Mexiko 1999/2000

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The Grand Cenote

Personally, the absolute diving highlight of this holiday was a cavern dive in one of the cenotes. The Yucatan peninsular has one of the biggest cave systems in the

Photo by Marko Reckel

world, only a small part of which has been explored so far. During my previous visit I had already snorkelled in some of the cenotes (even that can be highly recommended) and this time I was set on doing a proper cavern dive. Akumal Dive Shop offers these, fortunately. Cenotes are quite dangerous and you shouldn't go diving without either proper cave-diving qualifications or a qualified guide. Many divers have died in the Yucatan caves, but practically none of them were proper cave divers, according to our guide Scott Bonis, a veteran cave diver.

Understandably, the briefing took a lot longer than the usual briefings for dives at the reef. There are only four (qualified) divers per guide, who has to have a full cave-diving qualification, although the actual dive is only a cavern dive, i.e. the divers are

Photo by Marko Reckel

always within sight of the exit to the surface. After the briefing (the greatest part of it concerning safety precautions), we drove to the Grand Cenote. We were divided up into two groups which were to dive about 5 minutes apart from each other. While Cory (one of the guides) ran the guide rope, Scott Bonis, emphasised once again the importance of diving along the line and constantly checking our buoyancy. About 5 minutes after the first group had gone, we followed Scott and started out dive into the cave - one after the other along the rope. It was fantastic!

I had never been able to quite fathom the fascination of cave dives before - now I could. The water was crystal clear, even at the point furthest away from the entrance (about 60m) you could still see the little fishes swarming around the ladder. When the diver in front of me didn't exhale it looked as if he was floating in the air. Turning on my back I watched the air bubbling on the ceiling of the cavern like mercury. The stalagmite and stalactite formations were bizarre and impressive. Looking back to the entrance, the water shone in deep turquoise. It was a breathtaking experience and a real test of our buoyancy skills.

Photo by Marko Reckel

We were supposed to dive (as slowly as possible) about 1/2 to 1 meter above the ground along the line. The wrong buoyancy resulted in sediments being disturbed and visibility dropping instantly. If you plan to do a cavern dive like this, your control of buoyancy should be excellent, otherwise you'll spoil the dive for yourself and your buddies. Scott watched over us with eagle eyes and pointed out especially interesting rock formations. During the briefing, the dive and afterwards he proved to be an excellent guide, with great knowledge and many interesting dive anecdotes!

I can only recommend a cenote dive like this (especially one led by Scott), but have to remind readers once again that diving there without guidance or the proper qualification can easily terminate your diving career!

All in all a fantastic holiday with excellent dives. Akumal Dive Shop gets 10/10 points for friendliness, competence and service. I hope to come to Mexico again in the not too distant future - if possible I would love to go diving with the Akumal Dive Shop crew again.

This is the website of the Akumal Dive Shop.

I would like to thank Marko Reckel for granting me permission to use his photos in this report.


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