Christophe Le Maillot

Le Maillot is a GUE cave instructor and co-owner of Zero Gravity in Puerto Aventuras, with twenty-five years as a professional and more than five thousand cave dives. With Fred Devos and Sam Meacham he is part of the CINDAQ team behind much of the exploration and survey work in Quintana Roo, including the discovery of an 11,000-year-old submerged ochre mine — a find that made the archaeological literature, not just the diving press. His standing inside GUE is unusual: a ScubaBoard write-up of a Fundamentals class describes the students *and their primary instructor* being evaluated by him, which places him above the instructor cadre rather than in it. He has been recommended on ScubaBoard as a cave instructor in Mexico for the better part of two decades, usually named together with Daniel Riordan and the Zero Gravity operation. Divers who have been in the water with the CINDAQ group describe "countless amazing dives to remote locations". Most of what is public about him is his exploration record and his standing as an instructor evaluator rather than student course reports — typical of someone who spends more time training instructors and exploring than running entry-level courses.