I have just about settled back into my normal time zone after returning on Thursday from my cave diving trip to Mexico. I though I would move quickly to write up a trip report before I get caught up in other events and end up long fingering it – or not posting one at all.
The cave dives in Mexico are awesome... with plenty of variety. This is not my first time gracing the beauty of the Mexican Yucatan peninsula, but this trip did see our dive team operate from some sites much further back in the jungle. [Wikipedia] These cave systems formed as normal caves underwater, but upper sections drained becoming air filled during past low sea levels. During this vadose, or air filled state, abundant speleothem deposits formed. The caves and the vadose speleothem were subsequently reflooded and became hydraulically reactivated as rising sea levels also raised the water table. These caves are therefore polygenetic, having experienced more than one cycle of formation below the water table. These caves are now fully flooded and offer spectacular cave diving environments.[/Wikipedia]
I landed in Cancun airport after a long 11 hour flight from Gatwick on Wednesday evening the 26th of January and was met by my main dive buddy Peter who picked me up in our rented car... a Hyundai Atos or as we lovingly referred to it “the Tuk Tuk”. We then drove to Tulum grabbed a quick bite in “Gringo Dave’s” and hit the sack.
Thursday morning the 27th we met up with Ron who was diving with us from Thursday to Saturday. We went to Akumal and had breakfast together at the Turtle Bay Cafe (great eggs Benedict and kick ass Strawberry smoothie!). On full stomachs we walked into Zero Gravity to get our twinsets, Nitrox and stages. We caught up with Fred Devos who was joining our dive team on Saturday to explore more restricted/remote sites.
Once we figured out the Tetris challenge of fitting in two twinsets and four stages plus all our extra kit into the Tuk Tuk we steamed up the road to Cenote Taj Mahal. This Cenote is quite close to Zero Gravity and we had agreed as a team to use it as our shake down site. We wanted a location from which it would be easy to get back to ZG just in case something failed... and Peter’s high pressure hose did! We had a spare (thanks Ron) and we fixed it in the surface pool of the cave entrance.
Once all other gear was tested in 2m of water and all team members were happy that their gear had survived transportation (took about 20 min of in water checks) we turned down the main cavern line at Taj with the “Waterfall” at the end of the line in our sights of the dive plan. This waterfall is actually a halocline waterfall... where the salt/fresh water mix comes out of the wall at the end of the mainline. We took all right turns on the cavern line T’s then tied in our reel at the end of the cavern line and headed past the “divers/die” warning sign... found the cave mainline and tied in. We then followed the mainline and passed by the jump to the “Chinese garden” which was our target for the second dive. After 45 minutes of navigating some fantastic cave passages we hit the end of the line. It stops dead in the wall. We could see a very thick halocline in the water column above our heads – but there was no visible flow out of the wall... so the Waterfall effect was not there this time! We turned the dive and headed out... leaving our reel tied in as we were planning a return trip back onto the mainline as dive 2 was heading for the Chinese garden. We exited the cave and surfaced into daylight, dive one had a 90 minute runtime and everything was running smooth.
Dive 2 started around 1h: 30min later. Gear check done we headed back up to the mainline and this time we turned onto the jump for the Chinese garden. I was diver 1 so ran in the spool from the mainline over to the jump. Cookies and markers down we headed into the splendour of the Chinese garden. This section of cave is truly breath-taking and features stalagmite and stalactite formations which are very closely gathered together and resembles... yes you guessed it... a Chinese garden! We continued down the jump line and hit two T’s and turned left on each T. On the second T the system narrows down into a very thin chamber with thousands of formations all along the roof and floor... almost like entering into the jaws of an alien beast’s mouth. The dive was thumbed just as I was half way through this section so we turned for daylight just on 50 minutes of runtime. We emerged into daylight on the 92nd minute. Fantastic two dives in the bag and a great day of shakedown dives. We headed back to Zero Gravity and refilled all our stages and twinsets. Peter bought a new SPG hose and installed it.
