Cenote & Cavern Dive Instructor — Tec Specialty

Responsibilities

• Conduct PADI Cavern Diver and Introduction to Cave courses at the Riviera Maya's cenote system: the freshwater cave diving system of the Yucatán Peninsula is the longest underwater cave network in the world — instruction at this level is a technical specialty that requires specific training and experience beyond open water instruction
• Lead guided cenote dives for certified open-water divers in the cavern zone (no restriction diving, daylight visible, within 60m of the entrance): the cenote cavern environment requires specific briefing on silt disturbance, buoyancy control in freshwater, and halocline navigation
• Apply SEMARNAT cenote access protocols: guide groups within approved cenote zones, enforce zero-touch-zero-damage standards for the biologically active cenote walls, and ensure all diver behavior complies with the ecological restrictions protecting the cenote system
• Explain and manage the halocline experience: the freshwater/saltwater mixing layer in Yucatán cenotes creates a visual distortion effect that is disorienting for new cenote divers — clear advance briefing and in-dive monitoring minimize the disorientation risk
• Facilitate cave diving certification courses for advanced divers pursuing PADI Full Cave or IANTD Cave certifications: this level of instruction requires the instructor's own Full Cave certification and specific technical diving mentorship experience
• Conduct cenote equipment configuration review: back-mounted doubles, side-mount configuration, and primary-secondary light setup for cave diving are equipment systems that standard open water instruction doesn't cover

Requirements

• PADI Full Cave Diver or IANTD Cave 1 instructor certification
• Minimum 200 cave diving logged dives; cenote-specific experience required
• SEMARNAT cenote access protocol knowledge
• Spanish and English bilingual — cenote diving draws heavily from European and North American technical diving community
• Current PADI Instructor certification in addition to technical certifications

Benefits

• IMSS, aguinaldo, paid vacation + premium
• Technical dive specialty premium on fixed monthly
• Access to advanced cenote sites for personal diving and training development
• Dive equipment and technical configuration provided
• Career pathway to Full Cave Instructor trainer within the Riviera Maya technical diving community

Work environment

Specialized cenote cave diving instruction and guided cenote tours in the Riviera Maya. The most technically demanding dive instruction environment in Mexico, with world-class freshwater cave systems as the daily workplace.

About the role

The cenote dive instructor who leads a group of 6 certified divers 40 meters into the Dos Ojos system — stalactites overhead, the halocline rippling like living glass, freshwater carrying a visibility measured in hundreds of meters — is working in what technical divers from Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan cross the world to experience. Teaching people to navigate that environment safely, and watching their faces when they surface, is what makes cenote diving instruction one of the most genuinely rewarding specialty instructor roles in the world.