Campana
Guest
Logistics of the Riviera Maya Cave Trip
The morning just didnt start out right. I found the DFW website on the morning of my flight to Mexico just in time to find out that my flight had been changed. It was earlier by over an hour. After going into panic mode, I woke up Michele and let her know the excellent news that she would now have to be rushed in the morning, which she does not tolerate well. However, we made it just in time for me to be thoroughly searched, X Rayed, scanned, and patted down and to get the good exit row seat that my large body likes. The American Airlines flight was on time, and I got stuck into the chute of immigration and customs in Cancun rather quickly, and spit out the other end in short order. Oh good, now I'm standing out in a sort of Mexican garage with 500 other folks, some of whom are holding up signs that say stuff like "Moon Palace" or "Shelly Blackstone", and about 100# of loose duffle bags which were unsupported by the non delivered luggage cart that I had ordered and been assured would indeed be there by Friday. So, I just stand there for 3 hours, with the sun getting lower on the horizon and my paranoia increasing. "I must be a crack head to fly down to Mexico, by myself, to spend a week with 8 strangers, cave diving, rooming with some guy I've never met." Later, at the appointed time, I see the "Aquatech, Villas DeRosa" sign and eagerly head over to find and meet again with Nancy DeRosa, owner of Villas DeRosa, cave explorer, and former resident of California. Then I look for L and K, whom I was to identify by their pink t shirt (hers) and a certain color bag (his). I was so glad to see them that I whistled and hooted "L..." while she eyed me with fear and distrust, since I was not wearing the Orange cap as promised and looked kind of haggard, I'm sure.
We drove the 60 miles to Villas DeRosa at top speed, Nancy behind the wheel, starting to chat each other up, and when we arrived, I met my roommate Roger for the first time. Well, I guess he looks OK. Then the first of many excellent dinners, served in a "common room" where J and L, another couple on the trip, were housed. The common and L and K's room were extremely spacious, pleasant, and had a kitchen, living room, dining room, bath, and bedroom, with a sliding door that opened onto the beach and the ocean, which I didn't get in for the whole week.
Later, after finding out that Connie LoRe, the American guide, was returning home the next morning because of a family emergency, and our guide was to be Gonzalo Vaccalluzzo, my original Open Water Instructor. Everyone who knew Connie was very upset and sad that she wouldnt be joining us, but as far as a substitute, I couldn't have been happier, since I love Gonzallo and knew him to be extremely helpful, supportive, and easy going. We dressed out our tanks, which consist of a set of Aluminum 80 doubles, a V weight or two, later reduced to one 4#er, and then got the plan for the first dives in the morning and went back to get to know each other. Besides L and K, Roger and I, and J and L, there were a couple of other guys on the trip, S and M. The home states represented were Ohio, Colorado, Texas, and Michigan. Uh-oh, Yankees.
Roger and I developed a pattern of talking, eating cookies and chocolate chips, drinking pops and then shutting out the lights by 10 PM almost every night. The next morning, the gear was tied on a flat bed truck by Gonzallo and Roberto, our driver, and we headed out to Chac Mool, the first dive. That afternoon, after returning to Villas DeRosa for an excellent lunch served in the common, we went to Taj Mahal. Every day after that, we did two dive sites, usually returning to the common for lunch, but two days staying at the site for a second dive and then returning.
We agreed to split into two teams of four, and after a sort of discussion and debate, agreed that if anyone had a difficulty, the four person team would exit together. The winner of the discussion was K, who was later gently chastised and teased for attempting to exit with L and to persuade, using hand signals only, Roger and I to continue the dive. It didnt work, we all exited, and Roger and I snuck off and did a freebie on the downstream (I think) of Aktun Koh.
All dive sites are within 30 minutes of Villas DeRosa, for the most part. There is a short ride on the excellent highway 307 (I think) and then some sort of turnoff, and then some sort of gate, house, or something, and then a usually very rough ride down some sort of private road. Even Nohoch Nah Chich which used to require a long walk now has a road. Toting your gear down some of those paths to the cenotes is from easy to very difficult, most kind of in the middle. Many have some sort of concrete steps, and several have wooden platforms or even gear tables set up. Entry is usually a choice of giant stride or going down a primitive ladder assembled from local materials. Exit varies from walking up rather nice steps to crawling out in the mud on your belly, dignity suffering in the process.
After 6 days of diving, the trip is over, and they take you to the airport for the ride home. The Cancun Airport was a mess, tons and tons of Gringos wanting to spend Christmas on the beach.
I had no complaints about the divers, the lodging, the guiding, or the diving. I made 7 very good friends, and Gonzallo was fantastic. I got to know him a little better, and I believe everyone shared the opinion that he is a wonderful guide. If he said a dive was going to turn at around 50 minutes, or that a dive would end at 120 minutes, he hit the nail on the head literally to the minute. His swimming speed could be characterized as very, very, slow. He was kind, helpful, and accommodating in the extreme. Roberto, the driver, is a Mayan who appears to be around 14 years old, but is really 20 something. He was very quiet, polite, and when tipped at the end of the trip, seemed to be dying of embarrassment.
