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Mexico5 dive sites
You can dive the Yucatán year-round, in water of 26 to 29 °C on the reefs and 25 °C in the cenotes. Hurricanes threaten from June to November, especially in September and October. The bull sharks are at Playa del Carmen from November to March.
In Cozumel, two boat dives cost US$115 to US$135, plus MXN 225 of park fees per day. A two-dive cenote day runs from US$140, before the Dos Ojos entrance, to US$215 all-inclusive. In Playa del Carmen, two bull shark dives without bait cost MXN 2,180.
A direct flight links Paris to Cancún in 11 hours 20 minutes, and Playa del Carmen is an hour away by road. From Playa, the ferry reaches Cozumel in 35 to 45 minutes, and Tulum is 45 minutes to the south. French citizens enter Mexico without a visa, with a valid passport.
MexicoCave or cenoteDos Ojos Cenote, 20 minutes north of Tulum, opens its two eyes of water onto 82 kilometers of flooded passages.
MexicoReefPalancar Reef is a five-kilometer reef off southwest Cozumel, cut into canyons, tunnels and pinnacles that you explore on a drift dive, from 6 to 34 meters.
MexicoPelagicThe Playa del Carmen bull sharks are females, often pregnant, that gather on the sand at 18 to 25 meters from November to March.
MexicoWallSanta Rosa Wall is the classic Cozumel wall: a sand plateau at 15 meters tips over into the blue, and the current turns every dive into a drift.
MexicoCave or cenoteThe Pit is a 119-meter shaft in the jungle of Dos Ojos Park, near Tulum.
Across from Playa del Carmen, 35 to 45 minutes by ferry, Cozumel sits on the edge of the world's second-largest barrier reef. In Arrecifes de Cozumel National Park, everything is a drift dive: Palancar and its coral canyons, from 6 to 34 meters, and Santa Rosa and its wall. The current carries divers along the reef, and the boat follows from the surface to pick them up at the end of the dive. Two boat dives cost US$115 to US$135, plus a park wristband of MXN 225 per day.
From November to March, female bull sharks, often pregnant, return to the sand off the beach, at 18 to 25 meters. The dive is static and supervised, with or without bait, from MXN 2,180 to MXN 3,560 at Phantom Divers. The rest of the year, Playa is the most convenient base for Cozumel and the cenotes, an hour from Cancún airport.
South of Playa, in the jungle, the cenotes of Dos Ojos park open onto an 82 kilometer system linked to Sac Actun, the longest underwater cave system in the world. You can dive Dos Ojos from Open Water, at less than 10 meters, on two cavern lines, Barbie and Bat Cave. The Pit, three kilometers away, is a 119 meter shaft where you descend to 30 or 40 meters, through a halocline and a cloud of hydrogen sulfide, with Advanced. The water is 25 °C year-round. Budget US$140 to US$215 for two cenotes in a day, entrance and gear included at most dive centers. Otherwise, the entrance for The Pit and Dos Ojos is MXN 900.
Year-round: 26 °C in winter, 29 °C in summer on the reefs. Hurricane season runs from June to November, mostly September and October, and the nortes, winter windstorms, sometimes cancel a trip. Sargassum hits the mainland from April to October, but not the west coast of Cozumel or the cenotes, where the light is at its best at midday and in summer, when the sun is high.
Hotels, apartments and rooms around Tulum, the starting point for dives at Dos Ojos, with current prices.