Scuba Diving from the Shore
Puerto Aventuras - Dec 2004
Puerto Aventuras in the Riviera Maya, Mexico has excellent beach diving, though the boating traffic needs to be taken seriously.
I have not yet dived from any of the many diving charter boats that the Puerto Aventuras Marina has to offer, but watching them drop their divers, it seems we often dive the same reef! Of course It's a bit more excercise on my part, but definitely worth it.
The water is crystal clear and teeming with marine life. Close to shore the reef drops to 20ft leading to a long sand patch at about 40ft which eventually runs into a pristine reef with a depth of 40 - 70 ft.
The entry point that I use on a very quiet day. With waves this can be very tricky.
I made the dives for these photographs solo due to Liliana being pregnant. Although I canot condone solo diving, I have to admit to enjoying the tranquility immensely. Naughty me!
This short video clip gives a feeling of the scuba diving in Puerto Aventuras and shows a nice sea turtle. (1min 30s - 1.7 Mb)
The Northern most beach of Puerto Aventuras is all fossil studded rock, and this is where the best beach diving is to be had. There 4 or 5 manmade rock pools carved into the beach here that are also great to watch brittlestars from land at night.
A coral head on the sand patch between the reefs at about 40 ft. Because of the boats using the Puerto Aventuras Marina, surfacing is not an option effectivly making this an OW cave dive!
A very blue trumpet fish slips by in deeper water. The abundance and variety of marine life varies along the reef, but is every bit the equal or better of any well known tropical warm water site that I have dived, with the exception of Belize and Cozumel
Here's a piece of the reef hiding an urchin. This is fairly typical of how the shallow areas are close to the Puerto Aventuras shoreline.
I call this garden diving rather than beach diving. I think its obvious why! The entry point I use is towards the right of this photo.
The entire shoreline of this beautiful Puerto Aventuras beach is edged with a reef with hundreds of sand gullies running and combining together between the coral to make small canyons. Even with the ocean as calm as this though entry and exit is still tricky. The very shallow water and slippery sharp rocks are difficult to negotiate wearing diving gear.
