Mexico - Caribbean Coast
The Caribbean coasts of Mexico include some of the most popular dive destinations in the Caribbean, especially for American divers. Cozumel, Mexico's largest island, lies just offshore here and its reefs attract thousands of divers every year. The Mexican Riviera (Cancun) and the developing Riviera Maya in the province of Quintana Roo also offers excellent diving. The Chinchorro Banks just off the coast of Yucatan offer a huge largely unexplored reef system to the diver and should be visited now before its too late. The cenotes of the Yucatan offer the diver something different from the typical coral reef diving and a taste of cavern diving in these gin clear waters is now very accessible.

The Yucatan is one of the most culturally rich and intriguing areas of Mexico and you may visit ancient Mayan cities and pyramids lost in the jungle interior.

Cozumel:

Map provided by www.worldatlas.com

As popular with American divers as Sharm el Sheikh is to the Brits. It is not uncommon to count up to 30 dive boats on particularly popular sites. Once a sleepy island only visited by divers, Cozumel is now firmly on the cruise ship route and with that business has come flashy night clubs, restaurants and bars galore, and sidewalk hustlers hawking condos, serapes that are questionable bargains, and little plaster statues of men wearing big hats leaning on saguaro cactuses. There are many dive sites available to suit most ranges of experience and the marine parks offer the reefs some protection. Spectacular dives still exist, but many operators are reluctant to visit these sites, especially if the divers aboard have mixed experience levels, and rightfully so, because much of Cozumel's diving (especially the advanced sites like Punta Sur Two, Tunich, and Barracuda) is deep or fast-current drift dives. Beginning divers should select other destinations. Ensure that you carry surface-signaling devices for both day and night (strobe, safety sausage, etc.) and stay with your dive guide or group. The best diving is in spring and summer; it can be rainy during the autumn (hurricane season) and winter. There's better diving on the western side toward the southern end of Cozumel, with the eastern side generally unsafe to dive. Best dives include Palancar, Santa Rosa, Maracaibo, Punta Sur, and Colombia reefs. Expect water temperatures in low- to mid-80s. Visibility is consistently the best in Caribbean Cozumel is one of the Caribbean's biggest travel bargains, with accommodations to suit every taste and pocket. Despite its business, many divers return time after time to Cozumel.

Cancun:
Cancun is a purpose built resort area almost directly opposite Cozumel on the mainland coast. Many dive operators run dive trips to Cozumel if sea conditions permit a crossing. There are reefs in the Cancun area but they offer average Caribbean diving and are not of the same quality as can be found elsewhere. Cancun is a great all round family holiday resort however, so if that is your situation it is still worth also going diving because you can not only access Cozumel but also the Yucatan sites.

Riviera Maya
The Mayan Riviera is the Caribbean coast of Mexico south of Cancun. Running south of Cancun to Tulum, Mexico's Mayan Riviera has some of the most beautiful beaches in Mexico.
The largest town in the Mayan Riviera is Playa del Carmen, which is a popular destination for European Tourists. The Mayan Riviera also includes the resorts of Akumal and Tulum plus many beach resorts in between. Generally, this area offers extremely enticing diving due to the fact that it offers close reefs that are far less dived than those around Cancun, plus daily access to the pristine sites of the Chinchorro Banks. There are also extremely attractive eco-resorts moving south along the coast.
Chinchorro is home to a vast array of marine life, and the prevailing currents in the wide, 4000-foot-deep channel separating it from the mainland will insure it stays that way. Nature Conservancy called Chinchorro "the most biologically diverse reef of the Mexican Caribbean." The atoll known as Banco Chinchorro is about 9 miles wide and nearly 30 miles long and encompasses about 300 square miles of coral. . It lies about 90 miles south of Cozumel and 18 miles (or an hour to an hour fifteen minutes, depending on wind conditions) offshore. Only four small cayes - Cayo Centro (the largest), tiny Cayo Lobos, and the twin, quarter-mile wide cayes of Cayo Norte - break the surface. Most of the dive sites are located along the western edge of the reef in a north-south line over about a 80 kilometer distance between the Wreck of the 40 Cannons near Cayo Norte and the cut to Cayo Centro. Average visibility is 80 - 100 feet, with better visibility in summer than in winter. Currents seldom exceed two knots. The area inside the bank is too shallow for diving but provides some excellent snorkelling opportunities.
A reef the size of Chinchorro has countless dive sites
Chinchorro Reef Ship Wrecks - Over the centuries, more than 200 ships have met their final demise on the barely submerged reefs of Chinchorro. Snorkellers as well as divers may easily experience the excitement of exploring wrecks that date back hundreds of years.
Copper Clad Wreck - This wreck was only recently discovered. Lying in 70 feet of water, what remains of the wreck are only the traces of the hull timbers, brass nails, and hand-hammered copper sheeting that once clad the hull to protect it against invasion by marine worms. This unusual cladding indicates that this wreck dates to the 18th century. The wooden remains of the hull suggest that the ship was afire when it went down.
Cuarenta Canones (40 Cannons Wreck) -. As its name suggests, the shallow bottom is littered with scores of brass cannon, some over ten feet in length. Also dating to the 18th century, experts say these cannon suggest that this may be a Dutch wreck, or possibly even a pirate ship. There is also at least one very large cast-iron double-fluke anchor. Set in only 10-12 feet of water, this site is easily accessible to divers and snorkellers, and is surrounded with healthy corals and good fish life. As you might imagine, it is a great site for underwater photography.
Far Star or Fire Star Wreck - This wreck is alternately described as the Far Star or the Fire Star. This is a contemporary wreck that met its demise in the 1970's. A large steel-hulled transport ship, it was loaded with sugar when it ran aground on the southeast corner of Chinchorro. Starting just beneath the surface, the spur and groove reef structure is littered with a profusion of steel plating, winches, generators, a huge diesel engine, and immense smoke stacks. The brass and stainless steel screw is well over seven feet in diameter, and the equally immense anchor clearly weighs many tons. There are often blue tang and ocean triggerfish as well as lots of barracuda, and the stronger current ups the odds of seeing sharks, including hammerheads, tiger sharks, black tips, bull sharks, reef sharks, and nurse sharks. Visibility on this dive is often in the 150 foot range.
The Garden has excellent soft corals and sponges in the shallower areas and another patch reef in 60-80 feet of water
Aquarium I and Aquarium II, just south of Cayo Centro, are 50-foot anchor dives amid an abundance of sea fans and elkhorn coral. The sites frequently have large schools of blue tang.
Dos Primas, a 90-100 foot drift dive site between Cayo Centro and Cayo Norte, features immense sponges, large-sized black coral trees, and, frequently, large grouper.
The Cut is an 80 foot dive near the cut to Cayo Centro. It's located along a sloping wall that drops from 40 to 110 feet and is covered with antler corals, black corals, and gorgonians. This is a good site for fish among big coral heads and canyons that has no significant current.
Punta Isabel is located in front of Cayo Centro. It's an 80-90 foot drift or anchor dive among large sponges, gorgonians, and corals. There are often snapper, grouper, and barracuda as well as sea turtles, eagle rays, lobsters, and conch.

