Hi all
I'm new to these forums and have only 18 dives to my name, so I'd be grateful for an opinion from you guys on this.
I was in Mexico last week and booked a Cenotes trip with the Cozumel dive operation I was doing my AOW with (very reputable).
There was a French guy in our little group and he got a briefing in French at the hotel we picked the gear up from because our guide didn't speak French. I could get at least the gist of most of it. We were promised the same briefing for the rest of us in English at the Cenote but what we got from our guide was very patchy compared with the French briefing - the guide didn't ask for our experience, just "who's following me?", didn't warn us not to go off the line, was unclear about the light signals to use, didn't mention the 2m/6ft spacing between divers or the frog kick technique to avoid stirring up the halocline. He was about to set off from the hotel with only one tank per person for a two-tank dive until his boss pointed that out to him, and he forgot to give us our flashlights until we asked for them while putting our gear on.
This was at the KuKulKan/Chac Mool Cenote, and not knowing the history (we weren't told the site in advance), I asked about the crosses at the entrances to Chac Mool. The guide gave me a long and clearly BS explanation about Mayan ceremonies and the crosses marking north, south, east and west (vertically??), "or maybe there was some accident here". It was only that evening when I googled that I found out about the tragedy at that cenote last year. To be honest, I would have preferred an upfront explanation hence me asking about them in the first place, although I can appreciate that's not easy to give.
Throughout, our guide (who none of us had met before) seemed jittery and on edge, particularly when my tank leaked while we were on the surface before the first dive. He wouldn't explain to me what he was doing to fix it and he looked visibly angry about it, complaining that the O-rings didn't get checked/replaced often enough by the dive operation.
As a newbie, and particularly (this bit is my fault) not appreciating how little access to the surface there would be before we saw the plan of the route on the way there, I was slightly freaked out by his attitude.
The bit that bothered me most was that towards the end of the Chac Mool Cenote, we went off the line. I thought we were just jumping to another line but the guide continued on and down, away from the surface and away from the line. After a couple of minutes of trying to talk myself out of feeling stressed by this, I signalled with my light, slowly up and down, and asked where the line was (drawing a line in the water with my fingers) - he then turned round and swam up to the surface. This was to get back to the Pequeno Hermano entrance, which we'd started from.
Now, I've no idea whether it's standard to reach the Pequeno Hermano entrance off the line, but I do know that I was pretty freaked out by being led off the line by a guide I already felt uncomfortable with, and I don't know whether he would have turned back to the surface at that point if I hadn't questioned us being off the line.
Having done it, it was an awesome experience that I'm glad to have had, but for much of the two dives I had no idea at all where the nearest surface was, other than following the line. In the worst of the halocline it would have been impossible to find the line anyway - all I could make out was the guide's light. I don't know what I would have been able to do if my equipment had failed - hence the guide getting angry about the leak in my tank, I guess.
All in all, I felt pretty out of my depth (no pun etc...) and not sure that it's a particularly safe dive for new divers with no overhead experience or training, even on the line.
If you've got this far, thanks for reading! All opinions welcome...
CB
I'm new to these forums and have only 18 dives to my name, so I'd be grateful for an opinion from you guys on this.
I was in Mexico last week and booked a Cenotes trip with the Cozumel dive operation I was doing my AOW with (very reputable).
There was a French guy in our little group and he got a briefing in French at the hotel we picked the gear up from because our guide didn't speak French. I could get at least the gist of most of it. We were promised the same briefing for the rest of us in English at the Cenote but what we got from our guide was very patchy compared with the French briefing - the guide didn't ask for our experience, just "who's following me?", didn't warn us not to go off the line, was unclear about the light signals to use, didn't mention the 2m/6ft spacing between divers or the frog kick technique to avoid stirring up the halocline. He was about to set off from the hotel with only one tank per person for a two-tank dive until his boss pointed that out to him, and he forgot to give us our flashlights until we asked for them while putting our gear on.
This was at the KuKulKan/Chac Mool Cenote, and not knowing the history (we weren't told the site in advance), I asked about the crosses at the entrances to Chac Mool. The guide gave me a long and clearly BS explanation about Mayan ceremonies and the crosses marking north, south, east and west (vertically??), "or maybe there was some accident here". It was only that evening when I googled that I found out about the tragedy at that cenote last year. To be honest, I would have preferred an upfront explanation hence me asking about them in the first place, although I can appreciate that's not easy to give.
Throughout, our guide (who none of us had met before) seemed jittery and on edge, particularly when my tank leaked while we were on the surface before the first dive. He wouldn't explain to me what he was doing to fix it and he looked visibly angry about it, complaining that the O-rings didn't get checked/replaced often enough by the dive operation.
As a newbie, and particularly (this bit is my fault) not appreciating how little access to the surface there would be before we saw the plan of the route on the way there, I was slightly freaked out by his attitude.
The bit that bothered me most was that towards the end of the Chac Mool Cenote, we went off the line. I thought we were just jumping to another line but the guide continued on and down, away from the surface and away from the line. After a couple of minutes of trying to talk myself out of feeling stressed by this, I signalled with my light, slowly up and down, and asked where the line was (drawing a line in the water with my fingers) - he then turned round and swam up to the surface. This was to get back to the Pequeno Hermano entrance, which we'd started from.
Now, I've no idea whether it's standard to reach the Pequeno Hermano entrance off the line, but I do know that I was pretty freaked out by being led off the line by a guide I already felt uncomfortable with, and I don't know whether he would have turned back to the surface at that point if I hadn't questioned us being off the line.
Having done it, it was an awesome experience that I'm glad to have had, but for much of the two dives I had no idea at all where the nearest surface was, other than following the line. In the worst of the halocline it would have been impossible to find the line anyway - all I could make out was the guide's light. I don't know what I would have been able to do if my equipment had failed - hence the guide getting angry about the leak in my tank, I guess.
All in all, I felt pretty out of my depth (no pun etc...) and not sure that it's a particularly safe dive for new divers with no overhead experience or training, even on the line.
If you've got this far, thanks for reading! All opinions welcome...
CB
