Santa Rosa Wall

What makes Santa Rosa Wall the signature wall dive of Cozumel?

Santa Rosa is Cozumel's benchmark wall: the fringing reef of the west coast stops abruptly on a sand plateau at around 15 meters, and the wall plunges vertically, streaked with cracks, chimneys and tunnels that run right through it. Below 40 meters, the wall continues into the dark, beyond the reach of recreational divers. The northern part is the most broken up, with the longest tunnels and the deepest overhangs; toward the south, the wall softens and joins the Paso del Cedral reefs. Barrel sponges, some taller than a diver, and overhangs covered in orange and purple growth set the scene; the blue, on the other side, does the rest.

What is a typical dive on Santa Rosa Wall like?

You enter at the south end of the site, descend straight to the plateau, then to the edge of the wall. You drift north at 20 or 25 meters, with the wall on your left, entering the tunnels the guide points out: some go down before coming back up, others come out on the plateau among the sea fans. A third of the way through the dive, you gradually rise to the top of the wall, around 15 meters, where the turtles graze, then finish on the plateau before sending up your SMB and doing the safety stop in open water, with the boat above. The dive lasts forty-five to sixty minutes, depending on the current and your air, and the site is often the high point of the week for divers who are not after big animals.

What can you dive near Santa Rosa Wall: Paso del Cedral, Colombia, Punta Sur?

Santa Rosa pairs well with the other sites in the south of the island. Paso del Cedral, just to the south, is a long, low reef at 10 to 18 meters, with schools of grunts and snappers and almost always a turtle. Colombia, farther south, has a deep wall and pinnacles, plus a shallow section, Colombia Shallows, for the second dive. Punta Sur, at the southern tip of the island, holds Cozumel's best-known swim-through, Devil's Throat, a tunnel that drops to 28 meters and comes out on the wall at 40: it is a dive for experienced Advanced divers, current and depth included, and dive centers only offer it to a small group.