Cozumel Deep Sea Fishing/Snorkel

[travelplanner4thefamily]

Looking for some help with deep sea fishing/snorkeling in Cozumel. anyone out there have experience with this. did find a price of $450 at cozumelexcersions.com for an 8 hour trip but someone else recommended a different group that is $500 for 6 but they a lot of times make the fish you catch for lunch. not sure what to do so any help wor recommendations would be great. Thanks

[springking]

Hey there! We fished & snorkeled Cozumel with Albatross Charters and had an awesome time. I'd be more than happy to answer your questions.

 

You will LOVE Cozumel!

[travelplanner4thefamily]

I sent them an email last week and have not heard anything back. I have read a coulpe of reviews and they seem to have very good one.

 

Couple of questions

1. How many hours did you do?

2. Was it easy to get off cruise and get to where they are at.

3. Did they make any of the fish you caught?

4. We can leave cruise boat at 0800 so I'm hoping to get a 6 hour fish/snorkel trip 830-1430 and if they don't make fish will they direct up to a place we can get it made and would we have enough time for a 6:00 pm depart?

5. Is six hours enough time to caught some fish? We only want about 2 hours of snorkeling. I'd do an 8 hour trip but then it would be until 4:30 and boat sails at 6

 

Thanks for all your wonderful help

[springking]

1. We did the 6 hr. trip

2. Very easy. The ship docks (no tender). From our ship we walked 2 blocks to the left to a smaller T dock where the boat and crew (2 men) were waiting. You have to pay the "dock master" $2.00 per person to go on dock. The whole process was pretty painless.

3. YES! They prepared the tuna we caught>>>"Ceviche" which was amazing. It's basically raw fish marinated in lemon juice w/lots of fresh vegetables and cheese fajitas. I've never had this before, but we all loved it...even my wife and daughter who aren't huge seafood eaters. The boat was also stocked with a large cooler of beer, water, coke, and fresh pineapple.

4. Our times were the same as yours and we had plenty of time shop in town before getting back on the ship.

5. 6 hrs. is plenty of time. I would have loved to just keep on fishing but the majority wanted to snorkel after a few hours. We were a family of 5...2 boys and a girl. We only caught (2) fish a black fin tuna and a white marlin that weighed approx. 120 lbs. The marlin took over an hr. to land so that took up a lot of time....truly an amazing experience!!

Trolled ballyhoo of 2 down riggers about 50 ft. down...2 on the outriggers..1 up top with the captain. and 2 teasers of both sides of the boat about 20 ft. out. A fairly impressive presentation for the fish.

[travelplanner4thefamily]

Couple more questions. Thank you so much for being so willing to help.

 

1. Our son will be 10 and daughter 15. Are these appropiate ages for fishing and snorkeling?

 

2. what month were your there and how was the water temp. We will be going in Dec. and wondering if we should bring our shorty wet-suits.

[springking]

My wife and kids all took non drowsy dramamine to be safe. It did get a little rough out there and that kind of played into everyone deciding to snorkel sooner than I would have preferred.

 

We were there at the end of April. The water temp. felt like it was in the 70's maybe? Not sure about December, it's tropical so it should be comfortable regardless. I'm sure someone else on the board can chime in about that. The different shades of blue in the water are magical, I still can't get over how beautiful it is there!

 

As far as the snorkeling goes.... If your kids are good swimmers they shouldn't have any problems. I've snorkeled several times but I did notice it took some getting used to for our daughter who is 12. The best spots are the reefs fairly close to where we were trolling, just closer to shore. That being said, the captain will take you anywhere....if you want to swim/snorkel in shallow water right near shore in pure white sand, they will take you there. They were great guys but spoke very little English which made things tricky at times (communicating). They said on a few occasions "you're the boss, you're the boss". On the way back to the dock the mate asked me if he and the captain could have a beer :)... I was like.."uh yeah, you can have as many as you want"..... :)

When you are in town be prepared to get hammered by the solicitors selling stuff. Most establishments don't have price tags, especially on the jewelry. My wife was interested in a silver necklace and bracelet that started out @ 150.00...5 minutes later they were hers for $49.00 bucks! It's a different world down there, but that's all part of the fun/experience!