Cenote Scuba Diving - January 31, 2014

You might remember, Tobey and I went to a timeshare presentation last week. The incentive was we received two – 2-tank cenote dives as a gift for listening to their presentation. Today we got to do the dives.

“Cenotes” are huge sinkholes in the limestone where water runs through underground caves. There are thousands of these openings to the water table that dot the Yucatan Peninsula, and hundreds are located between Cancun and Tulum. Since the 1980's, hundreds of these cenotes have been explored and mapped by cave divers. Although there are so many, only a few cenotes have large enough cavern areas to provide room for cavern diving.

Diving in a cenote is similar to doing a night dive where you need flashlights, except that in some areas there are openings where the sunlight shines down into the cavern. Today was overcast, so we didn’t get to experience as much light coming in illuminating the water, but it was still really cool to see the different shades of blues reflecting in the openings. The underwater flashlights were necessary for most of the dive.

We were booked with a company called Dive Space Tulum – very small, and fairly new in the Tulum area, but we had a great experience. Our dive guide was Roxy. Our group was Roxy, one of her students, Peter, a 13-year old boy from Connecticut, and us. He is working on his Advanced Open Water dive certification! I have some “dive anxiety” – especially when it comes to something totally different – but she did a fantastic job at explaining the entire dive, keeping an eye on buoyancy, and making sure we were all comfortable.

We left the dive shop in Tulum and drove north to the KuKulKan Cenote where we geared up. The access to the cenote is through a beautiful pond at one end of the cenote.

At approximately a 30-foot depth, we entered the halocline zone – the point where salt and fresh water meet. It creates a hazy water where it is clear above, then halocline, then clear again below the halocline. The halocline causes reflections projected on the walls of the cavern. We were really lucky to dive in these cenotes, because not all of them have haloclines and it was really a unique experience! We passed through a huge cavern that surrounds the cenote. So you don’t get lost in the caverns, the routes are marked with ropes the entire way.

We did not have an underwater camera, but there are lots of cool pictures online and a video at http://www.aluxdivers.com/video-gallery/ if you want to check it out. This video gives you an idea what it is like. On our first dive, we were below an iguana near the surface that had fallen in the water and was swimming like crazy trying to find a spot to get out of the water! It was really wild to see. We saw lots of stalactites and stalagmites. In one area it almost looked like lots of bones on the bottom! Our deepest depth was about 15 meters. We passed by this sign warning divers not to continue in this direction, but to follow the route lines.

When we came up after the first dive, it was raining. Guess if it is raining, you might as well be diving! After we changed out our scuba tanks, we had a sandwich then headed to our second dive, Chac-Mool, which is located next to KuKulKan.

There are two entrances to Chac-Mool and we went in at the one called “Little Brother”. We went through the underground river and started through a relatively large first “room” that had quite a bit of light entering from the opening.

In the second room there was a dome with a large air pocket where we were able to surface inside the cave. It was pretty dark, but we could see tree roots and branches from underneath the dome that reached down into the water. There is also a halocline in this cenote. It is really hard to describe what looking through the halocline is like, but it is beautiful and eerie at the same time! The depth in Chac Mool is about 14 meters. 

The yellow lines on the maps are the routes you follow underwater.

After our second dive, the rain had stopped. We stopped for a taco lunch before heading back to Tulum. We got to the dive shop and dropped off our gear before walking back to our apartment. It was starting to sprinkle again so we walked fast – but not fast enough! Before we had gone three blocks from the dive shop, the rain intensified, so I pulled one of  our towels out of the bag to hold over our heads. It helped a little, but we had at least 10 blocks to go – and the rain came down harder and harder. We looked like drowned rats by the time we got back home!

After hot showers and spreading our stuff all over to dry, we plan to stay in tonight. I will be cooking dinner and we will probably watch a movie and hope for sunshine tomorrow!