Cozumel Mexico in 25 pictures

I had wanted to do this as a wordless post, with just the photos to illustrate our day in port in Cozumel, but I can’t quite do it. The pictures do tell a great story, but there’s fun in between the photos too.

We wanted to do something once-in-a-lifetime for our day in Cozumel (yanno, aside from all the other once-in-a-lifetime experiences this week!) and we were eyeballing the “swim with the dolphins” excursions – but they are not cheap. It would cost something upwards of $300 for the five of us, and then we found this really neat excursion called “Everybody Loves Rays” where you get to pet and feed stingrays and do a bit of snorkeling. Half the price of dolphins, just as once-in-a-lifetime. Perfect!

If you ever find yourself looking for an excursion in Cozumel, I highly recommend Stingray Beach. Unless of course you are squidgy about stingrays, which it turns out that at least half of our party are. Oh well. You get to stand in knee-deep water and they are so tame they come up and bump your legs in a way alarmingly similar to the way cats will rub against your ankles. We hand-fed them, and then moved to deeper water where we could hold them and even kiss them if we wanted (none of us were THAT interested in the stingrays.) They provided everything from aqua shoes to snorkel gear to fish to instructions – you really just have to show up with your bathing suit.

Lucas lasted about four seconds in the water with the stingrays, but luckily Beloved wasn’t too interested in them either. Simon was a bit afraid that their suctiony mouths would suck him right up (stingrays are way cool!) but he warmed up to them eventually and Tristan was his usual stoicly adventurous self — willing to play along but showing no real signs of whether he was actually enjoying himself save for a tell-tale little smirk. I loved it!

After the stingray encounter, we suited up in snorkel gear. I have never donned snorkel gear before, and getting myself and the kids tricked out was a challenge on dry land. Between keeping Lucas afloat (we were all in life vests) and Simon on track, I didn’t actually manage to put on my own mask or get my face in the water but I still managed to swallow about my body weight in seawater. Beloved, on the other hand, had a great time with the snorkeling and saw all sorts of colourful tropical fish. I figure that’s a fair trade.

Then we all five had a blast just chillin’ (actually, cooking) on the beach and playing with the other residents of Stingray Beach – the parrots, the iguanas, and the hermit crabs. There were about a dozen of us on the excursion, and can you believe the boys came in first, second and third place in the hermit crab races? Way too much fun! And unlike some excursions I’ve heard about where they take photos and then badger you to death to buy them for the price of your first born child, the staff here were all great and I was happy to spend $50 to get our CD of 20 or so photos and a framed print.

So that was Cozumel in words – here it is in photos!