Dive Review : Yucab Reef, Cozumel, MEX

Yucab Reef

  • Date of dive: 11/5/2015 and 11/6/2016
  • Maximum depth: 55 ft and 57 ft (16.5 m and 17.3 m)
  • Average depth: approximately 39 ft (11.9 m)
  • Total dive time: 53 mins and 55 mins

At almost the halfway point on the west side of the island of Cozumel, Mexico is a great reef with tons of animals to see and beautiful coral formations to explore for every level of diver. Yucab is a long chain of reef head formations along a valley with a sandy bottom and a maximum depth of 60 ft (18.3 m) throughout most of the area. The far side of this site is known as Yucab Wall for those wanting to go a little deeper into the beautiful waters around Cozumel Island. We have gone through this area two separate times and both times were excellent. Our visibility, like most of Cozumel dive sites, has been between 80 to 100 ft (24 m to 30 m) and the water temperature here has been around 79°F (26°C).

Yucab reef is located south of the cruise docks, between Tomentos and the San Clemente Wall dive sites. We have gone diving at Tomentos, check out our post on this site! The current through this site can be somewhat strong, so keep going buoyancy and you can cruise through this reef for about an hour with good air consumption. 

Along the reef heads at Yucab, be ready to see almost everything the dive sites in Cozumel have to offer. Invertebrates commonly seen here are: Smooth Floral Coral (E. fastiginia),  Clubtip Finger Coral (P. porites), Staghorn coral (A. cervicornis), a variety of sea fans, Giant Barrel Sponges (X. muta), Purple Vase Sponges (C. plicifera), Strawberry Vase Sponges (C. plicifera), Yellow Tube Sponges (A. fistularis), Dark Volcano Sponges (P. zeai), Green Finger Sponges (I. birotulata), and Horned Feathered Worms (S. giganteus). Common vertebrates here are Spotted Drum Fish (E. punctatus), Balloonfish (D. holocanthus), Yellowtail blue damselfish (C. parasema), Four eyed butterflyfish (C. capistratus), Blue Striped Grunts (H. sciurus), Great Barracudas (S. barracuda), Trumpetfish (A. maculatus), Scrawled Filefish (A. scriptus), Queen Triggerfish (B. vertula), a variety of Parrot Fish, Black Triggerfish (M. niger), Green and Spotted Moray Eels (G. funbris and G. moringa), Spiny Lobsters (P. argus), and many other species.

We truly enjoyed both of our dives at this reef and it is one of our recommended dive sites for the island. It is a great location for a second or third dive of the day. Unfortunately we have not been able to dive this site for a night dive, but it would be a fun one since there is so much life here.  There is a higher chance some of the hotels more in the middle of the island use this site as one of their night dive sites.

If you have any questions about this site or any others around Cozumel, let us know!

 

<3 B. and Meliae Quad