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Mark Moxon's Travel Writing

Mexico: Cenote Diving

Mark diving Kukulkan cenote
Mark diving Kukulkan cenote

'Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, DARK WATER! ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, NOOO!' is how it normally goes when I'm faced with my nemesis. I've long had a phobia about murky depths, and a phobia it most definitely is, because it even affects me in the bath. I kid you not; if I'm in the bath and someone turns the light out, I completely freak – that's a phobia, no doubt about it. Peta once brought along a selection of scented candles on a skiing holiday so we could have some nice, romantic candlelit baths after a hard day on the slopes. It didn't end well; I don't tend to relax when screaming.

Peta diving Kukulkan cenote
Peta diving Kukulkan cenote
Mark and Peta diving Kukulkan cenote
Mark and Peta diving Kukulkan cenote

Dive One: Kukulkan

Peta and Mark after their second cenote dive
All smiles after our second cenote dive

Now, bear two things in mind. First, this was Peta's first real dive following her course; sure, as part of the PADI Open Water course you have to do four dives in open water (in her case, the sea), but these are part of the course rather than independent dives, so this was Peta's very first dive as a qualified scuba diver. And second, I'm deeply phobic about dark water, I get claustrophobia, and I hate large cavernous spaces, like aircraft hangers. It turns out that cenote diving needs you to be in control of your buoyancy – one of those skills in scuba that takes time to learn, much like stability on a bike – and it also consists of a lot of enclosed, dark water and, um, cavernous spaces. As a team, we couldn't have been less suited to cenote diving.

The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool
The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool
The entrance to Kukulkan cenote, Chac Mool
The entrance to Kukulkan cenote, Chac Mool
Peta diving Kukulkan cenote
Peta diving Kukulkan cenote

Closed Water

Peta after her second cenote dive
Peta after her second cenote dive

If you look at the PADI website, then it talks a bit about cavern diving. Flooded caves have two zones: the cavern zone is the area where you can still see the cave entrance, and you're no more than 40m down (the limit for decompression diving); if you get into trouble, you can cover your torch and can see where to swim to. The cave zone, meanwhile, is cut off from the outside world, and you can't see daylight, so you need proper equipment and training to go this far. If you're a cavern diver and you veer into the cave area, you risk your life; just to clarify our minds, it turns out that two Brazilian honeymooners and their guide died in Chac Mool in April 2012 when they went past the safe limit (through they were the first divers to die from human error in this area since the early 1990s, so it is a pretty safe thing to do).

The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool
The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool
The entrance to Kukulkan cenote, Chac Mool
The entrance to Kukulkan cenote, Chac Mool
Peta diving Kukulkan cenote
Peta diving Kukulkan cenote
The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool
The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool

Dive Two: The Little Brother

The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool
The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool

So, what's it like, diving in a cenote? Well, if you have a phobia of dark water and enclosed spaces, then this is about as close to hell as you can get. Now that I wasn't distracted by other things, my entire second dive was little more than a controlled underwater panic attack, but once I realised that I wasn't imminently going to die, I applied the same state of mind that I had when walking through utterly petrifying Tunnel Creek in northern Australia, or my first night dive on the Great Barrier Reef. I just stopped thinking about it and crushed any thoughts that might set me off.

Mark diving Kukulkan cenote
Mark diving Kukulkan cenote
Rules posted by the entrance to the cenote site
Apparently there are rules at the cenote site
The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool
The entrance to the Little Brother cenote, Chac Mool