C-53 Felipe Xicoténcatl

Cozumel is drift-diving country, its wrecks few, so the island made its own. This hull began as USS Scuffle, an Admirable-class minesweeper built in 1944 that swept Pacific waters late in the Second World War; transferred to the Mexican Navy in the early 1960s, she patrolled the Gulf and Caribbean for three more decades as the Felipe Xicoténcatl, C-53, named for a hero of the Mexican-American War. Retired in the 1990s, she was cleaned, opened and scuttled in 1999 on a sand flat near Chankanaab park on the island's leeward side — deliberately placed out of the racing current that sweeps the main reef line, so divers can actually stop and look at her. She sits upright at about 24 meters, compact and complete: bow gun mount, funnel, and a superstructure whose prepared corridors make her one of the Caribbean's most used wreck-training platforms. Inside, glassy sweepers pulse through the passageways and the celebrated splendid toadfish — Cozumel's own endemic, striped like nothing else in the sea — grunts from beneath the hull plates. She pairs neatly with Chankanaab's shallows for a relaxed second dive.

How she sank: Deliberately scuttled as an artificial reef and dive-training site off Chankanaab, 1999.

Condition: Upright and intact, superstructure complete; four decades of navy service show in the worn steel now softened by sponges

Penetration: Limited. Cleared corridors with exit points run through the superstructure and are toured constantly on guided and training dives; silt and rust flakes still demand control. Entering any overhead environment requires specific training — a wreck certification at minimum, technical wreck training for full penetration.

Recommended certification: Advanced Open Water

Current: Mild · Visibility: 20–40 m

Marine life: Splendid toadfish under the hull, glassy sweepers and squirrelfish inside, green morays in the machinery, barracuda above the mast, and angelfish along the rails.

Hazards: Light current on exposed days and rusted edges at the access cuts

Within the Cozumel Reefs National Marine Park — park bracelet and no-touch rules apply