Dive site · cave · The Quintana Roo cenotes
🇲🇽 Cenote Nohoch Nah Chich
Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico · part of Sistema Sac Actun
"Giant birdcage" in Maya — the cave that held the world record for the longest underwater system through the 1990s, before being absorbed into Sac Actun.
- Dives here
- 10
- Deepest
- 8.4 m
- Water
- fresh
- First · last
- 2022 · 2026
- Position
- 20.2988, -87.4039
- Getting in
- Turn off MEX 307 here; the site is about 2.2 km further on an unpaved track. (20.2884, -87.3857)
- Also known as
- Nohoch Nachich · no hoch
- Lines & sections
- Parker lineParker line + main linedownstreammain lineupstream
Revision 2 · changed 18 Oct 2026
History
- r2 18 Oct 2026 Log titles removed from the aliases · Dennis Bakhuis
- r1 10 Oct 2026 Imported from the personal log · Dennis Bakhuis
Site data © divelog-sites contributors (ODbL), descriptions and maps CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf
1 map
- Entrance
- T
- Shoreline
- Unsurveyed
- Depth
- Along the line
Traced from the cave-ha.com Nohoch Nah Chich cavern line zone map (A. Vronsky, R. Mykhailov, V. Mitina survey, Nov 2024; 25 m scale bar, north up), which covers only the first ~250 m upstream of the cenote: the 487 m cavern line loop (installed Nov 2024) via Puerta del Cielo, and the start of the permanent cave line, which begins about 23 m past the entrance and continues upstream beyond Heaven's Gate into Nohoch Proper. Depths in m from the same map; penetration labels are line distances along the cavern loop. The Parker Turner line, the rest of the upstream delta and the downstream mainline are not drawn: the only source for them is the 1992 CEDAM (Hutchinson) survey, whose scale and orientation could not be matched to this map reliably. Positions are approximate.
The exploration
Nohoch Nah Chich was found on 26 November 1987. Mike Madden of CEDAM International led the first survey through the summer of 1988, and from 1989 to 1996 ran expeditions of two weeks to a month at a time, pushing and mapping it. Through most of the 1990s Nohoch was the longest surveyed underwater cave in the world, and it was the site that made Quintana Roo the centre of cave exploration.
It lost the title in the way these things always go — not to a longer cave, but to a connection. Nohoch was linked to Sistema Sac Actun, and Sac Actun, having also swallowed Dos Ojos in January 2018, is now the longest underwater cave system on Earth at over 370 km.
The cave
Shallow — the deepest dive in this log here is 8.4 m — and heavily decorated, with the white formations and clear fresh water that Nohoch is photographed for. It is the classic Quintana Roo postcard cave.
Ten dives between February 2022 and February 2026, including a photo dive with S. J. Benet as photographer.
Dived here with
Nearby sites
10 dives at Cenote Nohoch Nah Chich
Dives per year
Water temperature by month
Mean water temperature in °C; an empty month had no dives.
| Month | Mean | Dives |
|---|---|---|
| January | no dives | 0 |
| February | 25.0 °C | 7 |
| March | 25.0 °C | 3 |
| April | no dives | 0 |
| May | no dives | 0 |
| June | no dives | 0 |
| July | no dives | 0 |
| August | no dives | 0 |
| September | no dives | 0 |
| October | no dives | 0 |
| November | no dives | 0 |
| December | no dives | 0 |
- downstream 14 Feb 2026 · with Kim date14 Feb 2026 depth5.9 m time97 min water25 °C
- Parker line 8 Feb 2026 · with Kim, Patrick date8 Feb 2026 depth5.7 m time89 min water25 °C
- Parker line 10 Mar 2025 · with Kim date10 Mar 2025 depth5.7 m time65 min water25 °C
- Parker line + main line 16 Feb 2022 · with Kim date16 Feb 2022 depth7.3 m time79 min water25 °C
- Parker line + main line 16 Feb 2022 · with Kim date16 Feb 2022 depth5.9 m time41 min water25 °C
- photo dive with S.J. Benet as photographer Parker line · 16 Feb 2022 · with Kim date16 Feb 2022 depth5.4 m time51 min water25 °C