DIVING
& ITINERARIES
Departures
are on Saturday evenings from
Puerto Aventuras with your first dive Sunday at 8:00 AM.
Your final dive will be Friday
midday. The boat docks on Friday
evening and you can stay on-board for
the night and leave after breakfast on
Saturday.
ROUTES
Every
week the
M/Y Moondiver
takes a
different route along the coast of the
Mexican Caribbean. The choice will
depend on time of year and weather
conditions, unless a particular route has
been requested in advance.
The
boat visits the best
spots of the Caribbean, far from the
local dive sites along the
coast: Cozumel, Alacranes,
Holbox,
Chinchorro,
Puerto Morelos
and Xcalat.
ROUTE 1 -
Cozumel,
Puerto Morelos,
Playa del Carmen, Sian Ka'an Biosphere
Reserve
Cozumel's
reefs for their crystal-clear waters and
variety of marine life. Visibility here
can range up to 250 feet!
As many as 250 different species of fish
can be found here, one of the most
spectacular being the Queen Angelfish,
with its intense blue-and-yellow
coloring, but there are countless
brightly colored reef fish, all a feast
for the eyes. Adding their own
infusion of color are the corals and
sponges, particularly around Cozumel the
Elephant Ear and Barrel sponges, which
are some of the largest representative
in the world of their species.
You will find some great drift diving,
as the currents here can run up to 1.5
knots, carrying you along as if on a
Disneyland ride. And you'll find
tunnels and caves and canyons and
ravines in labyrinth formations, adding
excitement to the colorful surroundings.
At certain dive sites you'll have
exposure to ocean pelagics, plus
barracuda, jacks, turtles and morays.
Puerto Morelos
is a protected
National Park, just metres from the
second largest reef in the world and
featuring some of the most amazing
diving in the Mayan Riviera. The reef
and dive sites
are unspoiled thriving with sea life.
You'll find reef dives with
hundreds of varieties of
reef fish along with
barracudas, turtles, eels,
eagle
rays, schools of jack fish, Atlantic
spadefish
and
occasionally a nurse shark or two.
Plus the National Park houses a
fascinating
wreck
dive.
Playa del Carmen is famed for turtles, tarpon, deep dives,
the Mama Vina wreck and seasonal bull
sharks. The typical drift diving in
Playa del Carmen has something for
everyone!
Not far off the beach of Playa del
Carmen, between November and April, you
will almost certainly see bull sharks. Sightings at this time of year are
very common as the water temps are
cooler and the sea is filled with
blooming plankton. Dives are shallow
and photo opportunities are great. The
sharks can be up to 35 feet long and you
may have several of them congregating in
the same area.
Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve
is
near Tulum, which is situated on the
Yucatan Peninsula. Sian Ka’an is an
ecotourism and educational center, and
it serves as a model for sustainable
development in sensitive tropical
ecosystems. The Sian Ka’an Biosphere
Reserve covers over 5,200 square
kilometers and it is the largest
protected area in the Mexican Caribbean
being declared a federal reserve in
1986. The reserve includes a
portion of the world's second largest
coastal barrier reef-- the Mesoamerican
Barrier Reef and was included on the
list of the UNESCO Natural World
Heritage Sites in 1997.
(click
for a link to
information about the bio-sphere
project)
This is a very well known place for
diving in the Mexican Caribbean.
The reef has beautiful caves, great
diversity of species, black corals, big
sponges, enormous bull sharks and
hammerhead sharks, lobsters, turtles,
groupers and snappers.
ROUTE 2 -
CHINCHORRO
Chinchorro Banks
is the largest atoll in the northern
hemisphere. This beautiful, nearly
untouched reef sits in waters with
incredible visibility and offers a plenitude of marine species from depths
of 6 feet to 160 feet. It's known
for its schools of
tarpon and very interesting caves and
holes, plus pristine soft coral growth, sponges and large
deep-water sea fans.
Drift dives are done when strong
currents are running, but many dives are
done on sites with little or no current.
ROUTE 3 - ALACRANES
Alacranes Reef is a grouping of five
individual islands with fantastic visibility. The area was made a
National Park Protected Zone in 1994 and
is now a refuge for migrating seabirds
from Africa, North America and the
Caribbean. It is also a breeding zone
for turtles, grouper and lobsters.
Alacranes Reef hosts spectacular corals
and a wonderful variety of marine
species, in addition to being home to
more than ten shipwrecks. Exciting
diving if wrecks are your passion.
Also possible to include in your
itinerary:
Holbox Island
The world's largest aggregation of Whale
Sharks can be seen at the very tip of
the Yucatan Peninsula, near Isla Holbox.
A marine park has been created to
protect the sharks while they are in the
area and from June until the end of
August. Diving is not done with the
sharks but you’ll have an opportunity to
snorkel with them, observing them feed
on the rich plankton. A fantastic
experience.
