 4 stars Shore Facilities 4 stars
UW Photo Comments Rinse tanks on boats are typically a bucket of salt water.
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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