Spherical Chicken

GUE Cave 1 Guide to Cave Diving Mexico

This is my Mexico-newbie and Cave-1 guide to diving in Mexico. It is aimed at the person with zero experience looking to minimize the number of variables they need to deal with in order to have a successful trip to Mexico. There are a lot more options to where to stay, where to get fills, and where to dive in Mexico. This guide isn’t intended to be comprehensive at all, but simply to get a Mexico GUE Cave Diving virgin their first experiences.

Diving with Zero Gravity

Since my focus is GUE diving there’s really only one place to dive with, which is Zero Gravity which is the GUE facility in the Riviera Maya. They have a fully stocked dive shop with every piece of gear you’d ever need, rentals of everything including scooters, shop equipment to fix gear, and a fill station. There are a lot of other options, but for the GUE diver visiting Mexico for the first time, Zero Gravity is the best. The choice of fill station comes first in this guide since you want to be staying relatively close to your fill station to reduce the time spend every day on tank fill logistics.

Staying in Puerto Aventuras

Puerto Aventuras is a bit of a touristy, and a little overpriced, but the logistics can’t be beat. If you are diving with Zero Gravity and getting fills there, then logistically your best choices are really Puerto Aventuras or Akumal. You can also stay in Tulum, but its difficult driving almost all the way back to PA to get fills every day and you burn gas and time. Puerto Aventuras also has controlled access, which is worth a bit of peace of mind when we’re taking thousands in dive gear down to Mexico with us. Puerto Aventuras is also typically where divers from Zero Gravity hang out and are social after-hours, so its a good place to grab dinner and plan the next day’s diving.

The laziest way to deal with your lodging would be to use an all-inclusive resort like the Catalonia Riviera Maya in Puerto Aventuras (there are a few other “Catalonia” hotels in the neighborhood, so make sure you know which one you’re booking with). Also down in Puerto Aventuras is the Omni Hotel which is a typical resort kind of hotel. For less spendy options, condos can be rented around Puerto Aventuras. For a more budget option Chris le Malloit rents out a condo in Puerto Aventuras for around $60/night, although the kitchen and living room does not have A/C, but it is difficult to beat that price in Puerto Aventuras.

If you are looking for rooms, consider your needs for A/C and a lot of divers like to rent a larger condo that comes with a washer and drier. Condos will also typically come with a kitchen and fridge, so you can shop for groceries and cook your own food.

Facilities around Puerto Aventuras

FIXME:

- Chedraui
- Laundries
- Restaurants (Pub, Dos Chiles, Richard’s, Tu Peridor)
- Gym
- farmacias, blah, blah, blah

Essential Spanish Phrases

Another advantage to the tourist side of Puerto Aventuras is that nearly everyone speaks English well enough to communicate. Even outside of PA, everyone on the Riviera Maya is fairly used to tourists, and while you should try to improve your spanish there are only a few words and phrases around diving which are really critical to be able to navigate to and from the cenotes:

“donde esta el bano?”

“quero buscar en la cueva”

“dos/tres buzos”

“donde esta la cueva?”

“¿A qué hora cierra?”

“dos ciento pesos con magna”

“la cuenta por favor?”

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