Dickie Does Coz with Tony in Tow Cozumel - Bahia Hotel & Blue XT~Sea Diving Photos and text by Richard Salkin

Getting old is a bitch, and so am I when my odometer is about to turn. So with a birthday coming up I decided to treat myself to a quick healing getaway to a happy place. Naturally I picked Cozumel. Since I wasn’t going with a group of friends, I brought one with me: a non-diving but nevertheless dear friend named Tony. This would be visit #5 or 6 for me, I forget, and Tony’s first. Gotta love a guy who loves to research where he’s going. By the time we left, he knew the answers to questions about our trip that I hadn’t thought to wonder about. Down to the configuration of the airplane we would be on. He knew what hours the Mayan ruins were open, which public beaches were best – and why – and exactly how far our hotel was from the popular restaurants. Precisely the kinda guy you want for a travel companion if you’re a total play-by-ear person. This was our first trip together and could have gone any number of ways. It went swimmingly, and I would travel anywhere with him. We drove to West Palm Beach on April 4 and stayed with Miss Fabulosity herself, Gianna/Seacat62, enjoyed a fabulous dinner and then drove to Miami International the next day for the new nonstop to Coz on an American Eagle turboprop. At CZM we arrived on the tail end of a 5-airplane crunch, so it took an extra hour to enter the country. If you can schedule your arrival significantly before or after 2:30pm, you’ll save some time. Fortunately we both got green lights, so no one seized the Starbux Verona I was packing for Christi. Remind me to tell you about almost doing time in a Mexican jail next time I see you. (Tony’s comment: “Richard is a bad influence.” My comment: Duh.) Moving right along… Thinking Tony might want a somewhat resort-like location I’d booked a room at Hotel Cozumel and immediately regretted it. Maybe if you have kids it’s a good idea. But for us it wasn’t. The all-day sound of the kiddie fun coordinator’s amplified voice was hugely annoying. In the lobby, the cute timeshare salesman cleverly disguised as a concierge was annoying too, if briefly entertaining. Tony didn’t complain but didn’t require a lot of arm twisting when I suggested we would be happier somewhere else. So we quickly moved to my Coz digs-of-choice, the Bahia. It was Easter week and fortunately they still had a room. Christi got us a deal. Yaaay, Christi. Have I mentioned how much I adore Christi? And her crew? Truly, I do. I did 4 days of 2-tank dives, mostly on Shamu and once on her slightly larger boat, Bandida II. I’ll touch on the diving in a bit, but since the sites have all been reported on a gazillion times, a lot of this report is about topside stuff. We saw lots of turtles and one or two nurse sharks. Christi also got us a deal on a rental car, a VW convertible seemingly built when Hitler was driving VWs, provided by the delightful Margarita at Rentadora Isis on Avenida 10 between Calle 2 and 4. The driver’s seat doesn’t lock in place in its more forward positions (i.e. the ones short people use) so I was constantly cussing a blue streak each time I would slide backward when accelerating. (Tony’ adds: “…which scared the hell out of me the first time the expletives leapt from his mouth”). It’s a habit I learned early from the late Aunt Doris. Tony, being taller, did much of the driving because the seat did lock for him – but he had a penchant for grinding the gears. Here’s his take: “Now to be totally honest, this convertible bug from 1944 had no gear ratio to begin with. And if memory serves me correctly, I was not the only gringo on this trip grinding gears while driving the bug. Just my perspective. But the bottom line is we got everywhere we needed to get to. Including a close encounter with a 750 pound hog at Punta Sur and a photo shoot with the Cozumel Policia.” Go ahead. Kiss the pig. Anyway he used the red bug to tool around the island while I would dive each morning. One day he went to Playa San Francisco, another day to the Mayan ruins at San Gervazio. He ended up with a mild case of sun poisoning unfortunately. Easter week in Mexico (Semana Santa) is not like it is in the US (This from a lapsed Jew and a lapsed Catholic, so what do we know?). Thursday and Friday before are a bigger deal than Sunday itself. On Sunday everyone hits the beaches, and the new road along the wild side was jammed with families. After my dives that day we cruised over there — me cussing my blue streak, Tony grinding the gears — for a little nosh and a beer at Coconuts, which last time I saw it was still recovering from Wilma three weeks earlier. It’s much nicer now, with more Mexicans than Americans despite the all-American music. Some salsa to go with our salsa woulda been nice. The Really Big Thing I wanted to tell you about is the food on the Island. We had several dining experiences that were extraordinary enough to risk sounding like a shill. Our first evening we had dinner with Christi and Sally (ashiatsu masseuse extraordinaire) at a place called Le Chef about 20 paces from Blue XT~Sea’s storefront. It’s a small bistro owned by a self-taught chef named Eduardo. Le Chef Nothing pretentious about this guy, and he’ll happily whisk dishes onto and away from your table as amiably as he pours wine and charms