- Messages
- 93,294
- Reaction score
- 91,370
- Location
- On the Fun Side of Trump's Wall
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
This year I did something Ive wanted to do since I got cave-certified in 2009
travel to the Yucatan area of Mexico to dive in the caves there. I joined a group of 11 other divers, most from Cave Country Diving
who are from the part of Florida where Ive been doing my cave dives since I got trained. Flying from Seattle to Dallas, and then on to Cancun, I joined my group in Akumal
a small town about 70 miles south of Cancun, and just across the straits from the island of Cozumel. We were staying in a resort called Villas de Rosa, which is literally on the beach just a short drive from the cave systems wed be diving. My dive buddy Eric was coming from Texas, and this would be our first time diving together.
Arrival day was set aside for getting organized, arranging our gear, our schedule, and getting to know each other a bit. I was surprised to see that about three quarters of our group would be diving sidemount, which apparently is catching on in a big way among cave divers. So we spent the afternoon getting our tanks set up, and doing weight checks in the resorts swimming pool. Odd to be diving in a swimming pool with a gorgeous ocean beach a hundred yards away, but we needed to do our weight checks in fresh water.
After breakfast we set out for our first day of cave diving, at a system called Nohoch na Chich. This system was chosen for our shakedown dives because its relatively large, and would allow folks some degree of freedom to make adjustments between dives and get their equipment just exactly right. It also happens to be stunningly beautiful. I had opted not to bring a camera on this first day a decision I regretted almost as soon as I entered the cave, but one that was probably the correct decision to make. It gave me a chance to get familiar with my dive buddy, our guide Chris, and these oversize aluminum beer cans they call scuba tanks down here.
Our first dive was simplicity follow the mainline. Unlike Florida they dont use gold line down here looks like somebody just took a big-ass reel and ran it down the central passage. So one has to pay attention not to lose sight of it, particularly since a lot of the jumps off to the side passages are literally inches away from the main line, exactly the same kind of line, and it would be easy to find yourself suddenly following a line that wasnt the one you thought it was. Now I understand what people mean when they say that navigation is the biggest challenge diving the caves in Mexico. For sure the low-flow, shallow caves themselves offer easier conditions than what Im used to in Florida.
And theyre gorgeous jaw-dropping, oh-my-God, supermodel gorgeous. From the moment we got inside the cave the scenery was non-stop amazing. Giant stalactites and stalagmites, like melted wax drooping from the ceiling, or climbing from the floor, striving to meet each other some barely a fingers-width apart midway in the cave, others having joined long ago to become fluted columns, some standing alongside their neighbors looking like artistic jail cells, others joining together to form walls. Openings and side-passages beckoned mysteriously come this way, see what wonders lay beyond a siren call that is almost irresistible. Massive formations, formed by millennia of patient water drops slowly taking shapes both familiar and otherworldly that one over there looks like the statue of a human. This one like a cat, an elephant, or a Buddha sitting with arms folded. Slender columns of limestone supporting delicate canopies enticed the eye and tickled the curiosity what wonders lay beyond? This is a world that Dali or Tolkien would have been comfortable with wouldn't have surprised me at all to see Gollum come swimming around the corner.
Our second dive was even better than the first, jumping off the mainline and going down a side passage that just seemed to go on and on. We turned that dive after about an hour, and who knows how many hundreds of feet of non-stop eye-popping splendor. Im torn between the desire to return to this cave with a camera, and risking what I would miss by not experiencing one of the many other cave systems available to us this week. But were off to a great start.
This is a world most people will never get to see one that most dont even know exists. And for all the wonders Ive seen in my travels on four continents, this is beyond anything Ive ever experienced before. Im not a particularly religious person but this first day was a surprisingly spiritual experience. If, as some claim, this is the creation of God, then I have some words to convey to the Almighty thanks for sharing.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Arrival day was set aside for getting organized, arranging our gear, our schedule, and getting to know each other a bit. I was surprised to see that about three quarters of our group would be diving sidemount, which apparently is catching on in a big way among cave divers. So we spent the afternoon getting our tanks set up, and doing weight checks in the resorts swimming pool. Odd to be diving in a swimming pool with a gorgeous ocean beach a hundred yards away, but we needed to do our weight checks in fresh water.
After breakfast we set out for our first day of cave diving, at a system called Nohoch na Chich. This system was chosen for our shakedown dives because its relatively large, and would allow folks some degree of freedom to make adjustments between dives and get their equipment just exactly right. It also happens to be stunningly beautiful. I had opted not to bring a camera on this first day a decision I regretted almost as soon as I entered the cave, but one that was probably the correct decision to make. It gave me a chance to get familiar with my dive buddy, our guide Chris, and these oversize aluminum beer cans they call scuba tanks down here.
Our first dive was simplicity follow the mainline. Unlike Florida they dont use gold line down here looks like somebody just took a big-ass reel and ran it down the central passage. So one has to pay attention not to lose sight of it, particularly since a lot of the jumps off to the side passages are literally inches away from the main line, exactly the same kind of line, and it would be easy to find yourself suddenly following a line that wasnt the one you thought it was. Now I understand what people mean when they say that navigation is the biggest challenge diving the caves in Mexico. For sure the low-flow, shallow caves themselves offer easier conditions than what Im used to in Florida.
And theyre gorgeous jaw-dropping, oh-my-God, supermodel gorgeous. From the moment we got inside the cave the scenery was non-stop amazing. Giant stalactites and stalagmites, like melted wax drooping from the ceiling, or climbing from the floor, striving to meet each other some barely a fingers-width apart midway in the cave, others having joined long ago to become fluted columns, some standing alongside their neighbors looking like artistic jail cells, others joining together to form walls. Openings and side-passages beckoned mysteriously come this way, see what wonders lay beyond a siren call that is almost irresistible. Massive formations, formed by millennia of patient water drops slowly taking shapes both familiar and otherworldly that one over there looks like the statue of a human. This one like a cat, an elephant, or a Buddha sitting with arms folded. Slender columns of limestone supporting delicate canopies enticed the eye and tickled the curiosity what wonders lay beyond? This is a world that Dali or Tolkien would have been comfortable with wouldn't have surprised me at all to see Gollum come swimming around the corner.
Our second dive was even better than the first, jumping off the mainline and going down a side passage that just seemed to go on and on. We turned that dive after about an hour, and who knows how many hundreds of feet of non-stop eye-popping splendor. Im torn between the desire to return to this cave with a camera, and risking what I would miss by not experiencing one of the many other cave systems available to us this week. But were off to a great start.
This is a world most people will never get to see one that most dont even know exists. And for all the wonders Ive seen in my travels on four continents, this is beyond anything Ive ever experienced before. Im not a particularly religious person but this first day was a surprisingly spiritual experience. If, as some claim, this is the creation of God, then I have some words to convey to the Almighty thanks for sharing.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
!!!
