Part 1: Day 4: April 24th 2009 - Friday Cozumel

Day 4 we took a trip to Cozumel Island for a Jeep and Snorkel tour. The weather forecast had called for rain this day (and Sat and Sun) but yet we saw no rain the whole time we were there. We woke up to sun, not super early. We had to take a taxi into Playa which is where we were meeting the tour group and then taking the ferry to Cozumel together. We age breakfast at the same place we had been eating every other morning "Festival". We had to rebook our 2nd reservation since we originally made it for Friday night we didn't want to be in a rush to make it back at a certain time so we just moved it to Saturday night. Then we jumped in the taxi and went to Plaza Antigua in Playa del Carmen. We walked around a bit cuz we were way early (meeting tour guide at 9:30) My little money zipper pouch broke so we did a little bargain shopping. Then met up with our tour people #22 and headed to the ferry pier.

The ferry ride was HORRIBLE! We started off on the top deck and it was rocking back and forth so much we started feeling sick, or at least I did so we moved down to the main level and it wasn't as bad. 30 minutes of this... oh I was not looking forward to the ride back. The second picture I took from inside the ferry, it looks like it's raining, but it's not that's just the water all over the boat from it rocking so much!

LAND LAND, we made it to land!! There was a cute little pelican waiting for us.

Then we walked over to an open area while we waited for our group to gather. It was a big group of different tours.. some people were doing a whole day of snorkeling some people were going something else, then there were a few with the Jeep tour.

There were actually only Kyle and I and another family of 4 for South Carolina with our tour guide, but once we made it to the jeep parking lot there were a lot of other people. Our tour guide was in a hurry so that we didn't have to be with the other group the whole time. Which actually worked out great cuz it was 4 to a jeep and since there were 6 of us, the family of 4 were in one jeep and Kyle and I were in another with just the tour guide. So we sat in the back seat together and the tour guide pointed things out to us along the way. We drove north on the east side of the island then straight through the middle to the west side and down around back into town. [I'll have to get a map up so you can see where we rode]

Our guide said this shell is very special and has been there for almost 20 years. He said it is very protected. Our guide - Sergio was very proud of his island, he was born there and had lived there all his life.

The east side of the island was BEAUTIFUL!!! It was really windy that day so the waves were amazing. I don't really have much to say about the drive because the pictures can speak for themselves. Oh our tour guide was telling us Cozumel stands for the swallows because the island used to be filled with swallows.... Kyle might have to help me get that all correct, but it was something like that.

We stopped for lunch at this little place. Which was included in our tour (drinks too) Little mini cervesas (Corona - actually the first corona's we had in Mexico since our resort only served Dos XX)

There was this weird little animal they had there on a leash, he was very good at begging. He was really cute and made me miss Harpo!

Our next stop was here to check out a fossified reef. I bought some cold coconut here.

Our guide said they call this rock the Sea Turtle since it looks like a sea turtle's head sticking out of the water:

Back on the road again, next stop is for snorkeling. Our guide said the jungle was very young, only 3 years old because of it getting wiped out by the hurricane.

Part 2: Day 4: April 24th 2009 - Friday Snorkeling

We drive through the young jungle a little ways to the south west corner of the island for where we are going to go snorkeling. It was called Playa SanFrancisco. I took a picture into Kyle's sun glasses cuz you could see the beautiful clouds reflecting in them.


Here's the South Carolina Jeep family behind us.

We had to drive just a little ways to get to where we were parking to snorkel.

We arrived, This palm tree has some big coconuts.

Getting our gear on, yeah we look pretty funny! The life jackets have a little knob on the side you push down and blow into it to get air in it then just push it down to let the air out. I started with air in mine, but it was hard to sink down and get good pictures so I ended up just letting it all out, I think Kyle did the same.

Here are our underwater pictures! They really don't give justice to what our naked eye saw! This first picture, you can see red, that's a sea urchin, SO COOL! There's another picture of one, but you can't really tell.

I think this is the other sea urchin, they hid under rocks.

We're done, once we make it back to shore the other group had arrived and there were about 20 people or so it seemed like. Glad we got to do it in a small group. We went back and took a shower to wash off the salt water... ever seen Sex and the City the Movie?? Well I pulled a Charlotte... boy is that water taste GROSS, I didn't swallow any and luckily it didn't have the same affect on me as it had on her, but it was so yucky! We got some dry clothes on and hopped back into the jeep, Sergio drove us back to downtown where we'd have an hour to walk around before meeting the other tour guides to get back on the ferry.

Here we had $1 cervesas and relaxed. It was funny cuz as we were walking the streets again all we heard was "hey honeymooners! wanna look in my store?" lol it was so funny oh and we heard a lot of cuban cigar comments again.

Back on the ferry, main deck this time. We each took a siesta so it wasn't as bad of a ride!

evening - to be continued......