Swimming with Whale Sharks in Cancun

While in Cancun for a fabulous wedding (congrats Maggie & Chris!) we did an excursion to snorkel with whale sharks.  July and August are prime feeding season for whale sharks in the waters off the coast of Cancun.  Although swimming with sharks sounds scary, unlike Jaws these sharks are basically gentle giants.  They don't have sharp teeth like the great whites; they are filter feeders which means that they feed on plankton in a way similar to humpback whales.

They are enormous up close -- they're the largest type of fish in the world and some can measure as long as 35-40 feet.   They tend to swim slowly while feeding, but it's still quite a workout to keep up swimming alongside them.

Kevin swimming with the sharks

Our group was small, about eight of us with two guides.  But there were 30 or so similar boats out at the feeding grounds.  Luckily there were about 50 sharks feeding so it didn't feel like we were harassing the sharks too much.  When one would approach our boat, two of us at a time would drop into the water and swim alongside for a few minutes to watch it feed.

Afterwards, we went by boat to Isla Mujeres and had a nice lunch of fresh ceviche and tiny Coronita beers.

Beers with Kevin and my dad

Kevin took some great video of the whole experience, and there are some nice shots of the sharks actually feeding as they swim by.  You can really get a sense of how majestic these creatures are.


Whale Shark Tour 2 from Solsticecatamaran on Vimeo.

Cozumel Dive Trip

For our anniversary this year, we decided to take a short trip to Cozumel to do some diving and just generally relax.  We stayed 4 nights at the Occidental Grand Cozumel all inclusive resort, and for the 5th and last night (which was our anniversary) we decided to splurge and stayed at the Intercontinental Presidente.  We were a little hesitant to stay at an all inclusive since we had never done that before, so we figured if it wasn't so great, we'd at least have the Presidente to look forward to and redeem the trip.  As it turns out, there was nothing to worry about and both hotels were awesome.

It was a nice change to not have to put any thought into choosing a restaurant to eat at or how to spend your limited time on the various site-seeing options.  So we would certainly consider another stay at an all inclusive.  We pretty much just dove, ate, drank and lounged by the pool.


The Occidental is located at the southern end of the island and only a 5 minute boat trip to the reefs.  We learned from our last trip that the south end is the place to be unless you want to spent 2 hours a day shuttling back and forth to the reefs.  The Occidental had a first rate dive shop on site and the diving could not have been more convenient.  We could literally just walk to the pier and step on the dive boat with our gear.  It had been a bit more than 2 years since our last dive in Thailand, so we opted to take a brief pool refresher course with one of the divemasters.   

 
We think that the diving in Cozumel is better than anything we experienced in the Eastern Caribbean.  The coral formations provide an abundance of swim throughs, caves and canyons, and there are many wall dives as well.  In our 3 days of diving we saw several giant moray eels, tons of turles, huge lobsters, a spotted eagle ray, and even a shark.

Enjoy the photos!  See if you can find the Moray.