The air consumption match of this group was nothing short of astounding, in my opinion. Of course, cave dives are called on 1/3ds, that is, the dive is turned around when the first diver uses up 1/3 of the available air. This rule allows 1/3 for exit and 1/3 for emergencies, such as your buddy suddenly losing all available air at the farthest point in. Well anyway, I would watch my gauge needle hit the mark for 1/3s, then wait for the needle to travel across that tiny black mark, then note the time and then look up to call the dive, and more than 5 times, someone else would be calling the dive at that very instant. After the first dive, everyone had nearly exactly the same air.
Food varied a bit, but was all good, in my opinion. The Yankees looked very skeptical about the Chicken Mole, but for the most part, everyone ate most of the food. The amounts were spot on, and we were never stuffed and never hungry. Chocolate chip cookies were everywhere, since we had brought around 30# of chocolate since the Mexican chocochips are sort of not very good.
Rooms varied from huge to very small. Roger and I had a very small room, with two twin beds, which was very amusing on the last night when we had our gear spread out drying. It looked like a bomb went off in a scuba store. Rooms have AC, a small refrigerator, where you keep your water bottles and Roger kept his Cokes, and the emergency supply of chocochips were in there too.
Instructors at Villas DeRosa are pretty much well known. The other team had the good luck or foresight or something to get Steve Gerrard to accompany them on a dive to take photos. Steve is a cave explorer and wrote and photod the must have book for this trip, The Cenotes of the Riviera Maya. There are NACD and GUE instructors there, and you can take DIRF, GUE Cave I and II, or Cavern through full cave, probably with full choice of agency. The instructor rates looked a smidge higher than the cut rates in Florida. The only down side to receiving training in Mexico is the consistently shallow depths, which might not prepare a cave diver for Florida or other deeper sites. There is also almost zero flow, so no experience would be gained that would help you in, say, Ginnie.
I believe that this covers logistics. Connie LoRe is allegedly an excellent organizer, cook, guide, and diver, and her trips are on a regular schedule which can be obtained on her website along with information about Villas DeRosa. I vouch for her organization skills, but unfortunately have to rely on the word of my compadres on the other points.
Best wishes to Connie, Roger, Gonzallo, L and K, J and L, M and S. Also to Nancy DeRosa, owner of Villas DeRosa.
Dave (Campana)
The morning just didnt start out right. I found the DFW website on the morning of my flight to Mexico just in time to find out that my flight had been changed. It was earlier by over an hour. After going into panic mode, I woke up Michele and let her know the excellent news that she would now have to be rushed in the morning, which she does not tolerate well. However, we made it just in time for me to be thoroughly searched, X Rayed, scanned, and patted down and to get the good exit row seat that my large body likes. The American Airlines flight was on time, and I got stuck into the chute of immigration and customs in Cancun rather quickly, and spit out the other end in short order. Oh good, now I'm standing out in a sort of Mexican garage with 500 other folks, some of whom are holding up signs that say stuff like "Moon Palace" or "Shelly Blackstone", and about 100# of loose duffle bags which were unsupported by the non delivered luggage cart that I had ordered and been assured would indeed be there by Friday. So, I just stand there for 3 hours, with the sun getting lower on the horizon and my paranoia increasing. "I must be a crack head to fly down to Mexico, by myself, to spend a week with 8 strangers, cave diving, rooming with some guy I've never met." Later, at the appointed time, I see the "Aquatech, Villas DeRosa" sign and eagerly head over to find and meet again with Nancy DeRosa, owner of Villas DeRosa, cave explorer, and former resident of California. Then I look for L and K, whom I was to identify by their pink t shirt (hers) and a certain color bag (his). I was so glad to see them that I whistled and hooted "L..." while she eyed me with fear and distrust, since I was not wearing the Orange cap as promised and looked kind of haggard, I'm sure.
We drove the 60 miles to Villas DeRosa at top speed, Nancy behind the wheel, starting to chat each other up, and when we arrived, I met my roommate Roger for the first time. Well, I guess he looks OK. Then the first of many excellent dinners, served in a "common room" where J and L, another couple on the trip, were housed. The common and L and K's room were extremely spacious, pleasant, and had a kitchen, living room, dining room, bath, and bedroom, with a sliding door that opened onto the beach and the ocean, which I didn't get in for the whole week.
Later, after finding out that Connie LoRe, the American guide, was returning home the next morning because of a family emergency, and our guide was to be Gonzalo Vaccalluzzo, my original Open Water Instructor. Everyone who knew Connie was very upset and sad that she wouldnt be joining us, but as far as a substitute, I couldn't have been happier, since I love Gonzallo and knew him to be extremely helpful, supportive, and easy going. We dressed out our tanks, which consist of a set of Aluminum 80 doubles, a V weight or two, later reduced to one 4#er, and then got the plan for the first dives in the morning and went back to get to know each other. Besides L and K, Roger and I, and J and L, there were a couple of other guys on the trip, S and M. The home states represented were Ohio, Colorado, Texas, and Michigan. Uh-oh, Yankees.
