Now that I’m mostly caught up with my blog (!) I am retro-blogging some images from vacations from the past year or so that I haven’t blogged yet.  I figure that it’s about the time we are all wishing for warmer weather and beaches so the timing could’t be better!

At the end of 2013 my husband and I returned back to the hotel where Van and Jonathon were married a few years before.  We loved the resort and were excited for a trip back to Park Royal that was all play – no work.  The flight down was a bit of an adventure due to weather but we eventually made it.  While we spent most of our time at our resort, we did venture out a few times to various spots on the island.  As with my other vacations, I didn’t take along the “A Team” for gear so all the images below are either with a Nikon D700 or Canon G11.

Our first excursion was back to a  beach I had discovered on my last visit to Cozumel on my cruise the winter before, Playa Palancar.  Chris wasn’t so sure of the place when we arrived but he also fell in love with it after a bit of time on the beach and understood why I wanted to go back.  The weather turned after this day so we didn’t end up going back but if we’re ever back on Cozumel we’ll definitely be heading here again.

Here’s what the resort looks like from the water.  I spent most of my time in the water and he relaxed on the beach – sadly my husband LOVES the beach but hates the water so I’m often off snorkeling while he’s drinking a Corona.

The view towards the resort from the same spot in the water.

Chris and I are both animal lovers and one of my favorite things about this place was the raccoons and I was excited to see they were still there as I knew Chris would love them.  There was a water drop on my housing for the camera but I still love this picture anyway of this cute guy munching on a tortilla chip.  Also, no, they don’t have rabies.  Raccoons can be out in the daytime if there’s a reason to be and food is one of those reasons they’ll come out during the day.

The next day we ended up booking a tour of the island with Tours Plaza whom came highly recommended from the Cruise Critic boards.  We spent about 4 hours or so getting a tour of the island and it was by far one of the best things I’ve done on Cozumel and I HIGHLY recommend it to all who are there be it for a cruise or longer stay.

We started our day out by stopping in town and getting a bit more of the history behind the city and how the people live there.  There are no homeless people on Cozumel – pretty amazing!  We then hit up a tequila tour and both bought many bottles to bring back.  We then jetted off to the “other” side of the island – also known as the ocean side.  This side of the island is pretty spartan and there’s few homes and even fewer businesses due to the lack of electricity.  However there are a few spots to stop and one of them was Coconuts.

The view from our table at Coconuts was just horrible.  I don’t know why people even bother to climb the stairs to get here??  Ha ha – just kidding of course.  The food wasn’t the greatest so I recommend only getting drinks here but it was a fun stop and I’m glad we went.

Our driver stopped a few times along our route around the island and let me get out and take some pictures.  This ended up being my favorite of all the images from the trip by far.  I don’t know why but I just love the shades of blue in the image.  As you can see, there was a storm at sea coming in.

This natural bridge was pretty cool but I wasn’t quite brave enough to go out onto it when I heard that a lot of people fall off from our driver.  The winds were whipping so I decided to play it safe and just stay on land and take pictures of the bridge.

The storm was getting closer and the waves were getting angrier.  Part of the reason the windward side is so desolate is because you simply cannot swim in these waters due to the ripcurrent and strong waves.  The driver said they don’t even advise people to wade along the shore – although some do.

Our driver said the only thing you can do along the beaches here is enjoy these tidal pools but you have to be careful because often alligators want to share the same pools.  Yikes!   Not long after this picture the storm finally came onshore (can you see the rain in the image?) and we went back to our hotel where it stormed for most of the next day.

On our last day on the island we took a snorkeling boat tour and I was SO EXCITED.  Chris never did end up getting off the boat but I had a wonderful few hours floating along the natural “river” in the ocean and taking pictures of all of the fish and sealife we saw.  We were with a group of people so I wasn’t quite as timid as I normally am when snorkeling alone.  The fish were everywhere!

The other people on our tour were from a ship and we all got along wonderfully.  I really loved this image of one of them swimming that I took.

This skate scared the crap out of me as I didn’t see him at first until he moved along as we passed overhead.

This ray I saw out of the corner of my eye and then realized that he was REAL and was so happy the image turned out.  I may have swallowed some water in my excitement.

This is by far not my greatest image but I still have to share it.  When we jumped off on our last stop, we were told to hurry because there was a shark below (the water was 60 feet deep here).  The guy pictured above and I were the only ones to go YES!! and jump in while our guide told the others he was kidding… but he wasn’t.  There WAS a shark and it was so cool to see.  My husband still thinks I am nuts.

On our way to our plane I had to take this picture of the Norwegian Dawn that was docked downtown.  That makes it the THIRD time in a year I’d see this ship.  I sent it to my friends who were on the cruise with us and we laughed about how funny it was that I saw it in Maine and in Mexico after our trip.