flyhimd
Registered
Wondering whether cenote diving is safe? The safety record is good, and both Ben's Mayan Aqua Dive and Manta Divers had excellent guides when I went.
What to expect? Hop on YouTube and search for "cenote" and you'll see the amazing world. You be the judge about whether it's too dark or too confined. Frankly, there are a lot more injuries out on the open reefs in Cozumel than in the cenotes...cuts, bites, stings, fractures, dive boat injuries.
On the way down from Cancun, you'll have an excellent briefing in the van...a solid 20 minutes. Read up online before you go and you'll get a pretty good overview.The cenote dives are very precise, very choreographed, and done in very small groups. The guide carries double tanks and a very long hose so there's a fall-back in the rare event a diver ran into air problems.
Cenotes are fresh water, so before your dive, your instructor/guide will work with you in the entrance pool to make sure you're not overweighted or underweighted. Once you've got that down, only then will you enter the cenote itself. The bouyency is important because you don't want to drag along the bottom and stir up sediment...or pop up to the surface and bang into the stalactites.
Tigerman's hit the nail on the head: decent bouyency control is the prerequisite, not the number of dives per se. I think I had like 8 logged dives when I did my first dive in the cenotes...right after OW cert. One of the cenote dives was credited toward AOW as a matter of fact.
After you do your YouTube watching, you decide...is this something you can enjoy and do safely? Like all things, you're the ultimate one to decide, but if you do, its one of the coolest things you'll do in Mexico.
What to expect? Hop on YouTube and search for "cenote" and you'll see the amazing world. You be the judge about whether it's too dark or too confined. Frankly, there are a lot more injuries out on the open reefs in Cozumel than in the cenotes...cuts, bites, stings, fractures, dive boat injuries.
On the way down from Cancun, you'll have an excellent briefing in the van...a solid 20 minutes. Read up online before you go and you'll get a pretty good overview.The cenote dives are very precise, very choreographed, and done in very small groups. The guide carries double tanks and a very long hose so there's a fall-back in the rare event a diver ran into air problems.
Cenotes are fresh water, so before your dive, your instructor/guide will work with you in the entrance pool to make sure you're not overweighted or underweighted. Once you've got that down, only then will you enter the cenote itself. The bouyency is important because you don't want to drag along the bottom and stir up sediment...or pop up to the surface and bang into the stalactites.
Tigerman's hit the nail on the head: decent bouyency control is the prerequisite, not the number of dives per se. I think I had like 8 logged dives when I did my first dive in the cenotes...right after OW cert. One of the cenote dives was credited toward AOW as a matter of fact.
After you do your YouTube watching, you decide...is this something you can enjoy and do safely? Like all things, you're the ultimate one to decide, but if you do, its one of the coolest things you'll do in Mexico.
