Which is best for a first dive?

Puerto Morelos. It sits inside a National Park, the sea is calmer than in Cancun, it is shallower and there are almost always turtles. Cancun is the alternative if you are staying in the Hotel Zone and want the MUSA.

Is the trip to Cozumel worth it?

If you have the full day, yes: the visibility and the Palancar walls have no equivalent on the mainland coast. If you only have half a morning, do not force it — the ferry and transfers eat the whole day.

Where is the visibility best?

In the sea, Cozumel, which usually passes thirty metres. Overall, the cenotes: fresh water filtered through limestone gives visibility that in some systems goes beyond forty.

Cancun, Cozumel or Playa del Carmen: Where to Dive

Q: Can I dive several destinations in one week?

Easily. The usual plan is one sea morning in Cancun or Puerto Morelos, one full cenote day and, if the weather holds, the Cozumel day. Just remember to leave 18 to 24 hours between your last dive and your flight.

Cancun: the most complete option if you are short on time

You leave from the Hotel Zone and you are in the water in twenty minutes. In a single 2-tank morning you can see the MUSA — the underwater museum, at nine metres — a wreck, or the Punta Cancun reefs. From MX$2,400 and four hours door to door.

If you only have one free morning in the whole trip, this is the answer and there is no debate.

Puerto Morelos: the best preserved reef

Thirty minutes from Cancun, inside a National Park. Fewer boats, calmer water and turtles almost guaranteed. This is also where the C-56 wreck sits, a gunboat sunk on purpose that is now an artificial reef.

It is our recommendation for a first dive: calm sea, shallow depth and a wall of life to hold your eyes on.

Playa del Carmen: relief, sponges and bull sharks

Reefs with more relief than Cancun's and enormous barrel sponges. From MX$2,500, with no travel if you are staying on the Riviera Maya.

Its strong card is seasonal: from November to March this is the bull shark site, either natural observation with no bait or a controlled feeding dive under strict protocol. There is nothing like it in Cancun.

Cozumel: the best visibility, but you need the day

Palancar, Santa Rosa, Colombia. Walls that drop vertically, canyons you travel through from the inside, and visibility beyond thirty metres. You dive it as a drift: the current carries you and the boat picks you up wherever you surface.

The price of that quality is time: ferry both ways and a five-hour day, from MX$2,900. If you have the day, it is the best diving on this coast. If you do not, do not force it.

And the cenotes, which compete with none of them

Putting cenotes in this comparison is a category error: they are not another dive site, they are another activity. You will not see schools of fish or turtles; you will see geology, vertical light beams and haloclines where fresh and salt water blur your vision.

Our recommendation for a week: one sea morning in Cancun or Puerto Morelos, one full cenote day and, if the weather holds, the Cozumel day. In that order.