kanonfodr
Contributor
Wow, nice report so far, Kathy! Next???
Peace,
Greg
Peace,
Greg
Mx trip report
- Thread starter kathydee
- Start date
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Kathy ... your trip report rocks! 
OP
And the 5 week adventure down in Mexico continues… It started June 4th and with a heavy heart, I pried myself away from the cenotes & the Zero Gravity GUE Cave Instructors to head back home on July 10th.
Even after 10 full days diving the Cenotes, there is no way to satisfy this building addiction for caverns and caves, it only grows stronger with each dive! We dove pretty much every cavern, and kicked a little ways down a number of cave lines, then even repeated some of the most beautiful caverns several times: Eden, Taj Mahal, Dos Ojos, Pet Cemetary, Grand Cenote, Carwash Choc Mool, Temple of Doom, and Angelita.
9 days were guided by GUE Cave instructor: 6 days with Danny, 2 days with Fred, 1 day with Chris and a 10th day was guided by NACD instructor Dennis. I also caught a few OW days in the ocean, a number of dives for the science project, and another couple of days of pratice drills in the OW cenotes.
Part IV - A Very Gentle Introduction to Cave Diving in the Cavern Zone
… once the Science project week ended, Chris left for Europe. I was lucky to catch up with Danny/Fred and log more time in the magical caverns. Danny asked me where I wanted to dive – I said “well, you could keep entertaining me with your delightful guiding, which IS quite amusing…. Or, if you are up for it - you could teach me some skills that will help with Cave 1, which would make all those long hours slaving on the science project worthwhile” [grin]!
So as you can guess the next morning (after some coaching) -- reel in hand I was running around the parking lot of Carwash attaching line to every open/closed station I could find ;-). A couple of practice lines, lots of generous feedback from Danny, tons of laughs, and eventually the line ran smoother. After a few dives running line up/down stream at Carwash and a night to sleep, Danny and I headed back to Eden reel in hand, into intoxicating halocline. More line, more detailed feedback, and more multi-tasking. It was quite a challenge but great fun! Danny has quite a knack of leaving you with a big smile & the feeling that you’ve just been complimented, while slipping you a long list of improvements complete with practical justifications ;-). On the final dive of the day we dropped the reel and floated to the top of the cavern to explore the wonders of the halocline -- That day it became quite clear who my future Cave 1 instructor is ;-). Danny is fantastic!
Me and Danny
Fred is an awesome instructor too and really helped polish up my Fundies skills, but the next day with him at the Cenote Angelita was anything but relaxing. I think Angelita is absolutely the most ominous place I’ve ever visited on this planet. A must do!!
Angelita is about 200ft deep and 300 ft across. There is a 100ft diameter acess hole from the top – the rest of the pond’s diameter is overhung by black rock. There is a low vis layer then clear slightly brown tinted water with about 150 vis down to a opaque layer of Hydrogen sulfide gas creating a false bottom at about 100ft. A conical shaped “island” formed or organic material about 100ft long and covered with dead black tree remenents) pierces the center of the gas layer. I borrowed these pics from the internet to illustrate. But they don't do the evil vibe justice ;-/!
We step off the rock lip of Anglita plunging into the dark water about 15ft below. Drop down through the low vis surface layer, soon our eyes adjusted to the lower light, the black pitted wall, the clear (150+ vis?) slightly brown water-- it was all quite goth like. We continue to decend down to 90 ft, and stopped just above the thick hydrogen sulfide gas layer that looked like fog from a mythical evil bog, and headed across the yellow gas “botom” to the island The whole scene was like some artists rendition of Hades, much darker than the photo.
For about the first 10 minutes of the dive I think about how I can increase my SAC rate to hit min gas and get the heck out of that spooky place, and wonder why in the world people trade reef diving for that forboding atmosphere. I try to look for something happy to calm my nerves but there are only a few little fish clinging to the evil black trees - everything else is dead. I certainly feel a bit out of place in my pink drysuit. As time passes I relax enough to kick around the god forsaken place and slowly start to become intrigued with the darkness of this underworld. We split our NDL bottom time between 90 & 70 ft then ascend in the middle of the clear pool, with the darkeness of the overhanging black walls pressing in. Fred has me shoot a very dramatic mid water SMB when we hit 50ft.
Even after the plunge into darkness at Angelita and the desensitization to this dark eerie underworld. A bit of uneasiness still persists down in those water filled chambers. At Danny’s suggestion, I explored the feeling. My conclusion from this meditation is that doing drills in the new tanks/environment will build the needed confidence. Danny smiles when he hears this, and as you can imagine, the next dives include pratice drills ;-).
