Planning full cave training in Mexico - any recommendations?
- Thread starter Marc111n
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You can do cenote tours without any overhead training. The thing you should question is: is that safe. My answer is no. I would never condone cenote tours and I wish they'd go the way of the dinosaurs. You're in the cave diving threads, so most of us will tell you the negatives of cenote tours
Hi @TeeSpeed. There are many threads over in the Mexico forum discussing the popular guided cavern tours in the cenotes. The Sticky thread on the subject at the top of the Mexico forum is old but still worth a read as "a word to the wise."
GLightcap
Registered
At your level you can do a guided cavern dive. The cenotes are tightly controlled and they only let qualified and registered guides bring open water divers into the cenotes. There are plenty of shops that do guided dives like that. You will usually get two dives for a reasonable cost. Water will be a bit cooler than the ocean water so I would recommend 3mm wetsuit minimum. Enjoy!!
TeeSpeed
New
Thanks! Cavern dive sounds like the plan. I really just want to check it out as I've never even seen a cenote.
Merida Cave Diver
Contributor
Once you start... you will never want to leave lol. Admittedly and somewhat regretfully I agree with the comments above about risk. I've dove a lot of the cenotes around here and the tours you are talking about are generally shallow but overhead environments nonetheless and some are circuits while some are drop off and pick up in other areas.
If I wanted to argue the other side I would say that it depends on you. The main thing is that you should be a confident diver with good skills, especially buoyancy control. The problem that I see with most tourists that come down is that few are good divers, they are more vacation divers looking for an adventure. Now I get it, I really do, but the consequences are real.
In my humble opinion the risks for the tours I'm thinking of are minimal but... it's a personal choice and there are so many factors.
If you're interested in cenotes then you don't need to do overhead dives to explore them and cavern dives are really quite beautiful.
I hope this helps, I realize that my advice seems to be all over the place. PM me if you want more data, I'm literally in cenotes and caves 2 to 3 times a week.
If I wanted to argue the other side I would say that it depends on you. The main thing is that you should be a confident diver with good skills, especially buoyancy control. The problem that I see with most tourists that come down is that few are good divers, they are more vacation divers looking for an adventure. Now I get it, I really do, but the consequences are real.
In my humble opinion the risks for the tours I'm thinking of are minimal but... it's a personal choice and there are so many factors.
If you're interested in cenotes then you don't need to do overhead dives to explore them and cavern dives are really quite beautiful.
I hope this helps, I realize that my advice seems to be all over the place. PM me if you want more data, I'm literally in cenotes and caves 2 to 3 times a week.
Merida Cave Diver
Contributor
That's awesome, glad you had a great experience.
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