his guests. Tuna tartare was to die for (“orgasmic,” according to Tony) and the fresh grilled wahoo over salad Nicoise was spectacular. So was the lovely Argentinian Malbec he recommended. Tony, having owned a catering company and fine dining establishment in a former life, gives Le Chef 4 stars. Across from our hotel, next to Coffee Bean on Calle 3, is a new place called Sorrisi (“smiles”). It’s in a former jeans store and had only opened a month earlier. Sorrisi gave us much to smile about. By the time we went there 3 people who didn’t know each other had all said it has the best gelato they’d had outside of Italy. We concurred enthusiastically. They have 20-some-odd flavors, some milk-based and some water-based. But the cool surprise is behind the gelato: The place is a full-on trattoria with furnishings and even several staff members brought in from Italy. We both fell in love with the gorgeous barrista and were willing to overlook the oversized Italian horn hanging from his neck chain. Anyway they have homemade fresh and dried pasta dishes and lots of pizzas, all done like you’d see in Italy. If you want American-style pizza you’ll have to hit the Pizza Hut two doors down and hang your head in shame. This food at Sorrisi was awesome and authentic. We went there once for gelato and twice for dinner. Fresh fettuccini with Bolognese was outstanding, so was the Chianti. I also had a chance to take Tony to a few Coz favorites like Choza and Café Denis. Both as good as ever. And we went to Rock-n-Java a coupe of times, once for breakfast and once for lunch. I adore that place. Hanging out with the hunks at Rock-n-Java. Despite several attempts, we never made it to an actual taqueria (the kind with the fire-roasted meat cylinder). The ones up on 30th always seemed to be closed. Two places I wish we’d visited are the reopened Especias and Chi, the Asian place on our corner which was so good that JudgG and her daughters reportedly went there TWICE. Sadly, this is the closest we got to Chi. This is the view from one of our 2 balconies. On our final night, Tony was really hurting from the sun poisoning so I soloed it to La Cocay on Calle 8 between Avenida 10 and 15 to meet Christi and Sally. It’s an open-air place, impeccably decorated, with a magnificent garden out back. Hostess-with-the-mostest Kathy, originally from NYC, brings a relaxed confidence to the place, and you feel more like a guest in her home than a customer.  La Cocay with da goils. You would be a little shitfaced too if it was your last night in Coz. The pan-seared tuna blew my socks off, as did the single-malt tequila (i.e. 100% agave), which was served chilled in a martini glass. Shockingly, it actually blew Patron out of the water. I know I mentioned Sally last time I wrote a Coz trip report but she’s worth a second mention. With a gentle, genuine soul you can’t help but warm to, Sally is a joy to know. Professionally, she is accomplished and masterful. What she accomplishes with her feet had me in a trance. At one point she seemed to be moonwalking on my back. Wow. If you dive in the morning, she can accommodate you later in the day. Sally is also a Reiki Master and I have to believe her abundant healing energy would work perfectly in that modality too. She’s on Calle 3 up between Avenida 15 and 20. The diving was as fabulous as ever. I was grouped with various people who for the most part were accomplished divers. Up to now I’ve only dove Cozumel with good friends, most from D2D, and have behaved accordingly (i.e. safely but not particularly responsibly). “What happens in Coz, stays in Coz…” Diving with strangers requires some adjustment and restraint. A few times, it was just me and DM Juan for awhile when others ascended after reaching 700psi. Viz the day before we arrived was reportedly low but all my dives had viz in the 100-150-foot range. Temps were consistently between 80 and 82f. I ended up doing Columbia Deep and Shallow twice and would have been happy to do them a 3rd time. Tunich and Dalilah were joyous. Palancar was, well, unassailably magnificent. In addition to Juan, it was great to see DM Pedro and Cap’n Mago again as well as Adan. Awesome crew performance as always. My nitrox was consistently within a point of 32%, fills within a hundred pounds of 2800. Juan said he thought my computer was reading 200 pounds low, which might be true. Since our flight home was at 3ish, we spent our last day visiting Schlock World I & II, buying wall art at Inspiracion, a new gallery on Avenida 5 between just north of Calle 3, and taking pics of the cemetery near Chedraui. Our flight home was uneventful and not full, and we breezed through customs and immigration. Say what you want about MIA and you’d probably be right, but that’s twice now that it has taken me less than 30 mins to get from airplane seat to driver’s seat when returning from an international destination. Pretty impressive. Unfortunately the automatic card reader at the parking garage wasn’t working so it took awhile to pay the $90. Yikes. Tony had to work the next day, so we faced a 5-hour drive to Jacksonville, most of it in rainy conditions. Double-yikes. I pulled the Sapmobile into the garage at 2am, exhausted but with a shit-eatin’ grin that’s still there.  © Richard Salkin 2007

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