Depth: 130 feet Cenote Angelita is probably the most advanced dive offered to recreational divers in the Akumal area. It is not technically a cavern; instead it is a very deep cenote with a sea water table below. The abyss bottoms out at 200 feet, but recreational divers do not exceed 130 feet on this dive. I had never heard of La Angelita until arriving inside the portals of Yucatek for our day of scheduled cavern diving with them. The diving had been arranged by Deep Blue, with whom we were diving while staying on Cozumel, and who had a reciprocal agreement with Yucatek. To be honest, we were looking for a couple of shallow off-gassing cavern dives after several days of repetetive pretty deep dives on Coz. When we arrived we were told that we were on the "advanced" trip, for very good divers (it appeared that we'd been given the big nod by Deep Blue, since no one at Yucatek had never seen us dive), and that we were in for a special treat. Oh, and by the way, it's US$20 pp more for the privilege, because of the distance from Playa. We were a bit dubious, but realized that they had already scheduled their groupings for the day, and moving us to another trip was going to displace other people, so we decided to go with the flow. La Angelita
cenote is located south of Tulum, which makes it about a one hour
van ride from Playa del Carmen. The cenote and its surrounding bit
of jungle are owned by an elderly Mexican man who lives in a shack
in the nearby town of Tulum. Legend has it that he has been offered
US$1 million to sell his rights to the cenote (which has been in
the possession of his family forever), but he refuses to sell because
he believes that the cenote has special powers. |
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Yup , we are going diving in there. The water here is a bit scummy, since the cenote is essentially a sinkhole, and alot of vegetation has fallen into it over many, many, years. There is no dive platform - you just slide down that slope in your gear and hope for the best.
Setting up at La Angelita. It is a five minute trek through the jungle to get to the water. Can't underline enough that getting in and out of this cenote is tricky. With all the stuff in the water, I think you'd be wise to wear a full body suit: either a skin if you're cold-blooded, or 3 mm if you chill easily. I also think a hood of some kind is a good idea: mucky water on eardrums=trouble. As you'd expect in the jungle, mosquitoes are rampant. Your best strategy is to cover up.
Between 90 and a 100 ffw there is a weird and wonderful sulphurous cloud. It sits wedged between the lighter fresh water that fills the first 90 feet of the cenote, and the layer of heavier salt water that below it. The cloud was formed when the resultant gases from the decomposing matter that fell into the sinkhole were trapped below the fresh water layer. It is a little out there dropping through this ethereal stuff, and letting air out of your bc as you go, so as to not get stuck in the cloud when you hit the more bouyant salt water. Below the cloud it is pitch dark.
The view up from 80 feet down. The factors that make this dive challenging are: difficult entry, depth, complete loss of sensory perception for a few moments when descending through the cloud (at depth), profound darkness below the cloud, and difficult exit. I could only recommend this dive to the truly intrepid.
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