Looking for cenote recommendation for beginner

[DeltaWardog]

Hi all. I'm getting ready to go to Coz for the 4th time and I want to try something new this time, something I've heard amazing things about for years. I want to do a cenote dive.

I'm a pretty good amateur diver with 50+ dives under my belt, and I have great buoyancy control. I have no cave diving training or experience whatsoever, but I have heard there are some cenotes that have open air above the caves and so don't require cave penetration type training.

Can anyone recommend a couple of good sites, and maybe a few details on what the whole experience is like taking a day to go over and dive the mainland from Cozumel?

Kindof a side question - is it even worth it for someone of my experience level, or do I need to have cave training to really get to the good stuff? Would my time be better spent in Columbia Shallows?

Thanks in advance for anything you care to share!

 

[MMM]

You don't need cave training. It's a day trip from La isla. If you have good buoyancy control you will be fine. The one thing you will find is that the dives are shorter than you'll be used to Cozumel b/c they want you to come up with 1/3 of your tank remaining. So on an aluminum 80, that will be 1000 lbs. And that will be for the diver with the worst air consumption in the group as you will all come up together. I think in the group I was with, dives were about a half-hour in length, maybe a bit more. They are more expensive than on the island. I have done it once. It was interesting but not enough for me to want to do it again. There is no fish life and that is really what I like looking at. YMMV

 

[driftwood]

MMM has the same opinion of the cenotes that my wife does. Personally, I love diving the cenotes.

Any decent dive op will have a cave certified guide leading no more than 4 divers. You will probably be in an overhead environment most of the time and within sight of direct access to the surface. It will take your guide a minute or less to get you there if things go south on the dive. You will be going very slow and the water is much colder than the area's ocean dives. I like a 5mm suit for cenote diving. Dive lights are a must and can be rented locally.

Dos Ojos, 30-40 minutes south of PDC (ferry dock), is not a bad choice for an intro dive. Pretty open, not much silt on the bottom and a lot of light for a cave. The second dive is generally Bat Cave which is much darker and narrower. Same cave, just a different branch.

Grand Cenote is further south by Tulum. A lot of shops use it for cave dive training. Carwash is close for a second dive and you can hit the ruins on your way back.

 

[MMM]

MMM has the same opinion of the cenotes that my wife does.

Dos Ojos, 30-40 minutes south of PDC (ferry dock), is not a bad choice for an intro dive. Pretty open, not much silt on the bottom and a lot of light for a cave. The second dive is generally Bat Cave which is much darker and narrower. back.

Yeah those were the two I did. Yawn.

 

[DandyDon]

Have you done night dives & swim thrus...?

They're trust me dives but they have an excellent safety record. It'll be neat wherever you go. Many of the sinkholes have populations of a dull little tetra which will swarm your light at first looking for bugs but leave you as soon as you go into the darkness. Eden has more different fishes in the sunlit zone but not many do it because that's a second admission fee after diving somewhere else first.

Other possibilities include a halocline which will cause you to try to clear your mask and a visible layer of purple photosynthetic bacteria altho the acide is not strong enough to feel.

 

[Tunaman68]

We did Dos Ojos and Bat Cave with Mexico Blue Dream. It was a wonderful day trip and really fun. My brother and daughter came along, and although they are not very experienced divers, they had a great time, and were very comfortable. Fresh water is a different experience and the caverns were surreal and beautiful. I would recommend taking an extra layer of thermal protection that you are using in Coz - it got chilly!!!

All in all, I was glad to do it ONCE> to me the reef and it's ever changing wildlife means that every time you put your face in the water it's a beautiful dynamic experience. Even as amazing as the first cavern experience was, I was left with the feeling that once you've seen it, most others would be the same. That being said, our guide was a junkie and couldn't get enough and felt the same way about tropical reefs that I felt about the caverns. My brother said he'd be happy to stay in Cancun and do several days diving the different cenotes. To each his own right!!

Do it - it's quite an experience and one that I'm really glad I have in the log book, but personally I won't be trading another dive on Santa Rosa any time soon.

 

[DeltaWardog]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!

