With a long stretch of illness followed by a serious injury just when I was getting back into things, it had been a very bad year and a half. I asked the doctor when he thought I would be recovered enough to dive, and he gave me a target date. I immediately booked time in Mexico for shortly after that, trying to make up for lost time. I did some recreational dives followed by some decompression dives in Cozumel, and then I went to stay in Akumal for some cave diving in the Tulum area.

A friend had recommended Diablo Divers, and Natalie Gibb was my contact. She was recovering from an illness of her own when I first got there, so I did my first day of diving with Eric (Budgie) Burgess instead. We did a couple of get acquainted dives at Actun Ha, and that went just fine. I enjoyed the day. After that Natalie and I did three more days of great diving. She was a wonderful guide who took me to some very interesting sites.

I think my favorite was Nai Tucha (Mastodon Cave). We had to take a long drive into the jungle on a road that was working its way toward 4-wheel drive. The cave itself is mostly bright white, with spectacular stalactites and columns everywhere. We passed the mastodon bones that gave the cave its name.

My only previous Yucatan dive experience had been typical cavern dives nearly a decade ago. My limited experience since getting cave certification was only in Florida. I had also never dived caves in anything other than a dry suit and heavy steel tanks, so diving in a wet suit and aluminum doubles was new as well. The scenery was new to me, the equipment was new to me, but Natalie's careful observance of standard cave diving protocols was comfortably familiar. This was just the experience I needed to get back into diving again.

For those of you looking for a Yucatan diving experience and don't know where to start, I will recommend the path I took.