Do you need cave cert. to dive the Cenotes ?

[grazie42]

I think you should be asking two questions:
Will diveops require cavern/cave certs? (The answer is no)
Should I have cavern/cave training before entering those enviroments? (My answer would be yes)

I am cave certified but still did some cavern tours in Riviera Maya last year. The other divers on the tour were ok, for OW-divers, they still silted quite a bit. The guide was in doubles but didn´t have cave training beyond cavern. IMO none of the others would have gotten out had something happened to the guide. They were doing a "trust me dive" and it wasn´t safe...1/3s won´t help you if you don´t know the way out...

 

[Tigerman]

I dove the Chak Mool cenote this summer and no, I do not have cavern nor cave certification.
However, in the cavern part of Chak Mool, finding your way out of the water is easy as there is several ways to the surface and you can see them all the time. Getting entangled in the cavern part is also not very likely unless youre able to tangle yourself in the guideline..

The cave parts however is quite a different story.
We where 2 guides and 5 divers, both guides with doubles, rest of the divers with AL80s

 

[El Orans]

I've done 3 cenote dives with Diablo Divers in May 2007.

No other training than OW is required. However, I do not recommend going in there without having mastered buoyancy and trim.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

Planning ahead for next year's dive destinations, and Riviera Maya's cenotes really interest me.

Do you have to be cave certified to dive the cenotes ?

I know of folks who have done it on O/W certs. Was it smart or safe, No. get the training before you go into these cenotes. The life you save may be your own.

 

[contender]

I dove the Chak Mool cenote this summer and no, I do not have cavern nor cave certification.
However, in the cavern part of Chak Mool, finding your way out of the water is easy as there is several ways to the surface and you can see them all the time. Getting entangled in the cavern part is also not very likely unless youre able to tangle yourself in the guideline..

The cave parts however is quite a different story.
We where 2 guides and 5 divers, both guides with doubles, rest of the divers with AL80s

Finding your way out is easy as long as there is not a silt out. If a silt out occurs there can be a hundred ways to get out, but without proper training you probably won't find them. If this happens your last few minutes won't be enjoyed. Yes it can be done with OW, is it smart.....No.

 

[contender]

I know of folks who have done it on O/W certs. Was it smart or safe, No. get the training before you go into these cenotes. The life you save may be your own.

Totally Agree.
Here is a video of what happens when OW divers go beyond their training.
YouTube - Rescue 911 - Episode 202 - "Scuba Cave" (Part 1 of 2)
YouTube - Rescue 911 - Episode 202 - "Scuba Cave" (Part 2 of 2)

 

[TSandM]

With the exception of Dos Ojos, all the cavern tours I did while we were down there would have required something absolutely unimaginable to get anybody into serious trouble. For example, the cavern at Carwash is really like swimming a circle under a ledge. To your right is the cave, to your left is open water that you can easily see. If you stay with your guide, who is running the line, you're no more than forty or fifty feet from open water. Now, if you have a panic episode and try to bolt for the surface, you're in trouble, but short of that . . . Dos Ojos was different, because we actually got into passage, where the light was a LONG ways away.

Many operators run cenote tours. Although they are supposed to be regulated, not all seem to run according to the rules (divers without primary lights, guides not running line). It's worth looking through the archives here for some recommendations for good operators. I'd also suggest doing some work on buoyancy and trim before doing the tours, out of respect for the caves, which are incredibly beautiful, but very fragile.

 

[dboddy]

Anyone can enter a cenote and dive it. Cave training teaches you how to get back out and to deal with all the "what ifs". I personally would not recommend entering an overhead environment without the proper training...guide or no guide. The more you train...the more you realize just how important it is. At a minimum, take the cavern course. This is where some people discover that leaving the light zone and traveling further into the cave is not something they really want to do. Better to find that out in a class, than 500 feet back into a cenote. If going further is something you are interested in...then the cavern course will give you a bit of a foundation to work from.

 

[Caver95]

Yeah but all that expensive training is just making the instructors rich there is really no need right??

 

[TSandM]

As everybody here on SB probably knows, I'm a DIR diver and pretty intense about the desirability of further training and higher skills for divers in general. And GUE is a pretty intense organization, with pretty strict rules and a very high emphasis on safety, sometimes to the point where other people think it's kind of ridiculous. But I did my first cenote dives as guided cavern tours led by one of the GUE instructors in Mexico, and I had no more than a recreational pass from Fundies.

Although I haven't seen the caves in Florida (yet -- two more days!), I supect things are quite different there. From the videos, most of the caves don't seem to have extensive cavern zones, and there is a lot of silt. The caverns we did in Mexico are very open, tall and wide, and have minimal silt and no flow to speak of. For an overhead environment, it's pretty benign, which is probably why so many operations run cavern tours for OW divers with a good track record for safety.

Getting your feet wet with cavern tours can be VERY expensive, though . . . Next thing you know, you're taking cave classes, buying doubles and diving them at home, running line all over your back yard -- Beware!