One of the draws to Playa Del Carmen was that it is easy to take the ferry across to Cozumel. In my mind I had images of small boats making the short crossing like things I had been on in Thailand. I was totally wrong.

So as you can see in this picture there is pretty much no social distancing going on here. Granted – it’s outside – but most people are not really making an effort to separate from others. There are signs held by officials telling people to keep 1.5m apart but nobody seems to take any notice of them.

The ferry company provides hand sanitizer on board and masks are required on the pier and on board the ship. The crossing takes about 35 minutes and it’s a very calm and relaxing ride – you do not feel the movement of the boat at all, at least when the water is calm.

Once you get off the ferry you are approached by taxi drivers and people trying to rent you a car / bike / puppy / etc but this ends fairy quickly if you just keep walking. Unlike Playa Del Carmen the touristy area of Cozumel is not very big and you quickly end up in more local areas with nicely painted buildings. The town is not that big so walking is easy but you can also rent a bike or moped if you wanted to get around the island.

The town becomes very quiet in the evening with little restaurants and pubs around the ferry area serving food. If you are not staying on Cozumel, make sure to check the time of the last ferry or you may, in fact, be staying on Cozumel. The ferry pier you see in this picture is for cruise ships which don’t happen this year due to COVID-19.

What to do on Cozumel?

If you want to do something more exciting that walking around then diving and snorkelling are the things to do over on the island. I bought a package back at Playa to do some snorkelling, but you could easily wonder into a dive shop over on the island too.

This area has the second largest coral reef in the world. The first one, of course being the Great Barrier Reef in Australia off the coast of Queensland.

When you snorkel here you can see many fish, turtles, some colourful coral (although the coral here suffers the same as many parts of the world that are over touristed), and sting rays.

Fish were surprisingly easy to find. In many cases schools of fish would swim around me. Of course the tour came with a photographer (they seem to be all over the place in Mexico) who charged me 300 peso for the photos.

The cruise included beer (Corona), water, and a small snack. We also had some time anchored by the beach to do some swimming. All in all it was a fantastic day over on Cozumel.