Mexico 2012

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Very jealous of your 5 trips there! I have only been the twice, but I will defiantly be visiting back! Yes I went and dove Cenote Manati, which is also known as Casa Cenote, not many urophthalmus, the dive leader said this was because of previous hurricanes. It was a good dive Cenote Manati, we saw empty turtle eggs, the remains of a big old turtle which had died there in the cavern, and the flounders there were really cool, they would swim in your hands. But Cenote Dos Ojos was the best for cavern diving, absolutely spectacular when you enter the cavern! I also cavern dived in Cenote El Jardin de Eden.

I stayed in the Grand Sirenis hotel, perfect location to visit cenotes and nature parks etc.

Thanks for all your comments!

Dave

Yes, Cenote Dos Ojos was probably the best cavern diving of any of the ones I've dove, at least for beauty.

Cenote el Pit (maybe a mile behind Dos Ojos) is interesting, we saw a human mandible at 140'.

Another really unusual dive is Cenote Angelita - there is a layer of hydrogen sulfide between 90' and 100'. Below it is pitch black and it is very surreal above, like swimming through a layer of thick smoke.

I've never dove Manati, just snorkeled there a lot (we usually stay at Blue Sky Hotel about 50 yards down the road). I've heard that you can dive into the cenote and exit in the ocean - I've seen where it leaves the cenote and where and where it dumps out in the ocean, both are very narrow and it is supposedly a very sketchy trip at best.

The craziest cenote I've been in was a sacrificial well at a spider monkey preserve near Coba. They lower you down with rappelling gear through a small crack in the Earth (known as the Earths's vagina) and you snorkel in a cenote filled with the skeletons of hundreds of Mayan sacrifice victims.

I've done a few others - Cenote Azul, Cenote Car Wash, Grand Cenote, and a couple others that I can't remember the names. If you plan to go back, 'Cenotes of the Riviara Maya' by Steve Gerrard is by far the best book on cenotes, although it is probably a bit out-of-date by now.

It has been almost five years since our last trip to Quintana Roo and seeing this thread is making me really miss it!
 
I hope I'm not hijacking your thread too much, but here are a few underwater photos (excuse the poor quality, they are video screen-grabs).


A couple from El Pit, the jawbone at 140' and my wife on our way up:

Jawbone.jpg

DeeSurfacing.jpg

Grand Cenote:

GrandCenote.jpg

A skull in the sacrificial well:

Skull.jpg

A warning sign at Dos Ojos:

Warning.jpg

Jawbone.jpg

DeeSurfacing.jpg

GrandCenote.jpg

Skull.jpg

Warning.jpg
 
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