The next day Danny and I head back to the cavern line in Taj Mahal; this time I am in lead. Next we do two more dives in which I run line down to connect to two separate cave lines. Danny lets me penetrate down the cave lines for 1 minute before turning. OMG -- it’s so beautiful in those enchanted liquid filled decorated chambers! What a tease! I want to keep going - but diligently turn the dive as planned -- pausing to do practice drills with Danny on the way out.
We surface from the dive the set of so/so drills, detailed debrief and some tips for improvement. Humm, I notice we have plenty of gas -- so turn to Danny and in a very sweet voice ask, "can we do it again ;-)." His eyes twinkle and he says "the drills?" I shoot him a kind-of-innocent- look and reply "yeah and don’t we have enough gas to kick down that cave line again ;-)?" He considers it and grinning says, "sure, why not."
I recalculate my gas and you can bet I kick twice as hard once I hit that main cave line & my 1 minute penetration allotment -- just to see what is around the next bend ;-). My drills at the exit are twice as good which made us both happy. At lunch I admit to kicking twice as hard just to catch a peek around the next bend. Danny cracks a big smile, and shakes his head -- He knows I am hopelessly hooked!
The final day Danny and I head back into the wondrous cavern loops at Dos Ojos with 200+ ft vis ;-). Since I'm borrowing pics from the internet here these will give you an idea of what it looks like:
Kicking off the cavern line, reel in hand, to tie into the cave line – another 1 minute penetration down the cave line past the plastic crocodile eating the Barbie (for those of you who have been there ;-). Then we surface, debrief, recalculate gas and glide through the splendor of those beautiful decorated chambers on the darker, smaller cavern line to the left. Surfacing again, we again debrief, recalculate gas and head for the downstream line. I run the line down, tie into the main line – then we kick a little ways in along the cave line. On exit he tosses in a surprise lights-out drill. Good fun and Danny says a good indication of what's to come in Cave 1 ;-).
Showing up off-season in Mx had its advantages - despite clouds of mosquitoes, bottles of bug spray, oppressive sticky heat and the downpour of tropical depressions in the steamy jungles -- The GUE instructors had time for guiding and were quite generous ;-), the cenotes are quiet, and hotel/car rental prices are low ;-)! It turns out you can dive cenotes during almost any condition!
Hope you are all having a good summer so far! I’m looking forward to catching up with some fun cold water diving!
Even after 10 full days diving the Cenotes, there is no way to satisfy this building addiction for caverns and caves, it only grows stronger with each dive! We dove pretty much every cavern, and kicked a little ways down a number of cave lines, then even repeated some of the most beautiful caverns several times: Eden, Taj Mahal, Dos Ojos, Pet Cemetary, Grand Cenote, Carwash Choc Mool, Temple of Doom, and Angelita.
9 days were guided by GUE Cave instructor: 6 days with Danny, 2 days with Fred, 1 day with Chris and a 10th day was guided by NACD instructor Dennis. I also caught a few OW days in the ocean, a number of dives for the science project, and another couple of days of pratice drills in the OW cenotes.
Part IV - A Very Gentle Introduction to Cave Diving in the Cavern Zone
… once the Science project week ended, Chris left for Europe. I was lucky to catch up with Danny/Fred and log more time in the magical caverns. Danny asked me where I wanted to dive – I said “well, you could keep entertaining me with your delightful guiding, which IS quite amusing…. Or, if you are up for it - you could teach me some skills that will help with Cave 1, which would make all those long hours slaving on the science project worthwhile” [grin]!
So as you can guess the next morning (after some coaching) -- reel in hand I was running around the parking lot of Carwash attaching line to every open/closed station I could find ;-). A couple of practice lines, lots of generous feedback from Danny, tons of laughs, and eventually the line ran smoother. After a few dives running line up/down stream at Carwash and a night to sleep, Danny and I headed back to Eden reel in hand, into intoxicating halocline. More line, more detailed feedback, and more multi-tasking. It was quite a challenge but great fun! Danny has quite a knack of leaving you with a big smile & the feeling that you’ve just been complimented, while slipping you a long list of improvements complete with practical justifications ;-). On the final dive of the day we dropped the reel and floated to the top of the cavern to explore the wonders of the halocline -- That day it became quite clear who my future Cave 1 instructor is ;-). Danny is fantastic!
Me and Danny
Fred is an awesome instructor too and really helped polish up my Fundies skills, but the next day with him at the Cenote Angelita was anything but relaxing. I think Angelita is absolutely the most ominous place I’ve ever visited on this planet. A must do!!
