Wanted to give an update on the trip and post some photos. I dove with Cenote Xperience out of Playa. Can't say enough good things about them. I pre-arranged the trip about a month in advance as I only had one day and wanted to make the most of it. I arrived from cancun at their shop around 8:15 and in no time we were headed south towards the dive sites. Just me, dive master and 2 other divers. I elected to use their gear since I was just diving for one day. Their gear was in excellent shape. Reg mouthpiece was the kind that hugs the top of your mouth. I'm converting my reg over to that style before I take it diving again.
We dove the pit, dos ojos, and bat cave. 3 interesting and different dives. The DM carlos was very interesting guy to talk to. He has full cave certification and knows a lot about cenotes.
The pit was first and we dove it around noon so that the sun was starting to get overhead and creating the beautiful rays in the water below. I took a friends gopro 6 with no filters and shot some stills. I probably shot over 400 photos on the 3 dives. As other forum members suggested, the most challenging aspect was holding the camera still while shooting. Only about 40 of the 400 photos were usable. I was using a glove with light mount that allowed me to keep both hands free. I would recommend that set up for others diving in cenotes.
The pit was very much as advertised - clear water with incredible tree at the bottom where the sulfide layer is. I didn't appreciate until we were diving how the site curves downward and is not just straight down. I would dive it again.
Next we went over to dos ojos which was more crowded but had a few restaurants / shops to visit on surface interval. We did barbie line first and it really blew me away. I was the second diver in our group with DM in front. He had a very bright torch powered by external canister battery. I pretty much kept my light off and relied on DM's light. One of my favorite things about the dive was that normally you're either entering or leaving different chambers where light is coming in from above. This was a good place to shoot from as you get some of the darkness with the crystal blue effect of light entering in the distance.
Our final dive was bat cave. You enter this dive from the same spot as you start barbie line - you just turn another direction. This was the darkest and spookiest of all 3. There is more sediment on this dive which had been kicked up a little. But there is also not as much ambient light as barbie line dive. Some of the rock formations started to look a little spooky to me at times as my mind started to imagine things! It was a cool experience, like being transported to some other dimension.
We surfaced inside the bat cave for a few minutes. Snorkelers were also inside. At DM's suggestion we did not take off our masks as the smell is bad. There were bats flying around / visible handing above us.
I plan to do more cenote diving on my next trip to playa / cancun. I normally go exclusively to cozumel in mexico but didn't this trip because we were only there a few days. As luck would have it the port was closed and ferries weren't running to cozumel for part of my trip because of a weather system. Quintanna Roo is such an excellent dive destination because cenotes are there as a back up if ocean diving is not possible.
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