World-class snorkelling on the Mayan Riviera

Want to swim off a beach and see turtles right offshore? Your best chance is at Akumal, where the coral shallows attract many and offer safe, easy snorkelling in glassy-clear water.

This large, lily-covered pool filled with wispy water weed, terrapins, fish, and the occasional small crocodile, has water as clear as air. It’s easy to visit from Tulum, yet it’s far less busy than nearby Gran Cenote.

This big, open swimming hole – set in low jungle and filled with fish is safe enough for small kids, has changing rooms, life jackets and water-entry platforms. It’s easy to reach, sitting right off the main Cancún-Chetumal highway 15 minutes’ drive from Playa.

These twin cenotes are spectacular: marking the entrance to one of the longest underground rivers in the world – filled with water as clear as ocean air, passing through submerged caverns covered with spectacular cave formations and teeming with strange cave fish, crustaceans and bats. The cenotes are a premium cave-diving location and were used as locations for The Cave movie and the BBC’s Planet Earth documentary.

You don’t need to be a cave diver to visit. Some of the most beautiful caverns are accessible to snorkellers. PADI open water divers can go further and designated cave divers can explore the deeper caverns. Any diving requires advanced booking.

Not all cenotes are sink holes in the jungle. Manati (aka Casa Cenote) – tucked behind the long white sands of Tulum beach is the entrance to an underground river, which flows into a winding creek lined.

The cenote is named after the manatees which used to live here until tourism became overwhelming. There are plenty of fish though, including schools of large tarpon and a small Morelet’s crocodile called Panchito. And the water is glassy-clear – running from the creek into caverns fringed with a labyrinthine tangle of mangrove roots. Superb for snorkelling and novice divers.

One of a string of less-visited cenotes lying close to more celebrated Dos Ojos, Sac Actun sits in a dramatic cavern filled with stalactites and illuminated by a single hole in the roof. It’s on the Tulum-tour radar but arrive before 10am and you’ll have it to yourself.

Turquoise-blue, set in a low cavern covered with small stalactites and illuminated by soft light through roof holes, this cenote is a beauty. Its remote location at the end of a long dirt road between Tulum and Akumal keeps it fairly crowd-free.

Cozumel’s best snorkelling is a boat ride from the shore. Most dive shops organise designated snorkel trips or take snorkellers on dive excursions.

But choose trips carefully; many reefs are deep and currents can be strong – especially at the far south of the island.

Covered in fragrant lilies, floating on a terrapin-filled pool of water as clear and fresh as mountain air and framed by a dramatic cave mouth, Gran Cenote is a beauty.

But while the cenote extends for miles underground, through spectacular caverns, the part snorkellers can visit is modest. To explore further you’ll need cave diving certification.

Playa Norte beach offers good snorkelling, right off an easy-to-reach white sand beach. Big schools of fish gather around the reef in front of the MIA hotel, and on the oceanside, the occasional turtle.

The Riviera Maya barrier reef comes within a few hundred metres of shore just south of the Mayan ruins at Tulum, offering easy snorkelling over coral gardens in calm water.

Between May and September, the world’s largest fish visits Riviera Maya waters to feed on the large upswells of plankton from the Gulf of Mexico. Snorkelling with them is an astonishing experience, and takes place in open sea. These giant filter feeders, which can reach over 12 metres are astonishingly well-camouflaged – almost invisible in the inky blue until they are almost next to you, then gently swaying past and back into the depths.

Numerous tour operators in Cancun and Playa del Carmen offer snorkelling and diving trips which usually include reef snorkels and lunch.

This huge eco-theme park offers visitors a pot pourri of ready-wrapped, family-sized Mexican attractions. There are Mayan sites, great snorkelling, cenotes and underground rivers, a purpose-built Mayan village and ‘Day of the Dead’ cemeteries. You can swim with dolphins, nurse sharks and manatees; and there are tame jungles populated with rainforest wildlife, and after-dark, a glitzy Maya ‘cultural show’.

Yes, you can the real thing elsewhere. But accept Xcaret as a kind of Maya World Disneyland and it’s great fun.

This popular water-based theme park with rides, slides, snorkelling and zip lines, comprises a series of broken, crystal-clear bays and glassy streams, teeming with brightly coloured marine life and fringed with low tropical forest. It’s great for families with safe, supervised activities and excellent snorkelling.

It also offers the chance to swim with captive dolphins, manatees and stingrays (though consider the ethics of keeping these animals in captivity before supporting them by participation).