My wife and I went on a cruise with two other couples in early January. Our major ports of call were Playa del Carmen and Cozumel. I am the only diver in the group, so I decided to book my dive trips independently of the cruise ship excursions. Not only did I save some money, I got a lot better dives.
I booked a cenotes dive with GoCenotes.com out of Playa del Carmen. I had seen an ad for them in Dive Training magazine, visited their site and decided to give them a try. I can't say enough good things about this operation.
The divemaster picked me up at the cruise ship dock and drove me to the Dos Ojos cenote for our 2 dives. We had a total of 8 divers, broken into two groups, each with a divemaster. There was also a support diver that helped out and took pictures of each of our dives. He sold CDs of the day's photos for $25 each after the dives.
The cenotes dive was my first dive after my open water certification. While this is diving in an overhead environment, there are so many places to surface that you are never more than about 130 feet from an entrance. Because of this, these cenotes are the only place you can dive in the world without a cave or cavern certification.
The cenotes were a little crowded, as this is a very popular dive destination. In fact, it is rated as one of the "must dive" areas in the Yucatan Peninsula. Despite the divers, the visibilty was phenominal. At some points in the dive, the water was so clear that it fooled your vision into thinking it was just air.
The cenotes are visually stunning. Although we were in the more heavily travelled area, the formations were outstanding. Of course, there is some damage to the formations from divers bumping into them, but overall they were more pristine than I expected.
I could go on forever about my experience on these dives. Needless to say, if you are in the area, you should definetely check the cenotes out. They have sparked my interested in cave and tech diving. Also, if you do go, check out www.gocenotes.com. They were fantastic.
I booked a cenotes dive with GoCenotes.com out of Playa del Carmen. I had seen an ad for them in Dive Training magazine, visited their site and decided to give them a try. I can't say enough good things about this operation.
The divemaster picked me up at the cruise ship dock and drove me to the Dos Ojos cenote for our 2 dives. We had a total of 8 divers, broken into two groups, each with a divemaster. There was also a support diver that helped out and took pictures of each of our dives. He sold CDs of the day's photos for $25 each after the dives.
The cenotes dive was my first dive after my open water certification. While this is diving in an overhead environment, there are so many places to surface that you are never more than about 130 feet from an entrance. Because of this, these cenotes are the only place you can dive in the world without a cave or cavern certification.
The cenotes were a little crowded, as this is a very popular dive destination. In fact, it is rated as one of the "must dive" areas in the Yucatan Peninsula. Despite the divers, the visibilty was phenominal. At some points in the dive, the water was so clear that it fooled your vision into thinking it was just air.
The cenotes are visually stunning. Although we were in the more heavily travelled area, the formations were outstanding. Of course, there is some damage to the formations from divers bumping into them, but overall they were more pristine than I expected.
I could go on forever about my experience on these dives. Needless to say, if you are in the area, you should definetely check the cenotes out. They have sparked my interested in cave and tech diving. Also, if you do go, check out www.gocenotes.com. They were fantastic.
