Roger Williams

Williams runs XOC-Ha, a dedicated cenote diving compound near Playa del Carmen, with his wife Nellie, and teaches cave and CCR cave there. What separates him from the other Riviera Maya cave instructors in the forums is the setup: a ScubaBoard CCR cave report describes "an amazing location for training including a classroom, a pool, gear room and very close access to the training caves", and others call it a cave diver B&B — divers stay on site and train from it, which is the arrangement most often mentioned when people recommend him. He is named alongside Jon Kieren as one of the two instructors people are pointed to for technical training around Tulum and Playa, and as "a top notch instructor" in threads on planning full cave in Mexico. One recommender notes he lived in Florida cave country for a long stretch, which comes up as a reason American students find him easy to train with. TripAdvisor reviewers describe him as incredibly patient, an excellent role model with, in one phrase, perfect form in the water, and single out the detailed geological briefings he gives before each dive — the caves as a system to be understood, not just a line to follow. One describes working through cavern training with him to rebuild weighting and technique from the ground up.