Scuba in Cozumel No one knows how long schools of migratory sailfish have been journeying to the tiny island. Yet every spring, thousands of sleek, tireless swimmers cross vast distances of waters to be around Cozumel. Their arrival follows the winter migration of divers who flock to this Caribbean island 12 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula to soar on clear currents that sweep across Cozumel's massive submarine wall.
Drift Diving, as the practice is known, is unequaled anyware. You are weightless, borne on invisible wings. Freedom is measured vertically. Inhale and your body rises; exhale and you sink. Newcomers often describe the experience with an almost religious zeal, one of the reasons,
perhaps, that Cozumel has become a diving mecca.
Sojourn to San Miguel From the air- a 20 minute hop from Cancun's international airport- the island first appears as a verdant oasis on a shimmering blue desert and gradually fills the horizon. Then the green, pink and white stucco buildings loom up from the beachhead that separates the low-lying jungle and sea.
Once a quiet Mexican fishing village, the island's sole town of San Miguel today has a bustling tourist economy fueled by airfills, cerveza (mexican Beer), and souvenirs. Until 1997, there was only one gas station on the island but three bordellos listed on the internet. There are fewer than five churches but more than 50 dive shops, and no one has counted the bars, eateries, and t-shirt stalls. Whether they serve saint or sinner, all of these engines of economic life depend on the reefsthat lie at the heart of the island's ecosystem.
If the ocean's waters were drained away, Cozumel would be seen torest on a mile-high mesa that rises up from the seafloor and is separated from the mainlandto the east by a deep-water strait called the Yucatan Channel. Seawater is forced through this passageway, creating the perpetual currents that sweep along Cozumel's protected western flank- a near vertical submarine wall that runs the length of the island.
Scuba in Cozumel Cozumel's reefs spill over the top of the wall in a phantasmagoria of form that defies description. There are majestic coral cathedrals and cavernous reef archways, acres of undulating sea fans, and vertical sponge-covered reliefs that plunge to a depth of over 600 feet. Local divers have named these individual formations as if to validate their own fleeting impressions. Shallow reefs like Paradise, Paso del Cedral, and Tormentos lie atop the submarine rampart in less than 60 feetof water, and a few are even accesible from the beach. The deep reefs- Maracaibo to the far south, San Juan to the north- plummet into azure vistas beyond the reachof divers. Like a crude map, the names fall short of their ambition as one formation seamlessly gives away to another in water with visibility of up to 150 feet year round.
thousands of sleek, tireless swimmers cross vast distances of waters to be around Cozumel. Their arrival follows the winter migration of divers who flock to this Caribbean island 
12 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula to soar on clear currents that sweep across Cozumel's massive submarine wall.
and gradually fills the horizon. Then the green, pink and white stucco buildings loom up from the beachhead that separates the low-lying jungle and sea.
There are fewer than five churches but more than 50 dive shops, and no one has counted the bars, eateries, and t-shirt stalls. Whether they serve saint or sinner, all of these engines of economic life depend on the reefsthat lie at the heart of the island's ecosystem.
ocean's waters were drained away, Cozumel would be seen torest on a mile-high mesa that rises up from the seafloor and is separated from the mainlandto the east by a deep-water strait called the Yucatan Channel. Seawater is forced through this passageway, creating the perpetual currents that sweep along Cozumel's protected western flank- a near vertical submarine wall that runs the length of the island.
Cozumel's reefs spill over the top of the wall in a phantasmagoria of form that defies description. There are majestic coral cathedrals and cavernous reef archways, acres of undulating sea fans, and vertical sponge-covered reliefs that plunge to a depth of over 600 feet. Local divers have named these individual formations as if to validate their own fleeting impressions. Shallow reefs like Paradise, Paso del Cedral, and Tormentos lie atop the submarine rampart in less than 60 feetof water, and a few are even accesible from the beach. The deep reefs- Maracaibo to the far south, San Juan to the north- plummet into azure vistas beyond the reachof divers. Like a crude map, the names fall short of their ambition as one formation seamlessly gives away to another in water with visibility of up to 150 feet year round.