Friday the 28th we headed for Cenote Car Wahs. We had heard of a cave section on the downstream line known as “Satan’s Silt Hole” it was meant to be very tight and restricted as well as potentially very silty if one was to screw up their fining etc. We decided to head to the Room of Tears on the upstream line on the morning dive and save the silt hole until the second dive. The lines in Car Wahs are set way back into the submerged entrances and it took us a little while to find the upstream line. We tied in the reel and headed up the system. We dropped our stages and tied in the jump at the “Rabbit hole” and navigated into the Room of Tears. This is a great section of the cave with really fantastic formations. We continued on the line and added in another jump and added a few T’s. We did not encounter any Halocline on the way in. When the dive was turned we were very far back into the system. On the way out I suddenly noticed we were swimming through a Halocline... thinking that was “strange” my spider senses started to tingle... no halocline in... but one on the way out? We are in the wrong fecking passage... Bo$$oc&s!! In what felt like less than 1min from this deduction we came across an unmarked T. This means that we were travelling over a section of cave that we had not marked. I signalled the team to turn around and head back along the line we had been travelling on.
The team responded immediately and we began retracing our steps. Within two minutes of the about turn Peter’s light failed! I of course started to laugh – it was typical. I think I threatened the cave with a dose of C4 at that stage if it didn’t start to behave itself... Peter deployed his backup light. Within a few seconds Peter was moving forward again on his backup scout. Ron was in diver 1 position and had moved over on a jump that snaked back above into a tunnel directly above our heads (these caves are like Swiss cheese). Peter signalled that Ron had gone up the jump. I stopped on the line we were on just opposite the jump; held my position while shining my light back up on Ron. He returned after a minute and signalled that that was not the route. Just as we resumed momentum back on the line we turned a corner and could see our markers on a T. We were back on track – we now knew the way home and to daylight. We exited in good order and there were no further mishaps on the exit. When we emerged into daylight we tried to post mortem (no pun intended) how we missed the T. But disappointingly no one could put forward a good reason as to why that T was missed. Mexico we knew placed a huge challenge on navigation and you just couldn’t take it for granted as there are so many passages and lines, some tied only inches away from each other – so if you’re asleep at the wheel it is potentially very easy to move onto the wrong line. We knew that and were being careful – it never happened again – but it disturbed us all that we couldn’t see why what happened happened. Nevertheless we were all grateful to be in a position to talk about it and we were all very happy with the fact that we kept focused, kept our heads and stuck to our training – the team had held it together and we had survived a potentially very dangerous event.
Dive 2 in Car Wahs was just Ron and I as Peter’s torch was screwed (turned out to be a failed cell in his battery). As we were descending into the downstream cave entrance at the bottom left side of the Cenote we noticed a meter long Crocodile swimming straight for us... luckily were are not superstitious considering the morning we just had. I was keeping a very close eye on this pre-historic creature approach us when from the corner of my eye I noticed a Turtle swimming just below my nether regions. F8ck!! In the blinking of an eye I realised the potential collateral damage that might occur if the Croc got a little confused in his food chain. I reached down grabbed that Turtle and shoved him away to my left hand side as fast as I could. That Turtle moved like a bat out of hell and the Croc turned his line of sight towards him. However in a couple of seconds the Turtle had disappeared behind a collapsed tree trunk, the croc turned away in disgust and then proceeded to rise to the surface (around 5 meters above our heads). He placed himself into an S shape with only his eyes and snout breaking the surface and his tail whipping to rotate his vantage point. We watched on in fascination but then decided that discretion was the better part of valour and headed into the cave. We tied into the line just beyond the “divers/die” sign and proceeded with a very tight, winding and twisting cave diving journey. T after T and jump after jump we laid down our markers and jump spools while observing our anti-silting techniques to ensure the visibility in Satan’s Silt Hole did not turn to pea soup. There was a very mild halocline effect in the cave passages and almost the entire 90 minutes were spent in seriously tight restricted cave. I loved every minute of it. We exited the dive with a huge smile on our faces... awesome cave and really challenging on our navigation and fining technique. It was great to have that level of intensity on this dive right after the difficulties encountered during the morning. It really was a case of; if you fall off the horse... get back up! We headed back to Zero Gravity and refilled our twinsets and stages.
