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The Best Places for Scuba Diving in Mexico

The Best Places for Scuba Diving in Mexico

Written by Rianne Poesse
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Published on October 28, 2022
Socorro (Revillagigedo Islands) diving

Have you ever wondered what scuba diving is Mexico is like? In short: it’s amazing. The amount of possibilities when it comes to diving in Mexico is endless. From diving in the beautiful cenotes, to tropical reefs, to great white sharks, whale sharks, hammerhead sharks and oceanic manta’s, Mexico has it all.

It’s almost impossible to pick only five of the best places to scuba dive in Mexico, given that each of these places is so different from the other. That’s also what makes Mexico such an attractive scuba diving holiday destination: all the options. On the west coast of Mexico, there’s the Pacific Ocean. And on the East Coast, the Caribbean. They’re two completely different waters and both with incredibly good diving opportunities.

If you live reasonably close, like in the US or Canada, it’s well worth checking your calendar if you can squeeze in one of the five scuba trips we are going to tell you about. Do you live further away? Maybe you can combine several scuba destinations in one big trip and create your own ultimate Mexico scuba holiday!

5 Best Places for Scuba Diving in Mexico

cabo san lucas mexico scuba diving
Photo by Emma Dau on Unsplash

1. Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas is a beach town in the most Southern tip of Baja Sur. It’s easiest to reach by flying into San Jose del Cabo (airport code: SJD). From the airport, Cabo San Lucas is only a 40 minute scenic ride a way. The little beach town offers a wide range of different hotels, from budget B&Bs up to luxury spa and wellness hotels. The choice is yours.

Diving in Cabo San Lucas

There are a few options when it comes to diving in Cabo San Lucas. For example, if you want to dive with sea lions (yes, you read that right), you can book a local dive to a dive site called Land’s End. This dive site is almost in the Pacific Ocean, yet only a 10 minute boat ride away from the marina. The dive is suitable for beginning divers as the max depth is 70ft/22m. At Land’s End, you’ll find a colony of Californian sea lions that come and play with divers. It’s just so much fun. There’s also a shipwreck at 40ft/12m. Keep your eyes in the blue to check for huge schools of cow-nose rays and devil rays in the summer months.

Another great dive site to tell you about is Gordo Banks, in the Sea of Cortez. Though technically a dive site belonging to San Jose Del Cabo, it’s offered from Cabo San Lucas. Usually your dive shop will take you by car the first bit to San Jose Del Cabo and then you continue by boat. Now, if you love sharks and in particular hammerhead sharks, then this is the dive for you. At Gordo Banks schools of hammerheads will pass by you as well as tuna, wahoo and silky sharks. It’s a must dive for divers that love sharks and the bigger fish. This site is suitable for advanced divers only.

This is only a selection of the highlights in Cabo San Lucas, you can fill an entire week here diving and not see the same site twice.

Best Time to Dive in Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas offers diving all year but the better time to go is from November to May. This is the time the big pelagic life, such as humpback whales, whale sharks, and orcas pass by the coast. You might get super lucky and spot one on a dive!

Cozumel mexico scuba diving
Photo by Fernando Jorge on Unsplash

2. Cozumel

On the east coast of Mexico just off the shore from Playa del Carmen lies the beautiful island of Cozumel. An incredibly laid back island with all the right vibes. You can get there by two ways, the easiest would be to fly straight into the Cozumel airport (airport code: CZM) or fly into Cancun and then book a transfer, which will include a 1.5 hour car drive followed by a 30 minute ferry cross over.

Diving in Cozumel

Almost all dives in Cozumel are done in Cozumel’s Marine Park. The Marine Park starts already at the end of Downtown Cozumel and goes all the way around Punta Sur back up. It’s a big area where you can find beautiful corals, nurse sharks, eagle rays and many beautiful fish.

Usually there is a light to mild current in Cozumel, however, in Cozumel you don’t swim against the current — you simply use it to drift in a nice speed whilst enjoying the underwater world to the fullest. The sound of current can sound intimidating, but in the case of Cozumel, think of it as a free transportation service. It’s usually at a pretty comfortable speed. People learn to dive in Cozumel and almost all sites are suitable for every diver. Dives are always set up with the current in mind. This means that the dive boat will drop you and your group off at one point and already expects to pick you up elsewhere. They’ll simply keep an eye on SMBs (surface marker buoys) on the surface.

The color orange is very present underwater in Cozumel. Think: big orange sponge corals color the reef. Make sure to keep an eye out in the blue for incredibly big eagle rays passing by and check under overhangs for nurse sharks. A very fun creature to spot, though you might need to help of your guide, is the (Cozumel) splendid toadfish. It can only be found in Cozumel, near Cancun and some places in Honduras so make sure to ask about this little fella.

Best Time to Dive in Cozumel

In Cozumel the high season is from December to April. These months, of course, include Christmas and spring break. If you don’t like it super busy, you’re better off visiting later in the year. Diving in Cozumel is good all year round. In the cooler months, January to March, the chance of big schools of eagle rays increases as well.

Cenotes mexico scuba diving
Photo by Earth on Unsplash

3. Mexican Cenotes

The Mexican Cenotes are world famous “holes in the ground” filled with water. A cenote is a natural sinkhole. The ceiling of the cave has collapsed at some point, turning an underground cave into a cenote. All over the world you can find Cenotes, but Mexico is the most famous for them.

