Cenote diving in Tulum

Going on a Cenote dive was the scariest but most thrilling dive I've ever done. I went with my dive buddy last year after a week on Cozumel and we hired a guide in Tulum, Mexico. Cenotes are freshwater (sometimes mixed with saltwater) limestone caves. We went on cavern dives, where you never get too far from natural light, but some of the spaces we were in did get pretty dark. We did the Gran Cenote and Aktun-Ha/Carwash. Although they were relatively shallow, with maximum depth around 45 feet, they were scary for several reasons. First, being in a cavern meant I had to have perfect neutral buoyancy and gentle finning, so that I didn't stir up any vision-obscuring silt. Second, the dive was essentially a "trust me" dive, where we were dependent on our guide and followed the reel line that he had placed to enter and exit the cavern. Finally, diving in a cavern feels different from being in open water. The lighting is dark, the colors are diffferent, ghostly fish swim by, and you feel as if in another world. This is also one of the loveliest parts of being in a cavern.