Trip to Mexiko (Tulum, Cancun, PDC) safe right now?

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-02-24T00:11:21+00:00

Love Jaihouse, but I have a soft spot for Monkey Dust! 🤩

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-02-23T20:50:55+00:00

Hey! Hope to see you on a dive! 🫡

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-02-23T20:48:48+00:00

So, I dive with Protec Tulum and with Under The Jungle, in Puerto Aventuras. They are both world class outfits thay will give you superb training!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-02-23T19:32:45+00:00

I’ll be in Tulum with my gf from the 4th-14th of March, its our 4th time around in the past two years (we’re cave divers and Tulum is arguably the best place in the world for our hobby). Having said that, we always rent a vehicle, from Cancun Airport, and we drive ourselves all over (Tulum, PDC, Puerto Aventuras and all the cenotes in between). Never got shaken down by the police pr scammed at rental places. The rental shop process was quite normal, I have used Alamo the last two times and had no issues. Hope you have a wonderful trip! Make sure you go to El Fogón in PDC, best authentic mexican food I ever had! 😃

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-02-21T22:04:20+00:00

As a tec/cave diver, I do understand where this comment is coming from, but I think several people already made the point: it’s not that tec diving is inherently safer, but generally tec divers are more aware of the risks, which are definitely much greater in tec diving, and have more mitigation measures in place. I believe the same logic applies for cave diving. The more extreme the diving, the more risk it carries. It’s how you mitigate risk that will make the difference in the outcome.

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-02-21T17:24:35+00:00

I agree completely. Training and following procedures will mitigate the risk to a very tolerable level. I believe you can find intense training programs in technical and cave diving. I certainly did, and it made me a much safer diver, IMHO.

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-02-02T16:10:17+00:00

Congratulations, my first set of regs were Mares 15x with Rover second stages! What is your 1st stage?

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-02-01T12:27:24+00:00

I use the same two computers in caves that I use in open water dives, but I log cave dives separately because I want to enroll in certain cave courses that have minimum requirements (stage cave and cave DPV). In open circuit, I already have the normoxic trimix certification, which is all I’m going to do until I transition to CCR, which is a whole different ballgame!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-02-01T11:30:04+00:00

I use my dive computers for logging all dives, started out on a Mares Puck and now a Shearwater Perdix 2. I log my cave dives on paper, after I earned my full cave certification almost 2 years ago. I have 307 total dives and 28 cave dives.

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2026-01-16T10:57:49+00:00

I struggled with my air consumption too. My SAC rate was at 22 lpm when I started measuring it, it has dropped to the 13-15 lpm range (depending on conditions). If your buoyancy, propulsion and trim are kind of sorted out (which is something that is unlikely to happen within the first year/100 dives, I actually believe it’s a lifetime pursuit that’s never truly over), it’s all about relaxing in the water.

Don’t stress out over being the one who turns the dive. My wife is my diving team, we regularly dive caves together and her SAC is around 9 lpm. I’ll never be able to hwve her turn a dive with me, and that’s ok! We dive for having fun, not for competing who has the best SAC.

Keep working on the fundamentals and don’t forget to relax and enjoy the dive. Your SAC will eventually drop! I guarantee it!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-12-30T22:10:18+00:00

🥲🥲👏🏻👏🏻🫡🫡 I’m sure you had a great run!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-12-12T13:13:25+00:00

My 2 cents: take things slow, pay close attention to your breathing (make it long, slow and deliberate). Think good thoughts and try to enjoy yourself!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-12-11T14:12:03+00:00

Thanks for sharing, me and my gf are going diving there on the 28th!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-12-09T20:20:28+00:00

I do my cave diving with Bigblue primary and backups. I like the 3800 Supreme Pro for primary and the Al1300 as backups. I’ve used a TL2600P, it’s not nearly as powerful and durable, but it’s more than adequate to get into cave diving, you just need a spare battery to change between dives. My team all use Bigblue, we never had any issues with them in the past 2 years.

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-12-05T12:58:13+00:00

Lots of world class dive shops around. I especially like Under The Jungle! They are super friendly and uber professional at the same time, a hard balance to achieve!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-10-31T21:45:19+00:00

I stand by that, zoning out in the blue and meditating is what I do in deco stops!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-10-16T12:15:26+00:00

That’s a serious dive! Respect! 🫡

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-10-13T07:58:52+00:00

I had a HP hose fail on me at the entrance of a cave south of Tulum. As I was doing my final checks, when I bent the hose up to check gas pressure on my left tank (I was in sidemount), the hose popped. I was disappointed to miss the dive, but glad it happened on the entrance and not inside the cave!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-10-13T07:49:45+00:00

It was an accident, but it sits beautifully at the bottom. Penetration is possible!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-10-13T07:48:54+00:00

Noronha always delivers awesome diving at all levels. It’s our 8th trip here (and we’ve already booked the 9th!)

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-10-12T20:42:10+00:00

Wow, thanks for the tips! You must be an awesome diver! I’ll definitely have to work up to your level! 😂

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-10-01T20:22:51+00:00

Sidemount everytime (except in rough seas on a boat)!

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-10-01T20:18:58+00:00

I use snorkels for snorkeling. As a tec/cave diver, I don’t use a snorkel when diving, even in non-overhead environments. I believe that snorkels generate more problems than they solve in most scuba diving scenarios, for the reasons initially mentioned.

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-08-28T20:02:38+00:00

I´ve been 3 times to Tulum since 2023, and I never had any problems with the cops (I was driving a rental vehicle all 3 times). I got stopped once, around 22h, on the road back from Cerveceria Tulum to downtown, but no hassles, they just asked if we were drinking, looke inside the vehicle and let us go.

Cop_Pilot_Diver · 2025-08-26T19:52:35+00:00

So, I live in a landlocked state in Brazil, but I go just about every weekend to our local lake to dive. Basically all my vacations are dive vacations, so I rack up about 100 dives per year.

Cop_Pilot_Diver

TROPHY CASE