Must dive caves, mexico.

[Preach]

Hey,

I'm going to Mexico for some cave diving in November. Last year i did my gue cave 1 in Mexico, but i didn't do a lot of diving after the course.
Which caves are a must visit and are accessible by backmounted gue cave 1 divers?

Cenotes we dived last year:
- Carwash
- Angelita
- Eden
- Taj mahal
- Grand cenote
- Nahoch (parkers room was pretty nice!)
- Dos palmas (we really liked this one, the average depth made it possible to make really long dives).

Pet sematary looks pretty nice, but we are not allowed to take restrictions longer then 3 meters.

any suggestions are welcome

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

Wow the list is long!! What shop are you getting tanks from? Tulum or Playa?

 

[Preach]

Wow the list is long!! What shop are you getting tanks from? Tulum or Playa?

Zero gravity, Puerto Aventuras. We got a rental car, i don't mind driving a bit .

 

[JohnnyC]

What are Cave 1 navigation limits? Cristal, 2 jumps left puts you in some sweet saltwater passages at the 4-way T. It's a beautiful dive, starts off black, jumps into some brilliant white stuff. It's a must do for sure.

You can do the traverse to Mayan Blue under the highway.

Dunno if you can do it, but Dos Palmas to the Pit is a pretty nice traverse too.

There's TONS of cave in Ponderosa/Eden. You could spend a week in there and still not see everything.

Taj to Chinese Gardens is another awesome dive. I wanna say 2 jumps but it's been a while.

ZG will give you the best advice as they're the GUE shop and would know your limits best.

 

[elgoog]

@JohnnyC - C1 is Intro + gap + 1T + slightly more gas. I did Intro in backmount earlier this year and am going back again in November. Putting this here because I'm also interested in learning what caves would be good at this level and adding to my own list.

@Preach - You hit a lot of cenotes in C1 so I'm guessing you maybe did only the primary line in all of them? Looking at my notes, here's what I dived and am planning on diving in a couple of months.

Tajma Ha - My rough map has 3 lines we can dive in backmount at Intro/C1 from the cenote. The "main" goldline (that goes to Room of Reflections and turns left to the Jumna River Tunnel), Sagrado Line (goes to cenote Sagrado) and "other" goldline that goes towards cenote Sugarbowl. The latter is the one @JohnnyC mentioned that goes to Chinese Gardens (this is 2 jumps away so we can't do it) but the line itself basically makes a circuit on to itself. If you face the cenote, it would be on the left side of the cenote and the primary goldline on the right. Depending on your air consumption, you could do it in 1 dive or 2. My SCR at Taj was 0.5 cu.ft/min and, based on a chat I had at the dive shop regarding the length of this simple circuit, it would be 2 dives for me.

Nohoch - Absolute favorite for me! I dove the upstream mainline twice (past Heaven's Gate, through Disneyland). I assume you did this along with Parker's line. Talking at the dive shop, it was recommended to try Alberto's Line (also upstream) and the downstream mainline as well.

Mayan Blue - "B" Tunnel is absolutely gorgeous do that first. "A" Tunnel is also cool but do "B" first. The water is so blue in there, it looks unnatural and your primary light's beam will look like something in a laser show.

Ponderosa - My notes are not good for this cenote but there were at least 3 or 4 lines I saw on the map. The main Ponderosa cavern line goes past cenote Corral and there's a goldline there which you can gap to. There's also the River Run line and Little Joe line but I haven't dived them yet.

Have a great trip and post a report if you can. I'm always looking to add to my knowledge.

 

[bamafan]

I haven't been diving on the mainland much in years as we are doing a bunch of exploration on Cozumel but I remember Chan Hol as one of my favorites

 

[bamafan]

If you do happen to want something different contact German Yanez on Cozumel. The Cozumel caves are very special

 

[northernone]

If you do happen to want something different contact German Yanez on Cozumel. The Cozumel caves are very special

I'll second this.

If you're looking for a variety, Cozumel has another feel to the systems.

 

[lv2dive]

I vote Chan Hol too. You hit your one navigation decision at the very beginning but there’s still plenty to see before you would hit another.

I haven't been diving on the mainland much in years as we are doing a bunch of exploration on Cozumel but I remember Chan Hol as one of my favorites

 

[kafkaland]

What are Cave 1 navigation limits? Cristal, 2 jumps left puts you in some sweet saltwater passages at the 4-way T. It's a beautiful dive, starts off black, jumps into some brilliant white stuff. It's a must do for sure.

You can do the traverse to Mayan Blue under the highway.

Dunno if you can do it, but Dos Palmas to the Pit is a pretty nice traverse too.

There's TONS of cave in Ponderosa/Eden. You could spend a week in there and still not see everything.

Taj to Chinese Gardens is another awesome dive. I wanna say 2 jumps but it's been a while.

ZG will give you the best advice as they're the GUE shop and would know your limits best.

I agree that SW Sacbe (Cristal, to the 4-way T) is one of the most beautiful dives in the area. But the traverse to Mayan Blue will likely require a stage in addition to three jumps and a T, and thus be beyond C1 limits. Even more so the Dos Palmas to Pit (or wouldn't you go the other way, downstream?) traverse. The latter is around 10,000 ft., but shallow and with plenty of bail-out opportunities, with increasing frequency if you go downstream.