Loggerhead Turtle in Cozumel

An unmistakably large, blocky head — much bigger in proportion than the other two turtles — with a reddish-brown heart-shaped shell.

Quick ID

Where You Will See It In Cozumel

Loggerhead Turtle works the 9 to 98 foot band. On this island that means the sheltered west-coast reefs, and the shallow east-side entries when the sea is flat — these are the sites where the depth and the habitat line up for it.

Without a boat. It is worth looking for at El Islote, El Mirador and El Presidente — all shore entries, so you dive them on your own schedule.

On an ordinary beginner boat dive. It should be within reach at Casa Blanca, Chankanaab Bolones, Columbia Shallows, El Cielo and La Francesa. No advanced certification needed.

Deeper, and on the walls. It is also plausible on Punta Sur, Punta Tunich, San Francisco Wall and San Juan.

Conditions change the odds more than the site does — the current, the time of day and how much the group has already stirred up the sand. Ask your guide what they have been seeing that week.

Behaviour

The big head houses the jaw muscle needed to crush conch, whelks and crabs — a diet neither of the other Cozumel turtles takes.

Commonly Confused With

• Green turtle — Proportionally small rounded head, smooth olive shell.
• Hawksbill turtle — Narrow pointed beak, overlapping plates.

Diving Etiquette And Safety

Protected. Same rules: no touching, no blocking the route to the surface.

Asking Your Dive Guide To Find One

Loggerheads are not wall animals. They feed on conch and whelks, which means they are down in the sand and rubble between the reef fingers, head buried, often with a cloud of silt around them.

That puts them on exactly the parts of a dive most profiles skip. Ask whether the plan crosses the sand flats between reefs or stays on the structure the whole way, and ask the Cozumel dive centers you are considering whether their guides actually stop over open sand. Plenty do not — it looks like empty bottom until something moves.

The Skill That Makes The Difference

The useful skill for turtles is not approach, it is identification. Most divers surface convinced they saw a hawksbill because nobody told them what to look at, and the three Cozumel turtles are easy to separate once you know: the head does it every time.

The Underwater Naturalist specialty is the course that teaches you to read an animal rather than just tick it off, and it changes what you notice on every dive afterwards.

Part of the Cozumel marine life guide · see Cozumel dive sites · plan your Cozumel dive trip

Photo: Thomas Brown, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.