Angelita is about 200ft deep and 300 ft across. There is a 100ft diameter acess hole from the top – the rest of the pond’s diameter is overhung by black rock. There is a low vis layer then clear slightly brown tinted water with about 150 vis down to a opaque layer of Hydrogen sulfide gas creating a false bottom at about 100ft. A conical shaped “island” formed or organic material about 100ft long and covered with dead black tree remenents) pierces the center of the gas layer. I borrowed these pics from the internet to illustrate. But they don't do the evil vibe justice ;-/!
We step off the rock lip of Anglita plunging into the dark water about 15ft below. Drop down through the low vis surface layer, soon our eyes adjusted to the lower light, the black pitted wall, the clear (150+ vis?) slightly brown water-- it was all quite goth like. We continue to decend down to 90 ft, and stopped just above the thick hydrogen sulfide gas layer that looked like fog from a mythical evil bog, and headed across the yellow gas “botom” to the island The whole scene was like some artists rendition of Hades, much darker than the photo.
For about the first 10 minutes of the dive I think about how I can increase my SAC rate to hit min gas and get the heck out of that spooky place, and wonder why in the world people trade reef diving for that forboding atmosphere. I try to look for something happy to calm my nerves but there are only a few little fish clinging to the evil black trees - everything else is dead. I certainly feel a bit out of place in my pink drysuit. As time passes I relax enough to kick around the god forsaken place and slowly start to become intrigued with the darkness of this underworld. We split our NDL bottom time between 90 & 70 ft then ascend in the middle of the clear pool, with the darkeness of the overhanging black walls pressing in. Fred has me shoot a very dramatic mid water SMB when we hit 50ft.
Even after the plunge into darkness at Angelita and the desensitization to this dark eerie underworld. A bit of uneasiness still persists down in those water filled chambers. At Danny’s suggestion, I explored the feeling. My conclusion from this meditation is that doing drills in the new tanks/environment will build the needed confidence. Danny smiles when he hears this, and as you can imagine, the next dives include pratice drills ;-).
The next day Danny and I head back to the cavern line in Taj Mahal; this time I am in lead. Next we do two more dives in which I run line down to connect to two separate cave lines. Danny lets me penetrate down the cave lines for 1 minute before turning
. OMG -- it’s so beautiful in those enchanted liquid filled decorated chambers! What a tease! I want to keep going - but diligently turn the dive as planned -- pausing to do practice drills with Danny on the way out. We surface from the dive the set of so/so drills, detailed debrief and some tips for improvement. Humm, I notice we have plenty of gas -- so turn to Danny and in a very sweet voice ask, "can we do it again ;-)." His eyes twinkle and he says "the drills?" I shoot him a kind-of-innocent- look and reply "yeah and don’t we have enough gas to kick down that cave line again ;-)?" He considers it and grinning says, "sure, why not."
I recalculate my gas and you can bet I kick twice as hard once I hit that main cave line & my 1 minute penetration allotment -- just to see what is around the next bend ;-). My drills at the exit are twice as good which made us both happy. At lunch I admit to kicking twice as hard just to catch a peek around the next bend. Danny cracks a big smile, and shakes his head -- He knows I am hopelessly hooked!
The final day Danny and I head back into the wondrous cavern loops at Dos Ojos with 200+ ft vis ;-). Since I'm borrowing pics from the internet here these will give you an idea of what it looks like:
Kicking off the cavern line, reel in hand, to tie into the cave line – another 1 minute penetration down the cave line past the plastic crocodile eating the Barbie (for those of you who have been there ;-). Then we surface, debrief, recalculate gas and glide through the splendor of those beautiful decorated chambers on the darker, smaller cavern line to the left. Surfacing again, we again debrief, recalculate gas and head for the downstream line. I run the line down, tie into the main line – then we kick a little ways in along the cave line. On exit he tosses in a surprise lights-out drill. Good fun and Danny says a good indication of what's to come in Cave 1 ;-).
Showing up off-season in Mx had its advantages - despite clouds of mosquitoes, bottles of bug spray, oppressive sticky heat and the downpour of tropical depressions in the steamy jungles -- The GUE instructors had time for guiding and were quite generous ;-), the cenotes are quiet, and hotel/car rental prices are low ;-)! It turns out you can dive cenotes during almost any condition!
Hope you are all having a good summer so far! I’m looking forward to catching up with some fun cold water diving!
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Magical !
Thank you for taking us with you
Thank you for taking us with you
mikeguerrero
Guest
Unbelievable, no wonder you are in love...
Oh, you are so gone . . . but you were before you left.
If you don't like dark cave, stay away from Naharon!
If you don't like dark cave, stay away from Naharon!
OP
Ben_ca
Contributor
Welcome back... very nice reports and just like DB said thanks for bringing us with you
You're making the six months until I go back seem like forever!
Glad you had such a great time Kathy and thanks for sharing your experiences with us! At least I can dive vicariously through you.
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