I've done many tight swimthroughs in Coz, and I did my first night dive on my last trip. It was in fast current (seemed faster than anything I'd done during the day but that could be an illusion due to the darkness) and even had both my rental lights fail (what are the odds?) but no biggie, I swam over to the nearest light and got a backup light from one of the other divers. We had discussed this exact possibility during the dive briefing so it was a real non-event. Just trying to say that I was comfortable the one time I dived in the dark, I guess. There will definitely be more night diving on this trip!

My wife is in no way interested in diving in the dark, and my son is too new of a diver to bring him into any kind of overhead environment, so I'll be making this cenote trip solo.

I usually dive in just a dive skin in Coz but I always bring along my 3mm full, just in case I get cold later in the trip. Think that will be sufficient for a day of cenotes? I don't get cold very easily in the water.

Do you usually have to find your own transportation to the dive site from the PDC ferry, or do the ops pick you up there?

 

[Country Diver]

Cenote tours offer a unique dive experience, and anyone that thinks that they are a "yawn" isn't paying enough attention. The Dos Ojos tours offer a lot if you look for it. These are fossilized coral reefs and you will see fossilized shells and other critters in the rock, you might see the occasional cave critter as well. There are cave fish, little cave shrimps, and centipedes, and a few others. I am always fascinated going into the caves. We did Dos Ojos as a little team bonding dive the day before our cave course b/c we had a member from our team from Polland, and we had never met before. For a cenote that has tours of open water divers going through it beating it with the fins and bumping into things, it is still well decorated. When you get to the barbie and the crocodile, there is an arrow. Whenever there is an arrow, there is a jump. A jump allows certified cave divers to connect to another surveyed line. Ponderosa or Eden's cenote tour will allow you to experience the halocline which in itself is a cool and unique feature that the Mexican caves have. The halocline is where the salt water and the fresh water mix, and since fresh water is less dense than salt water, it flows on top giving the illusion that you are coming up into air. A good light is a must, not only to see, but to also communicate with the team. Dos Ojos is roughly 23-25 ft deep on average for the dive, Ponderosa is around 25-40 ish ft, with the halocline around 35 ft I believe.

If you are there and looking for something new...do it. They are beautiful systems.

 

[DandyDon]

Most Ops will arrange to meet your ferry I think,

The reason that so many Ops do Dos Ojos and Bat Cave as two different dives is that there is only one park fee, one parking lot, picnic in between, an outhouse, etc. The dives are so similar tho.

On our last cenote outing, we found an Op with a different approach. After The Pit at Dos Ojos (not for first timers), we drove up the hiway to a convenience store and super shrimp tacos, then paid a second admission at Eden.

 

[TSandM]

I did my first cenote tours in a 3 mil suit, and I was fine. The dives aren't terribly long (ours were about 45 minutes) and you are swimming the whole time. Once you get out of the water, you get warm very quickly, especially in the sun.

Most of the tours will have you under true overhead -- no air dome -- but if you handled your light issue as calmly as you report you did, I don't think you'll have any problem with the overhead. Some portions of some of the tours will get quite a ways from ambient light, although you can always see it somewhere. (I wasn't at all convinced of that in part of my Dos Ojos tour!)

Each cenote has different characteristics. Cenote Eden has a lovely open water basin, with beautiful moss, lots of fish and sometimes eels. The cavern tour has large boulders and a lot of views out toward open water. Taj Maha has some very cool halocline effects, and if you dive at the right time of day, the Points of Light are astonishing. Grand Cenote has large, majestic decorations, and Dos Ojos has shining white limestone and some beautiful formations. Chac Mool has a large cavern room, and the list goes on.

I can recommend a couple of dive guides, if you like, or your operation on Cozumel may offer cenote tours with one of their people.

It's about a half hour trip across on the ferry, and then another half hour's drive or so to the area where the caves are. You will get a dive briefing, that includes a description of the tour, but also information on non-silting propulsion, positioning and light signals. The dive, as described, is done on thirds (using only one third of your gas on the way in, and reserving two thirds for the exit) but the dives are generally shallow enough that it's not a problem to complete them on 2/3 of an Al80. You'll have a surface interval and snack, and then a second dive, which may be at the same site or a different one, depending on the plan you made with the guide. You'll be back on the island by mid-afternoon at the latest.

As we were discussing at the meeting I attended tonight, people come in two very binary flavors -- those who do the cavern dives and yawn, and those who see the Peligro sign and have all they can do to stay on their side of it. I was one of the latter. My report of my cavern tours is HERE.