Buen Dia to all of my fellow bloggers. Today is my birthday and wanted to blog a bit about this crazy adventure I had this morning.

At about 6 a.m. I woke up to my dog Bentley and my girlfriend Mallory jumping up and down on the bed saying “Feliz Cumpleanos!,” well Bentley was just barking. Of course I wake up groggy and grumpy asking “what are you thinking waking me up at the crack of dawn on my birthday?” like any sane person would do. Mallory says back “Well, I have a surprise for you!” Uggghhh how good of a surprise could it be and why couldn’t it wait until at least 8 a.m.? She replied by shouting out “cenote dive!!!”

I am an avid scuba diver logging 100’s of dives all over the world. Since the first day I came to Mexico I have wanted to try out a cenote dive. I did loads of research on different locations and the specifics in regards to a different type of diving. I had only heard great things about them from the locals, dive blogs, and personal friends and knew that they were only for the more advanced divers. Unfortunately, since I have been in Mexico I just have not gotten around to embarking on this expedition (I am sure the majority of you understand exactly what I am talking about). So now I finally had my chance to get out there.

For those of you who don’t know what a cenote is, here is a definition for you in layman’s terms. Cenote – A deep natural sink hole found in limestone, specifically in the Yucatan, Mexico. Underneath these sinkholes are miles and miles of underground caves filled with both salt and fresh water.

Here are a few fun facts for you:

1)  The entire Yucatan Peninsula is made up of limestone and home to the world’s largest underground water system.

2)   All of the water that you find underground is fresh rainwater that was trapped in the caverns, gathered over millions of years. All of the caverns and caves were once dry.

3)   The stalactites that you will find in the caves are hundreds of millions years old with fossilized shells and animals protruding through the rock formations.

Now that I have brought you up to speed with what a cenote is, let me tell you a little about the dive and what to expect if you ever want to get into the controversial sport of cave diving. At the crack of dawn we get to the Chac-Mool Cenote, five minutes away from my house located directly across from the gated community of Puerto Aventuras real estate. We meet our guide and good friend, Ivan Ayala, who is one of the best, most experienced, and passionate cenote explorer/photographers in the area. We get all of our gear together just like a regular open water dive with the exception of a high powered underwater light and instead of wearing just a pair of board shorts, we put on 4mm wetsuits, which I am not a big fan of. I have done plenty of lobster diving in New England and my fair share of freezing cold dives with 8mm wetsuits, hoodies, gloves, and booties. It’s ironic in fact, I came to Mexico to never have to put on another wetsuit again, unfortunately, that was not the case here but it wasn’t going to stop me.

Back to the story at hand, once we get all of our gear set up, Ivan, Mallory, and myself start walking down into the mouth of the cenote by tracking down a large flight of stairs to this open pool of the clearest, freshest, and cleanest water you will ever see anywhere in the world. We all hop in anxiously and get ready for the dive. Briefly, Ivan goes over signals, which were all basically the same as an open water dive, but two of them I was not familiar with whatsoever. The first signal was if Ivan wanted to show spot out something, circular motion with the flashlight and second was the signal for trouble by flash your light on and off as fast as you can.

And down we go...I wish I could describe in words what the feeling was like down there but there are none. To be fair to my readers I will use 3 adjectives …  Dark, Thrilling, and Extraterrestrial World. Sorry about the last one I cheated with two words. It was something that I wish I could experience with everyone. The clarity of the water is what blows you away the most. With just a single flashlight you can see over 50ft in the pitch-dark water. At times when we came out of the caves into other cenotes the sun’s rays would protrude through the water causing some kind of crystallization on the rocks below making rainbow like patterns covering the entire the floor.

Once we descended into the caves … one by one … 10 feet apart … as properly instructed, we found ourselves going through narrow passages just barely enough to fit through with our gear, into these enormous cabins. There are 1000’s of these tunnels down there and it is very easy to get lost, so I do recommend everyone to use a guide.

One of the cabins had an air pocket that we swam up to. There we filled up our BC’s, took off our masks, and chatted for a few minutes. All above us were hundreds of stalactites hanging from the roof of the cabin, surprisingly enough when you touched them they were a soft texture like that of velvet. After leaving the air pocket we started traveling deeper into the caves.

At one point I started to loose my visibility and suddenly things started looking completely out of focus.  Ivan had told us about this before the dive. This happens when the fresh water and the salt water from the ocean merge, the technical term for it is “halocline”. It creates this layer of diluted water that is impossible to see through clearly much like water on oil. Salt water is denser than the fresh water so the fresh water will sit on top of the salt water.

Finally we had come to the end of our dive but Ivan had one more trick up his sleeve. When we swam into the last cabin, Ivan signals us to stop and kneel on the floor. Once we are all stable Ivan shuts his light off and then Mal proceeds to do the same, catching on to the trend I do the same. Can I tell you what a feeling it is like to be 50 ft underground submersed in water and be sitting in complete and utter darkness? I personally compare it to jumping out of a plane for the first time. Your adrenaline immediately rushes through your body but then a sense of calmness comes over you, believe me it is bizarre.

Finally we ascend to the surface and complete our dive safe and sound. We thank Ivan for the incredible adventure and amazing photographs he took for us. Overall, the experience was just another great benefit of living in the Riviera Maya. A place that I proudly call home and would like to experience with each and every person.

Until next week … Hasta Luego