Paradise is a shallow dive in about 40-50 feet of water in front of Cayo Centro. This anchor dive has a lot of elkhorn and brain corals, and usually plenty of blue tang, hogfish, and pink conch
Kai Ha is a 35-60 foot dive just north of Punta Gonzalez that tends to be a very fishy site.
Punta Gonzalez is a 40-90 foot drift dive with immense sponges, many large gorgonians, and usually a chance to see sea turtles, eagle rays, and lobsters. It is located in front of Cayo Centro.

Cenote Diving - Yucatan
One of the most unique diving activities in this part of Mexico is to dive the jungle cenotes. Cenotes [say no tays] are sinkholes. The whole Yucatan peninsula consists of limestone. During the ice ages the water level sank and the rain water permeated the porous stone, forming caves, passageways and huge domes. These cenotes are actually underground rivers and form the largest interconnected cave and cavern system in the world. Some parts of those caves collapsed and left the picturesque water filled sinkholes in the middle of the jungle. The Mayans called these sinkholes "Dzonot" (sacred well), thus the Spanish word cenote. They were used for religious ceremonies as well as for water supply.
The attraction of diving the cenotes is the waters are cristal clear, around 75°F (24°C) all year round. The cenotes are decorated with stalagtites (those are the ones that hang from the ceiling, by the way) and stalagmites, delicate thin structures and massive columns. The varying colours of the sediments and the walls supply every single cenote with a distinctive painting. If you look back at the entrance you'll see the interplay of light with the roots of the trees. The beauty of these lost worlds is breathtaking. Ensure that you dive with a specialist operator and never enter the deeper regions of the caverns without specialist cave diving training. Generally speaking the point where the cavern turns into a cave will be marked by warning signs, but use common sense.

Getting There:

British Airways (tel: 0870 850 9850) offers the only direct scheduled flights from the UK to Mexico. 3 times weekly (Mon,Wed,Fri) from London Heathrow to Mexico City.
Iberia (tel in UK: 0845 601 2854) flies via Madrid or Barcelona to Mexico City and Cancun
KLM flies to Mexico City from Amsterdam
Continental and American Airlines fly to Mexico City, Merida, Cancun etc via the USA.
Also check for direct charter flights to Cancun: Air 2000 flies once a week (usually on a Tuesday) from Gatwick and Manchester.
If you can find a good deal on flights to the US, you can travel overland or buy an onward flight from there. Miami has reasonably priced onward flights to a number of Mexican destinations, which are normally cheaper than flights to other Latin American countries. Another good way to travel around Mexico from the UK is with an open-jaw ticket (the most popular route is from Mexico City to Cancun).

When to Go:

High season is mid-December to April when it's typically drier and cooler (mid 70Fs- mid 80Fs). May - early December is low season when prices are usually substantially reduced. Temperatures and rainfall rise from May - October, with average highs reaching into the 90Fs. Although it can rain at any time of year along the coast, September and October are generally the wettest months and have the greatest risk of hurricanes.
Main Mexico Page
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