Roger and I developed a pattern of talking, eating cookies and chocolate chips, drinking pops and then shutting out the lights by 10 PM almost every night. The next morning, the gear was tied on a flat bed truck by Gonzallo and Roberto, our driver, and we headed out to Chac Mool, the first dive. That afternoon, after returning to Villas DeRosa for an excellent lunch served in the common, we went to Taj Mahal. Every day after that, we did two dive sites, usually returning to the common for lunch, but two days staying at the site for a second dive and then returning.
We agreed to split into two teams of four, and after a sort of discussion and debate, agreed that if anyone had a difficulty, the four person team would exit together. The winner of the discussion was K, who was later gently chastised and teased for attempting to exit with L and to persuade, using hand signals only, Roger and I to continue the dive. It didnt work, we all exited, and Roger and I snuck off and did a freebie on the downstream (I think) of Aktun Koh.
All dive sites are within 30 minutes of Villas DeRosa, for the most part. There is a short ride on the excellent highway 307 (I think) and then some sort of turnoff, and then some sort of gate, house, or something, and then a usually very rough ride down some sort of private road. Even Nohoch Nah Chich which used to require a long walk now has a road. Toting your gear down some of those paths to the cenotes is from easy to very difficult, most kind of in the middle. Many have some sort of concrete steps, and several have wooden platforms or even gear tables set up. Entry is usually a choice of giant stride or going down a primitive ladder assembled from local materials. Exit varies from walking up rather nice steps to crawling out in the mud on your belly, dignity suffering in the process.
After 6 days of diving, the trip is over, and they take you to the airport for the ride home. The Cancun Airport was a mess, tons and tons of Gringos wanting to spend Christmas on the beach.
I had no complaints about the divers, the lodging, the guiding, or the diving. I made 7 very good friends, and Gonzallo was fantastic. I got to know him a little better, and I believe everyone shared the opinion that he is a wonderful guide. If he said a dive was going to turn at around 50 minutes, or that a dive would end at 120 minutes, he hit the nail on the head literally to the minute. His swimming speed could be characterized as very, very, slow. He was kind, helpful, and accommodating in the extreme. Roberto, the driver, is a Mayan who appears to be around 14 years old, but is really 20 something. He was very quiet, polite, and when tipped at the end of the trip, seemed to be dying of embarrassment.
The air consumption match of this group was nothing short of astounding, in my opinion. Of course, cave dives are called on 1/3ds, that is, the dive is turned around when the first diver uses up 1/3 of the available air. This rule allows 1/3 for exit and 1/3 for emergencies, such as your buddy suddenly losing all available air at the farthest point in. Well anyway, I would watch my gauge needle hit the mark for 1/3s, then wait for the needle to travel across that tiny black mark, then note the time and then look up to call the dive, and more than 5 times, someone else would be calling the dive at that very instant. After the first dive, everyone had nearly exactly the same air.
Food varied a bit, but was all good, in my opinion. The Yankees looked very skeptical about the Chicken Mole, but for the most part, everyone ate most of the food. The amounts were spot on, and we were never stuffed and never hungry. Chocolate chip cookies were everywhere, since we had brought around 30# of chocolate since the Mexican chocochips are sort of not very good.
Rooms varied from huge to very small. Roger and I had a very small room, with two twin beds, which was very amusing on the last night when we had our gear spread out drying. It looked like a bomb went off in a scuba store. Rooms have AC, a small refrigerator, where you keep your water bottles and Roger kept his Cokes, and the emergency supply of chocochips were in there too.
Instructors at Villas DeRosa are pretty much well known. The other team had the good luck or foresight or something to get Steve Gerrard to accompany them on a dive to take photos. Steve is a cave explorer and wrote and photod the must have book for this trip, The Cenotes of the Riviera Maya. There are NACD and GUE instructors there, and you can take DIRF, GUE Cave I and II, or Cavern through full cave, probably with full choice of agency. The instructor rates looked a smidge higher than the cut rates in Florida. The only down side to receiving training in Mexico is the consistently shallow depths, which might not prepare a cave diver for Florida or other deeper sites. There is also almost zero flow, so no experience would be gained that would help you in, say, Ginnie.
I believe that this covers logistics. Connie LoRe is allegedly an excellent organizer, cook, guide, and diver, and her trips are on a regular schedule which can be obtained on her website along with information about Villas DeRosa. I vouch for her organization skills, but unfortunately have to rely on the word of my compadres on the other points.
Best wishes to Connie, Roger, Gonzallo, L and K, J and L, M and S. Also to Nancy DeRosa, owner of Villas DeRosa.
Dave (Campana)