Nowhere else in the world are there so many cenotes as in Mexico. It’s estimated that there are more than 7,000 cenotes in the Mexican jungle. Roughly 2,200 have been registered. Most of these are by far around Yucatan and the Riviera Maya. The world’s longest underground Cave system is the Sistema Sac Atun, located in Mexico. It measures roughly 350km and at it deepest point it is 119m deep! It connects a total of 226 cenotes. Archaeologists have found 9000-year old human bones in them and animals bones from the ice age!

Cenote diving is offered mostly in the Riviera Maya in Playa Del Carmen, Puerto Aventuras, and Tulum.

Diving in a Cenote in Mexico

Any certified diver can sign up for a cenote dive. Unless you have specific cave diving training, you will stick to the “cavern” part of the cenote. Meaning you’ll do a cavern dive instead of a cave dive. The difference between a cavern dive and a cave dive is that when doing a cavern dive the distance to the sunlight has to be less than 200ft/60m and two divers must be able to pass each other at any point during the dive. This usually means that as a recreational diver you’ll do the first part of the cenote and stop where the cave divers continue, or you could do an entirely different dive. Not one cenote is the same.

A typical day of cenote diving includes getting picked up at your hotel, being driven into the jungle where the cenotes can be found, receiving a very detailed safety briefing, gearing up, and making your first cenote dive.

Make sure to pack a thick 5mm wetsuit for this dive. Often people who are enjoying some easy diving on the Caribbean side combine it with the cenotes, but where the Caribbean sea usually is around 82F/28C, the cenotes drop to 77F/24C.

Best Time to Dive in a Cenote

If you’re a photographer we recommend summer, because of the light. Once inside the cavern it really doesn’t matter which month you’re diving the cenotes, but if you like to really capture the rays of light and how they penetrate the water, then consider summer months when it’s not cloudy and the sun is high up in the sky — that’s when you get the best shots.

Socorro (Revillagigedo Islands) diving
Photo by Francisco Jesús Navarro Hernández on Unsplash

4. Socorro (Revillagigedo Islands)

Whale sharks, humpback whales, oceanic manta rays, Galapagos sharks, silky sharks, and hammerhead sharks — you’ll find them all here. Go to Socorro, or as the area is officially called, Revillagigedo Islands. This place is pure magic if you’re an experienced diver that loves big dives.

The Revillagigedo Islands are a group of islands that are located 600km of the shore of Mexico. The only way you can dive here is by booking a liveaboard dive trip. A liveaboard is a boat where you sleep on as well. You stay on it for a longer amount of time, usually at least a week, and get either your own or a shared cabin. Since it’s a 36-hour drive from Cabo San Lucas to the islands, a liveaboard is simply the only way to dive here.

Diving in Socorro

Diving in Socorro means that you often dive relatively deep, up to about a 100ft/30m and that you can find yourself battling currents. Sharks, especially, can be found in deeper waters. In Socorro, schools of hammerheads are frequently spotted, as well as silky sharks and Galapagos sharks. While these shark dives are safe and the sharks are not aggressive, if you are not a fan of sharks, you will not enjoy this trip.

Besides sharks, there are oceanic manta rays. Rather, massive oceanic manta rays! They can reach a wing span of 30ft/10m and you can really get an interaction with these gentle giants sometimes. Manta rays feed on plankton and there’s plenty of that around Socorro, which is why they’re present in big numbers.

Best Time to Dive in Socorro

The season for Socorro is from November until May. November to March being the most popular months. In November/December there’s a fair chance for whale shark sightings whilst in the first months of the year the chance of humpback whales increases.

Guadalupe mexico shark diving
Photo by Darcy Wheeler on Unsplash

5. Guadalupe

The king of the ocean, the great white shark, can be found in Guadalupe! In the summer months, the Socorro boats move up north towards Guadalupe islands (200nm of the coast of Ensenada). In this season, the liveaboards offer shark cage diving with great whites. It’s an absolutely thrill-seeking experience, but not for everyone. Although having said that, you don’t need to be a certified diver to go cage diving.

The reason you don’t need to be certified is because you technically won’t be “diving”. You’ll be in a cage on the surface, underwater, but not in a scuba diving setting. Gear-wise you’ll have a thick wetsuit to stay warm, weights to stay negatively buoyant, a dive mask to see, and you’ll breathe through a hookah. A hookah is very similar to a regulator system except the air will be coming from a compressor on the boat and not from a tank on your back.

Diving with Great White in Guadalupe

The way cage diving works is relatively simple. The boat parks at a location where they know great whites hang around. They lower the cages in the water, ready for guests to jump in when the great whites show up. Then if necessary, chum (often tuna bits) is used on the surface to attract the sharks to come to the cage. A few people can be in the cage at the same time, depending on the size of the cage.

Switching between people in the cage is easy as the top of the cage is right on the surface. This allows guests to usually go in and out the water as they please. Of course, the crew will make sure everyone gets a fair amount of cage time. There have been many days recorded that great white sharks were sighted from the cage the whole day from dusk till dawn. It’s an absolutely amazing experience for anyone keen to get this close to the king of the ocean.

It goes without saying that strict safety measures and protocols are in place to conduct safe shark cage diving. If you choose to go shark cage diving, pick a reputable company that knows how to take care of both you and the sharks.

Best Time to Dive in Guadalupe

The Guadalupe season runs from June until September and usually spots on boats go quickly. You might want to prepare this one in advance to make sure you have a spot on your preferred liveaboard boat.

Rianne Poesse

Rianne Poesse

Rianne Poesse is a passionate scuba diver and writer. She is the founder of the scuba blog Dutch Mermaid and travels around the globe, exploring the underwater world. She writes articles for travel agencies and dive magazines. When diving, she always has a camera with her and you can follow her on YouTube to get […]