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Grand, La Concha, and Fenomeno are now closed, I hear.

And we just had another shooting in Playa - seven dead. Playa del Carmen: seven men dead after shooting at bar in Mexican resort Not in the main tourist area, but still. In the article there is speculation that QR is going the way of Acapulco, where tourism has been essentially ground to a halt...

Yes, if you want to work on buoyancy and trim, working with an instructor can be helpful. But the card is worthless. If a coaching session costs less, I'd do that instead.

As it was already pointed out, diving, diving, and more diving is the key to becoming a better diver, and get ready fort he next level. You mentioned drysuit diving as something you'd like to learn. I don't know what your dive sites are like, but if a drysuit helps you getting in the water more...

Perhaps I might missing something, but why do your tanks need to be O2-clean? They should be able to give you a 32% fill from the bank even with lesser cleaning standard, and then just top it off with air to get to 28%. No partial pressure blending with pure O2 needed.

For me the most interesting question is how the initial navigational error, i.e., turning towards Grand instead of Kalimba when coming out of Mutch's happened. Was the arrow properly cancelled with a cookie or REM, or did they forget to do that and set themselves up for the mistake upon return...

This has been discussed in some length here. There is even a sticky on the main Mexico forum about this. The upshot is that the local community has developed protocols to safely conduct guided cenote dives for experienced OW divers. The safety record is excellent, as long as the rules are...

I just want to second the recommendation for CenoteXperience. I did cavern dives and then cave training with Nico, and they are the commensurate professionals, taking care of their guests and providing safe and memorable experiences for them.

Back to the topic, I like Boulerjohn's distinction between an incident, that is managed by a proper response, or becomes an emergency by improper action. Nonetheless I'd like to add to emergencies the oddball event that is so rare that you haven't trained for, and can potentially cost you your...

Not too long ago you would have thought that a former governor is not a threat, either. And no one would have searched him when he boarded his own ferry...

I can see two reason why shops there are so reluctant to rent you gear: The first is that this is cave country, and there have been plenty of problems with OW divers going into the caves as some cenotes don't check cards. And besides, anyone can say that they just stay in open water, and then...

Sorry if I haven't been clear about what I was proposing - and I think it works as well for intro divers, who are not supposed to do traverses or gaps anyway. There is already a very well-marked T at the end of the Kalimba line - the snap and gap so ok g gone - so no change needed there. Then...

Ok, if this was my cave.... this is how I would change the lines: make Grand to Paso de Lagarto and on to the Kalimba T the main line. Make the current cut-off from Grand to Ho-Tul the main access to Ho-Tul, with one simple jump from the Grand main line. And turn the current main line left turn...

There is only one permanent "T" in the area of the dive, and it is where the Kalimba line meets the main line from Paso de Lagarto. That is where they left their stages, I believe. And as far as I can tell from the preliminary report, they never made it back there, so the T had nothing to do...

I agree that it was likely a navigational error, but not at the Kalimba T (the old snap and gap). That's where they dropped their stages and never came back to. Also, that T is labeled exceptionally well. My best guess is that they turned left, instead of right, when they came out of Mutch's...

This would be a travesty. If not only Kalimba, but also Grand Cenote are closed for good, one of the best sections of Sac Aktun would be no longer accessible. I would hate to see that happen. And holding the land owner of Kalimba responsible is just crazy. Unless something has changed, you have...

Were you there when the accident at Kalimba happened? I haven't been to MX when a fatality actually occurred, but once very shortly thereafter. And the mood in the community was very much depressed, mixed with some anger at whoever broke the rules (which may not have happened in this particular...

I believe they were essentially out of air when they reached Paso de Lagarto. In fact, one of the divers perished there, and the other diver was also very low. Under these circumstances the decision to make a blind jump without running a line to save a few minutes is defensible. And he got close...

Very sad. My condolences to the families and friends of the divers. For me personally I really like diving Kalimba and I hope it won't be permanently closed because of this accident. I don't know where the bodies were found, what the dive plan was, and I won't speculate on this, although I would...

I can sympathize with the cave diver. Most of my diving is in the caves of Mexico, with sidemount Al tanks and wetsuit. Every time I dive at home in the Great Lakes with dry suit and heavy steel tanks, I feel a bit uneasy when I'm in midwater without a visual reference, and perhaps poor...