El Pit is a jug style cenote. It’s a narrow gash entranceway in the jungle that opens up into an expansive underwater cavern underground.
The popular activities at El Pit are scuba diving and free diving.
This is a very deep dive where you will swim far enough from the only exit to make it not for the claustrophobic or timid.
The cavern has several interesting features. There are many stalactites at about 10 metres. At 30 metres, there is a hydrogen sulfide cloud with a creepy tree that grows through it. As you descend deeper below the hydrogen sulfide cloud, the view of the cavern entrance with light shining down through the water is an eerie sight.
The best time to go here is the morning because the lighting is best at that time.
To get into El Pit, you have to go down a very steep flight of stairs to reach a small dock where you can enter the cenote. Scuba equipment is lowered down from the surface using a pully and rope.
El Pit is located in the Dos Ojos park that has several other cenotes making it possible to scuba dive El Pit and another cenote site easily during a single excursion. A popular 2 tank combo is El Pit + a dive at one of the Dos Ojos Two Eyes.
The dives at Two Eyes are shallower, easier and have more escape routes than El Pit, so it’s common for an instructor to take divers with less experience there first to make sure they are comfortable with blocked overhead environments before doing the more challenging El Pit for the 2nd dive.