Scuba Diving Tip: Dealing With Underwater Seasickness
If you experience seasickness underwater, try and relax and go with the flow (no pun intended!). Don't try and fight the sea (always a bad idea!). If you really must be sick, you can be sick in your regulator, just hold down the purge button until you're finished. Don't try and remove it.
Scuba diving in Mexico can be a very varied affair due to the fact the pacific ocean is on the west coast and the massively different Caribbean Sea. Mexico is home to some of the world's most beautiful Cenote cave diving experiences and the Yutacan peninsula allows you to dive the Great Maya Barrier Reef, which stretches 200 miles (320km) from the nortern tip of the peninsula down the Belize coast to Honduras. The Great Maya Barrier Reef is home to a fantastically diverse range of species and is the second largest reef in the world after the Great Barrier Reef.
A map of Mexico
The Mexican Climate
Almost all of Mexico enjoys sunny weather for a large part of the year. Each region of Mexico will have contained climates due to the varied topography of the land. You have the Sierra Madre mountain ranges that extend along most of each of the coastlines and the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Pacific Ocean and Sea of Cortez all have a dramatic impact on the climate.
The Sierra Madre mountain ranges
Mexico Diving Fact Sheet
Average Air Temperature: 16C - 49C
Average Water Surface Temperature: 26C - 29C
Recommended Exposure Protection: Skin or 3mm shorty for hot months and from 3mm - 5mm full website for the colder months, depending on the diver.
Average Visibility: 25m to over 60m depending on region and the time of year
Coldest Time: December to February
Hottest Time: June to September
Best Times To Dive:
Cozumel - March and August
Cancun - May to August
Mexico's Pacific Coast - August to February
The Cenotes - November to March
Worst Times To Dive:
April & May and September & October can be poor visibility times due to natural plankton bloom.
May to September along the Caribbean coast is hurricaine season and incredibly hot and variable temperatures, ranging from 35C - 40C some times and blistering storms the next.
Where are the Mexican Cenotes?
The Yutacan peninsula is home to some of the world's most famous and amazing Cenotes ("sink holes"). Cenote diving offers a very unique experience in terms of marine diversity, due to the fact that a lot of Cenotes are cut off from the open seas and oceans. This makes them closed ecological systems, which over tens of thousands of years have evolved fish and plantlife that you won't find anywhere else in the world.
Cavern diving in Tulum, Mexico at the Cenote Dos Ojos
It is important to realise that some cavern and cenote diving have areas where there is no open water (i.e. water with air above it). Cavern diving presents new challenges, so for open water caverns, you'll need to have the dive lead by a qualified diver and if you're attempting diving of fully submerged cave, you should be a qualified cave diver to ensure your safety and the safety of others on the dive. Cave diving can be dangerous!
Where are the best places to dive in Mexico?
The Mexician coast is strewn with hundreds of possible dive locations each with their own unique set of sights and wonders. Because Mexico is such a varied location, we have broken the area guides up seperately as it is impossible to clump them together.
