Playa Del Carmen, Akumal, Tulum or anywhere in between

[Depth Gauge]

Hey there,

I'll be starting in Playa Del Carmen and meandering south staying in various hotels and B&B's for a week. Where would I find the best diving?(outside of Coz of course.) I plan on doing some cenote diving but am curious as to where the best ocean dives might be.....

Many thanks,

Jason

[scubawife]

Aventuras and Akumal will be your best bets.

[wedivebc]

I have just booked my second trip there in Jan 07. I will be diving with Protec in PDC and staying in the hotel adjacent to the dive shop. They are a really well run shop and offer all levels of diving experience from splashing in the cenotes to full tech cave training. We also spent a day in Coz last trip that we booked out of their shop and had a great time. I personally prefer the caves though.

[divingjd]

Flexibility is the key to ocean diving off Playa. Because it is exposed to the winds (unlike the west side of Coz) the weather often determines where you will dive. If the wind is up enough, the port will close. If you are lucky, you can arrange a cenote trip, or will have fortuitously already arranged a cenote trip in advance. In some weather conditions, some dive sites are not accessible. I was in PDC in January and dove the same two sites, Tortugas and Barracuda, repeatedly because all the northern sites (which I understand are generally considered the best) were inaccessible. There are lots of turtles at Tortugas (hence the name) and Barracuda is a nice shallow dive on a spur-and-groove reef. There was always a lot of marine life at Barracuda, schools of grunts and snappers, small spotted morays, a few small turtles, an eagle ray or two, and the usual assortment of parrot fish, trumpet fish, butterflies, wrasses, damsels, etc. We always saw at least one scorpion fish and on one dive saw three of them.

In general, the diving off PDC was pretty good.

[DepthCharge]

Best ocean sites are to the south..........Akumal. Reefs around PDC are low relief, not as much life. I think the best dive I had around PDC was Tortugas. I also dove with ProTec and can not say enough good about them. Did all cenotes with them. If you can get to Nohoch cenote, it's well worth it.

[scubawife]

I think I have got to be one of the very few people who does not get too excited about Tortugas dive site in PDC. I LOVE turtles, but, I prefer to see them happily swimming around on a beautiful reef or hanging out over a wall. Whenever I've dived Tortugas all I think of is that this place must be the equivalent of Boca for the oldies. Yes, there are upwards of 40+ anytime you go there, but they just sit there and don't even attempt to move or pretend to care that you're there. Kinda like someone's elderly relatives who, although not thrilled, will tolerate the kids coming round for a visit now and then.

The best mainland ocean diving that I've done is in Akumal in the winter months. The water can get a bit rougher but the vis is great and there always seems to be more fish and rays Dec-Apr. Although it's well outside of turtles season we seem to get 1-3 on at least one dive every day. (May - Sept is nesting season on the Akumal beaches) My favorite dive trip of the year is early Dec with a week in Cozumel then a week in Akumal.

[divingjd]

I wasn't too excited about Tortugas, either. I actually preferred Barracuda.

[jwilmot]

Our favorite dive from Playa was by far Tortugas . We must have seen upwards of 70 turtles and many of them where swimming. We followed one from a distance for 3 or 4 minutes. One even shoot up the middle of us on our saftey stop. We also enjoyed Barracuda though.

[abitton]

Definitely try to include cenote dives... Had an amazing experience with Dennis of Diablo Divers/Aquanauts in Puerto Aventuras!!

[jwilmot]

I will definite second the cenote