Campana
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Akumal Day 4: Sistema Sak Aktun
Grand Cenote was dive one this day. It is somewhat commercially developed and is on the Coba Road, 4 km from 307. The intersection is in the village of Tulum. Pulling up to a well marked, fenced area, passing through a gate unless its locked, one sees some new restrooms to the right about 50 meters and a typical home to the left about 50 meters. The home is typical in that there are open doors and windows, and a T.V. blaring. The cemented stone path is a good one, and meanders down to the new stairs, which are very commercial looking. If youve ever been to Peacock Springs in Florida, the stairs are very similar, which is definitely not typical for Mexico. After a couple of left turns, there is a very large wooden platform, and entry is made from any of three sets of stairs, one of which are the type with a central vertical part and crossing steps which can be negotiated with fins. The water in the Cenote is gin clear, and the bottom is clearly visible. Snorkeling is very popular here. Open water divers must be accompanied by a guide to enter the water. Gerrard mentions in his book that the entry is difficult and is a 20 meter walk, followed by another walk and a climb down a long ladder. This was obviously before the stairs were built.
On this trip, the B team (the other guys, consisting of J, L, M, and S) were accompanied by none other than Steve Gerrard, the author and photographer of the book The Cenotes of the Riviera Maya who was photographing them for a very reasonable fee; so they went off to do their thing. The A team, consisting of me, Roger, L, and K, went with Yayo for the usual excellent line map and dive plan.
This cave is considered to be one of the best. It is decorated everywhere with tall columns, wedding cake looking Speleothems, packed in stalactites, and many zillions of soda straws which are tiny, hollow, drip formations which look exactly like, uh, soda straws. Needless to say they are delicate; another reason for staying close to the line unless there is ample space and your buoyancy is excellent. There is a lot of flow stone formations, which look like melting cake icing was flowing down the wall and froze. The initial part of the cave looked like snow covered fir trees, and Sak Aktun means white cave.
There were three jumps, and we left two jump spools for our later dive. There was some discernable flow in tighter spots, but for the most part, none. There is no need to hurry on this dive, there is so much to see. Sometimes Cave Divers get into a penetration mode, and start swimming too fast in an effort to have a good penetration number in their log book. Here, that is particularly useless.
After 50 minutes, the dive was turned, nearly everyone had reached 2200 psi, and the total for the dive was 97 minutes, 40 foot maximum, average around 30 feet probably. At the end of the dive I disassembled my backplate, wing, and doubles and removed a 4# V weight, leaving one in place. I then exhausted my tanks and checked buoyancy and found I was fine. In the process, I lost a plastic buckle that I had borrowed from Yayo and which I used to secure my light.
Dive 2: Calimba to Grand Cenote. After the usual good lunch, we returned to a mosquito infested spot in the jungle. The little buggers cloud around and for a minute I thought I had skin bends until I noticed everyone else scratching and slapping. I brought out the Repel and it works really well. I try to avoid it because I dont like introducing any chemicals into the cave, but here, you can either do it, put on your wetsuit early, or suffer.
The opening to Calimba is interesting. It is a dry cave with a low section in which one has to bend over with all gear on. It is not a long section, however, and soon the pool starts. The cave line is visible albeit only slightly as it is tied to a stalactite. The cave is very twisty and tight here, a lot of buoyancy practice occurs. It is best, again, to swim very slowly. For about 50 minutes, there is a lot of tightness. Then we came to a snap and gap which Yayo had mentioned might or might not be in place. This consists of a karabiner with line wrapped around it, and which is at the beginning of the gap. One diver takes the end of the line and swims across a visible gap and attaches it on the other side, then it is clipped off. In our case, it was already there, so we continued. I was in the lead after this, and felt uneasy, as I had never been in this part of the cave and was trusting Yayo that the snap and gap was the turnaround point. In the lead also means setting the pace, with which I am not that comfortable. Some of my dive buddies are meanderers and some are penetrators, and I dont have enough experience yet to know how fast to swim. If Im uneasy, I tend to swim faster, but being more of an endurance person than a speed person, I might also go too slowly. This mental aspect detracts from the dive. The snap and gap was the decision point in the dive, by the way. If we had reached thirds before the snap and gap, we would have turned the dive.
On our way out, we overtook another dive team. They appeared to me to be doing some drills with reels, and were off to the side. I thought I might pass them, but they took off right before. One of them was flutter kicking, and kicking up silt. This was annoying to say the least. They also stopped a lot. I dont know what they were doing, but it was bothersome.
Upon exit, after finding the lost plastic buckle, we had to hustle, as Grand Cenote was closing. There is a danger that the owners will charge for the exit, even though one already paid that morning for the entrance; and it would have been permissible to stay all day. Yayo had brought them a small gift provided by the trip organizer, Connie LoRe; to try to insure their cooperation. Evidently it helped, we didnt have to pay again.
In Mexico, there is a lot of what might be called graft in the U.S. and which might be superficially objectionable to us gringos. The gift provided by Connie is an example. As my ex brother in law Pepe said, You have to oil a machine to make it work, no? It is best to look at it in the Mexican way, just oil the machine and enjoy. Another time, we were sort of induced to shop at a certain rode side shop, which happened to be run by the daughter of the Cenote owner. We shopped and enjoyed, they got what they wanted, and we got what we wanted.
