Name: Stingray Villa
Brand: Stingray Villa
Rating: 5 (636 reviews)

Dive into Adventure: Exploring Cozumel’s Shark Encounters

Fulfill your dream and encounter sharks in Cozumel. Cozumel’s clear, warm waters make it a popular destination for divers worldwide. Cozumel is a diving utopia, within the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. It is home to a variety of corals, fish, and invertebrates, including sharks. Join us as we delve into the common varieties of sharks you may encounter during your scuba diving adventures or while staying at Stingray Villa.

Nurse sharks:

This shark is the most prevalent in Cozumel’s waters. Nurse sharks are slow-moving bottom-dwellers and are harmless to humans. Many divers in Cozumel encounter the nurse shark because during the day they can often find them resting on the sandy bottoms of underneath ledges or in crevasses. However, they can be massive, up to 14 feet, and have powerful jaws loaded with thousands of tiny, serrated teeth, and will bite if stepped on or disturbed by divers who presume they’re gentle. They apply their powerful jaws to crush and eat shellfish but prefer to consume on fish, shrimp, and squid. They’re colored gray-brown and have extraordinary tail fins that can be up to one-fourth of their total length. Unlike most other sharks, nurses are smooth to the touch.

Caribbean Reef Sharks:

The Caribbean Reef Shark is known to be relatively passive and rarely poses much of a hazard to scuba divers, snorkelers, swimmers, or other humans it comes into contact with. They avoid human interaction entirely. Also known as the “Reef Shark”, it has a unique color and is white to light yellow on the ventral side and grey-brown to dark-grey on the dorsal side. It has larger eyes, and the snout is rounded and short compared to other sharks. The Caribbean Reef Shark also finds its food in the reefs, such as bony fishes, crustaceans, and cephalopods. We also know this shark will feed on yellow stingrays and eagle rays frequently.

Hammerhead Sharks:

The Hammerhead is one of the most elusive sharks in Cozumel. In 20 years, I have only seen one on the reefs of Cozumel. Lately we have had sightings of Hammerheads eating Eagle Rays and giving live births in the shallow waters around Cozumel.
These sharks enjoy the tastes of various animals such as other sharks, squids, crabs, jacks, herrings, tarpon, sardines, boxfish, toadfish, sea catfish, groupers, and their absolute favorite dish, rays. These sharks hunt for their creature of choice twice a day around dawn and dusk. The most well-known factor about them would undoubtedly have to deal with their namesake. These sharks have flat, T-shaped heads that make them stand out from other sharks.

Bull Sharks:

These sharks are magnificent creatures. They can grow to be bigger than any scuba diver, and they are graceful and powerful. Whenever you get to see them on the reef, other fish seem to be a little more careful. Divers have seen bull sharks on Playa del Carmen reefs for over 30 years. Los Arcos, one of the more popular deep dive sites north of Playa del Carmen, used to be known as Sharkies Place, named after the common shark sightings, rather than its deep swim-throughs. These sharks are even more elusive in Cozumel than the hammerhead.

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