Saturday the 29th we met with Fred Devos at Zero Gravity who was joining us for our dives today as we were moving into caves deeper into the jungle. We loaded up Fred’s 4x4 truck and with Ron and I standing in the back and Peter in the comfort of the passenger seat we rolled over the roughest road in the universe to get to the remote dive site of Tux Kupaxa. This is an awesome cave system featuring a few ancient bone sites within the cave passages. The cave is too far inland to have any significant Halocline. I have included a link to a YouTube video of this cave system... unfortunately this is not my video (more on that later) but it will give you a good understanding of what this cave looked like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840sD_TJ-Mw . Our dive in this network lasted just over 2h:15min and I loved every last second of it. We came across the sloth and Mammoth bone sites which just made the exploration of this system even more rewarding. We exited the dive on a huge high. This cave will definitely see us return to it in the future – there was just so much more to see.
Dive 2 on Saturday saw our team repacking Fred’s truck, emerging from the jungle to head over to Cenote Aktun Koh. This site is rarely dived by cave divers; the passageways are tight and thick with silt. A wrong fin kick here would cause huge silt outs. On the plus side the cave is very pretty, but restrictive and a definite challenge to navigate without causing said silt out. Carefully and cautiously we proceeded into this system. We really enjoyed this cave. On the 50th minute we turned the dive and headed back through the system to find daylight. On the return we came across a seriously restricted passage... Fred signalled the team and we came over to a spot on the cave floor where Fred was indicating for us to “take a look”... we were floating above the remains of an ancient Mayan. What looked to be the shoulder bone and a few other “bits”. The remains were just visible in the heavy silt. If the cave continues to silt up these bones will disappear from view very shortly. But as we “only look” and “do not touch” we did not try to reveal any other parts of the remains. We treat human remains with the utmost of respect so we continued to exit the dive... breaking into daylight and the cool early evening air just after the 95th minute of the dive. Ending an awesome day of cave diving. A big “shout out” goes to Fred Devos for his help and assistance in getting our team into these amazing dive sites.
Sunday the 30th our team reduces down to a team of two as Ron had to head back to Boston. So Peter and I head for Grande Cenote. On dive 1 we headed down the left cavern line and tied into the mainline with our reel and moved along the system and took the jump towards and past Cenote Hotol ending up surfacing in Cenote of the Star... which was a lovely treat. After a bit of a chat on the surface pool of this Cenote we submerged back into the system and headed back to Grande Cenote. We surfaced into daylight just after the 97th minute of actual dive time. Great dive and great fun!
Dive 2 in Grande Cenote; this time we took the first jump over to Paso de Lagardo (lizard pass) this section of the cave section was much smaller and tighter than the passageways of the mornings dive... Peter and I loved it. After a blissful 104 minutes we returned to the surface of the Grande Cenote. Another fabulous day of cave diving was in the bag.
Monday the 31st we arrived early at Zero Gravity loaded up the Tuk Tuk with our twinsets and stages and headed onto the track road to Cenote Minotauro. This Cenote is almost directly behind Zero Gravity but down a long dirt track road. We arrived at the site where we met a Spanish cave diving team receiving instruction from a non GUE instructor. We kitted up and headed into the surface pool to quickly cool off as the weather was getting very hot... dry suits with 30 degrees C air temp are a tough combination! We executed two dives almost back to back upstream. The cave passages were fantastic... a great mix of large passages followed by tight restrictive points. Our first dive ran at 98min and we quickly changed tanks and in less than 15 minutes we proceeded with dive 2. Dive 2 lasted a full 90 minutes and was just as enjoyable as the first. We pushed a few extra jumps on the second dive and we were rewarded with fantastic passageways and really interesting cave sections.
