Banco Chinchorro
🇲🇽 BANCO CHINCHORRO is an atoll reef, meaning that it is a ring shaped coral reef that encircles a lagoon. It is the biggest platform type reef complex system in Mexico.
Bancho Chinchorro is located at the south-eastern tip of the State of Quintana Roo in Yucatan Peninsula.
How To Get There?
The islands around Banco Chinchorro are uninhabited, there is nowhere to stay on the atoll. Therefore, you would need to get to Mahahaul first, the closest town to the reef.
✈️From Cancun
By Car - around 4.5 hours
By ADO bus - around 5.5 hours
✈️From Chetumal
By Car - around 2 hours
By ADO bus - around 2.5 hours
(Please note ADO does not run those routes every day)
How To Dive There?
Mahahaul is a very small town, everything is located on one main street along the coastline, you will find quite a lot of dive shops there, however, not every dive shop do dive trips to Chinchorro. There are two to three dive shops that would take you there.
Due to the rough sea conditions, the dive shops will only go when the sea condition is permitting and the marines allow the boats to go out, so be prepare and plan few more days to stay there if you really want to make it.
The boat ride to the reef takes around 1 hour and 45 minutes. It could be quite rough some days. The ride would normally be much shorter on the way back to shore due to wind and current. Because of the long boat ride, the dive shops tend to do 3 tanks a day. I was able to dive 3 days out of 5 days because of the sea conditions.
For my understanding, you can also dive from Xcalak, but it is not as convenient as basing yourself in Mahahaul. Also, they do not run trips to Chinchorro very frequent. {FYI: During my trip, I was diving with a girl who was doing her DM in Xcalak, but she came to Mahahaul to dive Chinchorro.]
When To Dive?
You can dive here all year around. Water temperatures are pretty constant all year around, only slightly cooler in the winter months.
My Diving Experience & Highlight
Diving with friendly nurse sharks 🦈
I read a lot of comments about the friendly nurse sharks in Chinchorro prior to diving here. I would say the diving experience with the nurse sharks here is awesome after I experienced it myself.
Basically, you are guaranteed to see nurse sharks in Chinchorro. There was one dive day where I saw at least three nurse sharks in every single dive. The amazing part of the experience is not just the sight of nurse sharks, it's the interaction experience with them.
The nurse sharks here like to follow divers around, they swam close to me then turned around and swam toward me again. They came so close to me, literally 10cm away sometimes, that I could see their skin colour and pattern, their eyes and their fins very clearly. I really enjoyed watching how they moved with their tails. This is my best shark interaction experience ever.
I wonder if it is curiosity making them getting so close to us or they were just waiting for the dive guide to kill some lionfishes for their meal (as lionfish is invasive in Caribbean Sea and it is a threat to the reef system in Mexico). The dive guide even told us sometimes the nurse sharks would follow us with the boat engine sound when we moved to other dive sites.
Giant coral and sponge world
The coral and sponge world here surprised me, it is probably ranked among my top five places for coral and sponge life that I have been to so far. The reef is full of giant brain corals, different kinds of barrel sponges, tube sponges, brain sponges, black corals, sea fingers, sea whips, sea rods and sea plumes.
I ranked it among my top five as the corals and sponges here are extra large than those I saw it in other places. Brain corals and giant barrel sponges sighted in 1.5 meters tall, tube sponges sighted almost 1 meter (3.3 feet) tall and commonly spotted 2 meters (6.5 feet) wide sea plume. Based on their sizes, seem the reef did not get damaged for a long while. Corals and sponges definitely is one of my highlight of diving here.
Other marine life
Same as diving in other place of west coast in Mexico, the reef is full of Caribbean sharpnose puffers, four eye butterflyfishes, parrotfish, tangs, often sight of yellow-line arrow crabs and sometimes encounter of moray eel.
Another highlight for me was big patch of garden eels in sandy areas in most dive sites.
Also, I sighted seven flamingo tongues in one dive at the dive site "the Garden" where the dive site is full of sea whips and sea rods.
Flamingo tongues are a type of sea snail, they are very colourful, they are feeding on soft tissue of the soft coral, commonly found on sea fans, whip corals, and other soft corals, they could be quite hidden sometimes, you will need to look for them.
Last but not least, I was lucky to catch a glimpse of my first spotted eagle ray swimming into the deep blue, the size was pretty large with wingspan of 1.5 meters (5 feet).
Surface interval with crocodiles
Dive shops will sometimes take you to the guarded base area during surface interval time where it is a shallow area with mangrove environment where you can see the wild crocodiles in the water.
Is it worth to go?
I would say it is worth to go if you are in Mexico or planning a trip to Mexico even you need to make some effort to get there plus the rough boat ride.
Personally, I would say coral life is more amazing than Cozumel (another popular dive destination at Quintana Roo).
Other Useful Information
Dive Shop Used:
- Doctor Dive Costa Maya 🥇
- Amigos Del Mar Mahahual
Accommodation: You can find accommodation from a budget hostel, different price ranges of hotels, resorts and Airbnb in Mahahaul.
Land Based Activities:
You can rent a bike to bike along the coastline, they have a really well built pavement that makes biking a breeze.
Since Mahahaul is a really small town, it really does not have much to do.
You can consider making a day trip to Bacalar or Xcalak (1.5 hours drive one way). Taxi to Xcalak for both way costs 1,200 MXN.
Food Choices For Vegan:
- Tierra Verde Organic Vegan (fully vegan) - has a lot of options and they do really good food.
- Pizza Metro (vegan and vegetarian options) - do pretty decent vegan pizza with vegan cheese, located at inner of the town.
- Nonna Adriana's Deli - (vegan and vegetarian options) - only heard of it, did not try before.
Above information based on dive trip in May 2021.