Grand Cenote was dive one this day. It is somewhat commercially developed and is on the Coba Road, 4 km from 307. The intersection is in the village of Tulum. Pulling up to a well marked, fenced area, passing through a gate unless its locked, one sees some new restrooms to the right about 50 meters and a typical home to the left about 50 meters. The home is typical in that there are open doors and windows, and a T.V. blaring. The cemented stone path is a good one, and meanders down to the new stairs, which are very commercial looking. If youve ever been to Peacock Springs in Florida, the stairs are very similar, which is definitely not typical for Mexico. After a couple of left turns, there is a very large wooden platform, and entry is made from any of three sets of stairs, one of which are the type with a central vertical part and crossing steps which can be negotiated with fins. The water in the Cenote is gin clear, and the bottom is clearly visible. Snorkeling is very popular here. Open water divers must be accompanied by a guide to enter the water. Gerrard mentions in his book that the entry is difficult and is a 20 meter walk, followed by another walk and a climb down a long ladder. This was obviously before the stairs were built.
On this trip, the B team (the other guys, consisting of J, L, M, and S) were accompanied by none other than Steve Gerrard, the author and photographer of the book The Cenotes of the Riviera Maya who was photographing them for a very reasonable fee; so they went off to do their thing. The A team, consisting of me, Roger, L, and K, went with Yayo for the usual excellent line map and dive plan.
This cave is considered to be one of the best. It is decorated everywhere with tall columns, wedding cake looking Speleothems, packed in stalactites, and many zillions of soda straws which are tiny, hollow, drip formations which look exactly like, uh, soda straws. Needless to say they are delicate; another reason for staying close to the line unless there is ample space and your buoyancy is excellent. There is a lot of flow stone formations, which look like melting cake icing was flowing down the wall and froze. The initial part of the cave looked like snow covered fir trees, and Sak Aktun means white cave.
There were three jumps, and we left two jump spools for our later dive. There was some discernable flow in tighter spots, but for the most part, none. There is no need to hurry on this dive, there is so much to see. Sometimes Cave Divers get into a penetration mode, and start swimming too fast in an effort to have a good penetration number in their log book. Here, that is particularly useless.
After 50 minutes, the dive was turned, nearly everyone had reached 2200 psi, and the total for the dive was 97 minutes, 40 foot maximum, average around 30 feet probably. At the end of the dive I disassembled my backplate, wing, and doubles and removed a 4# V weight, leaving one in place. I then exhausted my tanks and checked buoyancy and found I was fine. In the process, I lost a plastic buckle that I had borrowed from Yayo and which I used to secure my light.
Dive 2: Calimba to Grand Cenote. After the usual good lunch, we returned to a mosquito infested spot in the jungle. The little buggers cloud around and for a minute I thought I had skin bends until I noticed everyone else scratching and slapping. I brought out the Repel and it works really well. I try to avoid it because I dont like introducing any chemicals into the cave, but here, you can either do it, put on your wetsuit early, or suffer.
The opening to Calimba is interesting. It is a dry cave with a low section in which one has to bend over with all gear on. It is not a long section, however, and soon the pool starts. The cave line is visible albeit only slightly as it is tied to a stalactite. The cave is very twisty and tight here, a lot of buoyancy practice occurs. It is best, again, to swim very slowly. For about 50 minutes, there is a lot of tightness. Then we came to a snap and gap which Yayo had mentioned might or might not be in place. This consists of a karabiner with line wrapped around it, and which is at the beginning of the gap. One diver takes the end of the line and swims across a visible gap and attaches it on the other side, then it is clipped off. In our case, it was already there, so we continued. I was in the lead after this, and felt uneasy, as I had never been in this part of the cave and was trusting Yayo that the snap and gap was the turnaround point. In the lead also means setting the pace, with which I am not that comfortable. Some of my dive buddies are meanderers and some are penetrators, and I dont have enough experience yet to know how fast to swim. If Im uneasy, I tend to swim faster, but being more of an endurance person than a speed person, I might also go too slowly. This mental aspect detracts from the dive. The snap and gap was the decision point in the dive, by the way. If we had reached thirds before the snap and gap, we would have turned the dive.
On our way out, we overtook another dive team. They appeared to me to be doing some drills with reels, and were off to the side. I thought I might pass them, but they took off right before. One of them was flutter kicking, and kicking up silt. This was annoying to say the least. They also stopped a lot. I dont know what they were doing, but it was bothersome.
Upon exit, after finding the lost plastic buckle, we had to hustle, as Grand Cenote was closing. There is a danger that the owners will charge for the exit, even though one already paid that morning for the entrance; and it would have been permissible to stay all day. Yayo had brought them a small gift provided by the trip organizer, Connie LoRe; to try to insure their cooperation. Evidently it helped, we didnt have to pay again.
In Mexico, there is a lot of what might be called graft in the U.S. and which might be superficially objectionable to us gringos. The gift provided by Connie is an example. As my ex brother in law Pepe said, You have to oil a machine to make it work, no? It is best to look at it in the Mexican way, just oil the machine and enjoy. Another time, we were sort of induced to shop at a certain rode side shop, which happened to be run by the daughter of the Cenote owner. We shopped and enjoyed, they got what they wanted, and we got what we wanted.