When we surfaced after dive 2 we recalculated our gas and decided we could try to go a little on the downstream line. Boy were we glad we did. The downstream passageways were very tight, and were going all over the place. The lines were laid fairly crazily and we were dropping cookie after cookie. The dive was quite shallow – these winding, tight passages were averaging at max depth of 5 meters so we were getting great mileage out of the dregs of our twinsets from the aftermath of dive 2. We exited Cenote Minotauro just after 40 min of a wonderful dive 3. The only annoyance was that on the return leg of this dive my light started to fail... the cord began to flick the bulb on/off whenever I moved my arm. We could exit safely (I held the cable in place) but I had to get a replacement light from Zero Gravity for the final day of diving. Despite the pain of the light cord failing Monday was yet another really excellent day of cave diving.
That evening we headed into the town of Tulum on a quest. A mission often spoken about (if you can find it?) to find the “blue house” opposite the “massive tree” in the town. This house provided shelter to a small Mexican lady who spoke no English but held in her possession the coveted key to gain access to the fabled dive site known as Jailhouse. Simply; nothing more than a glorified muddy hole in the jungle which yields an opening into a massive cave system. Luckily Peter and I found the house. Again luck was on our side as Pete speaks fluent Spanish and was able to negotiate possession of the key overnight... so all we had to do was head down the road to find Jailhouse in the morning (after a tasty breakfast in the Turtle Bay cafe!).
Tuesday morning the 1st February we find the muddy puddle of Jailhouse and meet another 2 man team just about to enter the cave. In less than 30 minutes we were following in their footsteps. The entry sight was real “zero vis” as we proceeded down the line through a huge swirl of silt... The whole basin is one giant silt hole and so the only way to get into visibility is to keep in touch contact with the line and push down into the system. At around 9m deep and just before the first T on the line we broke through into reasonable visibility. Dive 1 we went left on the first T and took the next two rights on the following T’s. Simply stunning cave passageways opened up to us and we really had a great dive. We turned and exited back to the silt hole entrance after completing a 10 minute decompression stop at 6m in almost complete zero visibility.
Dive 2 followed in just under 45 minutes... we again entered the system in zero vis, we tied off our 100% O2 deco stages on the line at 6m and this time headed down the system with a right turn at the first T. This cave section got a little tighter and was a slightly more challenging dive. We took the right at the next T. Really great dive and we finished it off with a 10 minute deco stop on 100% O2 just to help wash out our systems before taking our flights the next day.
Thus unfortunately ended a great week of cave diving. Awesome caves, fantastic dive buddies a few challenges thrown in but all overcome through great team diving and following proper procedures. The only other events to report was Peter’s expertise in bribing a local Mexican Policeman to forget about a speeding offence – this is apparently the way the Metropolitan police like to do business. The exact same situation occurred last year in March on our first Mexican cave diving trip. Peter is one smooth customer when it comes to making the police take the cash and walk away. It never ceases to outrage me, but luckily Peter is much more philosophical about the Mexican police.
The only real negative of the entire trip was the loss of my underwater camera on my BA flight from Cancun to Gatwick. I have been ringing BA lost property every day since my return - but absolutely no joy. So that means I lost about 1h of unreal video and approx. 25 really good underwater photos. That is a serious pain in the rear!
Finally I realise that cave diving is not for everyone (or most people in fact)... but there are very few activities that one can do that gives such a feeling of accomplishment upon emerging from the constant submerged darkness back into the stunning bright daylight and fresh air of the jungle. Meeting the challenge of these fascinating and difficult/deadly environments is hugely satisfying and rewarding.
My name is Michael and I am a cave diver.
