Snuba: Cozumel or Key West?

[NYHartChapp]

Hi all,

 

We're on the Enchantment in April making port in both Key West and Cozumel. Have done snuba in Cozumel two years ago with Gary Hillson and loved it, so we definitely want to snuba again. A couple of questions:

 

a. Does anyone know if Gary will be departing from Nachi Cocom by April, with the great Palancar reef on his itinerary?

 

b. The Key West excursions advertise a full hour underwater as opposed to a half hour in Cozumel (all be it with a further hour of snorkling). Really love the underwater experience, so am wondering if the Cozumel reefs are that superior to Key West to warrent snuba there or is a whole hour in Key West the better way to go?

 

Thanks in advance.

[NYHartChapp]

Has anyone out there done snuba in Key West?

[sdf89]

DS and I have done snuba in Key West and then snorkeled in Cozumel. I am not a diver, so hopefully there will be more posts after this one.

 

since it was our first underwater experience, we loved the snuba and thought looking at the rocks and a few fish (note the word few) to be neat. At Cozumel we saw more fish and real coral and formations. The difference can be quickly seen in how our KW pictures look all dark green/grey and the Cozumel pics are more colorful.

 

Next time we are scheduled for scuba in Cozumel and we haven't decided on snuba for KW. The problem with scuba is that we will have a couple of hours of classes before a quick hour or less of shallow diving.

 

If you look at other posts on this board, you pretty uniformly see that the reefs near KW are pretty dead... hope this helps...

[NYHartChapp]

DS and I have done snuba in Key West and then snorkeled in Cozumel. I am not a diver, so hopefully there will be more posts after this one.

 

since it was our first underwater experience, we loved the snuba and thought looking at the rocks and a few fish (note the word few) to be neat. At Cozumel we saw more fish and real coral and formations. The difference can be quickly seen in how our KW pictures look all dark green/grey and the Cozumel pics are more colorful.

 

Next time we are scheduled for scuba in Cozumel and we haven't decided on snuba for KW. The problem with scuba is that we will have a couple of hours of classes before a quick hour or less of shallow diving.

 

If you look at other posts on this board, you pretty uniformly see that the reefs near KW are pretty dead... hope this helps...

 

Thanks. When we were in Key West in April of 2004, my son and I went snorkling. While the reefs weren't as colorful as Cozumel, I wouldn't call them dead, and we did see quite alot of fish (even a couple of barracuda :eek: ). Could it be that the reef color and fish population in KW flucuate during the year?