Cenote Preparations?

Background: So my wife and friends are newly certified and have done about 10 dives in the local Quarry. We also have friends with 150+ dives and are Rescue certified.
for six of us total.

We are planning a trip to Playa del Carmen in May, and can't wait. One of the things we would like to try out this time around are the Cenotes. We saw a bunch of signs and such for them last year when we were down and got curious. After some poking around here, I found this might be a great thing to do in addition to the boat dives!

My question is what can we do to make sure we are prepared and make it enjoyable? Is there any special considerations we should take because it is a different/new enviornment? Any adiditonal safety precautions? Anything else I am missing?

You get the drift (pardon the pun!)

Thanks for all the help so far!
Chris

Two biggest things to work on as a relatively new diver would be Bouyancy control and finning technique. You will want to stick to a frog or modified kick so as not to silt out and need to be able to hang without a lot of elevation variance. A good Guide is highly recomended whomever you are doing your boat dives with can probably set you up.......

cwhitpan:

My question is what can we do to make sure we are prepared and make it enjoyable? Is there any special considerations we should take because it is a different/new enviornment? Any adiditonal safety precautions? Anything else I am missing?

Click to expand...

Get about another 50 to 100 dives before venturing into the cenotes.

Perfect your anti-silting kicks.

Perfect your buoyancy control.

The cenotes are extremely fragile environments.

If you silt out the water you ruin the experience for everyone else who follows you for hours and hours.

It is recommended that unless you have precision buoyancy and can, without fail at all times, kick around in a horizontal position without kicking up the mud and without grabbing onto formations, remain out of the cenotes until your skills are commensurate with cenote diving.

For the sake of the fragile cenotes.