I am by no means an accomplished diver, but I have done my PADI Open Water and Advanced Open Water certifications in Thailand in 2004, and enjoyed some great diving in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 2005. Possibly my two favourite dives over that time were night dives as they seemed to add an extra air of excitement and mystery.

Today however, I have found a different type of diving that I don’t think any of my ocean dives can parallel. Now, I haven’t been diving for over a year, so the buzz that was felt at the time has well and truly gone, but the Cenote Diving I did today in Tulum, Mexico was simply magical.

Cenotes are an underground river system containing fresh water (and saline deeper down, read on for more) that has been filtered threw limestone and so provides amazing visibility well beyond that found in the ocean. The formations, formed over millions of years, provide the possibility of cavern and cave diving that gives you a feeling of being in outer space or on another world with only the air bubbles being there to remind you that you are in water. Magic or no magic, breathing is a must.

As cave diving can only be done by experts, I stuck with the cavern diving, the main difference being that cavern diving has the entrance to the Cenote relatively close by whereas cave diving can mean the entrance/exit being much farther away and so more dangerous should anything go wrong. Overall I did two dives, one at the Grand Cenote and the other at La Calavera (The Skull), or more ominously named, The Temple of Doom!

The Grand Cenote; well, this was described to me as like being in an underwater cathedral, and my instructor wasn’t lying. The beautiful white limestone walls along with the formations gives the feeling of flooding a duomo in Italy, jumping in through the dome and having a good swim about. It is quite the opposite to what you may think would be a claustrophobic experience.

There are a couple of more technical parts however where you do have the cavern walls all round you with little space to get through so does require good buoyancy control to not hit your tank on the formations. The dive went down to 10 meters at it’s deepest point and lasted 38 minutes.

The Temple of Doom; the initial jump in to the water, which is from 3/4 meters, with the full scuba gear on may be a little daunting, but it’s great fun. Getting out is a little harder. This Cenote is much darker and more mysterious than the Grand Cenote and really makes you feel like an explorer.

The guys in the dive shop also refer to this place as LSD due to the halocline or mixing zone, which is the layer where the fresh and saline waters meet which makes your vision go totally blurred. It is a very weird experience! The dive went down to 19 meters at its deepest point and lasted 33 minutes.

With both dives, the visibility is truly astounding. Throughout the dives your interest switches from what is close by, the formations, stalagmites and stalactites back to the glow of the entrance to the Cenote, which when viewed from a distance in the darker areas of the cavern provides an amazing contrast and you just can’t help to stop and stare.

It is also quite amusing to see the snorklers, fools don’t know what they are missing, swimming around on the surface. Although you do feel like a bit of a pervert hiding under the water watching girls in bikinis swimming around. Not that I was looking, of course.

On a more serious note, I do have concerns with Cenote diving. They are nothing to do with fear for myself or anyone diving there, more concerns for the formations that if destroyed have no way to be regenerated. There are points in either dive where you could easily damage the formations and having been diving with others who wave their arms around like they are trying to hail a taxi I would be quite concerned as to the damage they could cause to these wonderful places.

I feel more should be done to control who dives here, with recent dives being a must and preferably Advanced Open Water certified. Unfortunately, the dives are open to anyone who has done their Open Water, I wasn’t even asked to prove I was certified, and no one seems to care when you did your last dive.

Despite my concerns, this was a fantastic experience and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who loves to dive and would like to try something different. As with a reef, just be careful and respect your surroundings. And remember, don’t put on any sun block or mosquito repellent before getting in to the water! Do that when you get out, you’ll need it at La Calavera, the mosquitoes are rampant! Happy diving.

Having researched a bit further, we have put together an Ocean and Cenote diving package with a diving centre in Tulum that seems to be concerned about environmental conservation and safety… try it yourself!

Most species of sea turtles are now endangered, and The Estacion de Investigacion Pesquera on Isla Mujeres is an example of the efforts which are being made all over Mexico to repopulate the ocean with the local turtle species.

The EIP assist turtles in their most critical phase of life: mating, laying of the eggs, caring of the nests, and birth.

The adult turtles are first selected for breeding and kept in the centre during mating time and for the time required to the females to lay the eggs in the corral.

Turtle eggs are a delicacy for many predators (humans having been the most predominant threat in the recent past), and the EIP make sure they are protected, so that a baby turtle comes out from almost every egg laid in their incubation corral.

After birth, the little turtles are nursed and kept first in small pools, and then in protected areas of sea near the shore until they become big enough to be self sufficient and to be released together with their parents.

Only one negative note: when I arrived to the turtle centre I noticed I could buy some turtle food together with the entrance tickets. I personally do not think this is a good idea, as the turtles’ diet should be balanced and regular, and they should not be overfed by curious tourists who just want to see them as close as possible.
A few photos of EIP