To sign up for a guided cavern tour, we ask that divers have a minimum of 25 logged dives, have dived within the last 6 months, and have excellent buoyancy control. For cave training please see the relevant course description under the cave course menu.
DO I NEED SIDE MOUNT OR DOUBLES GEAR TO CAVERN DIVE?
No. It is perfectly acceptable to enjoy a guided cavern tour using a single tank. For divers who already have experience with side mounted or back mounted doubles, we are happy to provide doubles tanks at no additional cost.
WHY DOES UNDER THE JUNGLE REQUIRE THIS LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE FOR CAVERN DIVING?
While there are many dive shops that use cavern diving as a “back up” for the ocean, or as an up-sell after open water certification, we disagree with this practice. Cenotes are an advanced diving environment and should be treated as such. We are concerned with both our divers’ enjoyment and safety.
ENJOYMENT
Divers who are not comfortable in the water or who are not warmed up after a period of inactivity will not be able to fully enjoy the cenotes, and will have a mediocre experience. We are in the business of providing excellent experiences and want you to fall in love with the caverns like we have, not be distracted with dive basics and unable to absorb or enjoy the environment fully.
DIVER SAFETY
Our prerequisites are the same as the requirements for divers to enroll in a cavern course, which makes sense. Why the local industry feels that one level of prerequisites is required for divers to learn to dive in caverns safely during a cavern course, but that a lower level of certification and experience is acceptable for taking divers into the cavern with with literally no overhead training, is unclear to us.
We are equally demanding of our guides. We require that all of our guides have a minimum level of Cavern Diving Instructor (having been trained to take people into the caverns for the first time) as opposed to the local industry standard of simply being a Cave Diver (which is a lower level).
The idea is that divers are actually qualified to enter the overhead environment for an initial experience, as they would during a cavern course, and that guides are actually qualified to take divers into the overhead environment for their initial experience, because they have been trained to teach cavern diving.
PAPERWORK
Divers signing up for a guided cavern tour will need to fill out the Diver Medical Statement, present certification cards, and sign and understand our Cavern Diving Liability Release. If a diver has any affirmative “yes” answers on the medical statement, the diver will need a doctor’s clearance to dive.