Cave Diving

LEADING THE NEXT GENERATION OF DIVE TRAINING

CAVE DIVING - MEXICO 2009

In December 2009, Richard, Melody, Brian and Jeanna went to Akumal Mexico to cave dive in the cenotes.

We did Tajma Ha, Nohoch Nah Chich, Ponderosa, Jailhouse (Brian and Richard), Mayan Blue (Jeanna and Melody) and Sak Aktun

Tajma Ha

Warmup/shakedown dives. First day of trip. No video.

Dive 1 - DCS Dome - 42' :58

Dive 2 - Downstream Line - 41' :59

Dive 3 - Cavern Line - 47' :40

Sistema Nohoch Nah Chich

Nohoch was a dive I've wanted to do for several years and was incredibly excited to finally be able to dive this system. It's an extremely ornate cave, with so much speleotherms it's truly overwhelming and very difficult to take in. Pictures and video don't do it justice.

Dive 1 Jeanna and I did the mainline, beyond Disneyland and Heaven's Gate, while Richard and Melody did Parker's Line. We planned for a 700 psi penetration, but turned at 600 as we traveled a long distance and hit our limit as far as tracking landmarks. Stunning cave.

Max Depth: 27'
Runtime: :91

Dive 2 we switched. Jeanna and Brian did Parker's Line while Richard and Melody did the Main Line.

We did a 600psi penetration. The area beyond the T was absolutely mindblowing. Some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen, above and under water.

Max Depth: 19'
Runtime: :76

Sistema Ponderosa

Ponderosa is very different from Nohoch. It's not an ornate cave, but has beautiful caverns

Dive 1 Jeanna and Brian did the River Run line, going left at the first jump and straight at the T to a very low bedding plain area. We did a 600psi penetration.

Max Depth: 47'
Temp: :58

Dive 2 Brian and Jeanna did the cavern line. Ponderosa's cavern line is extensive and a beautiful dive.

Max Depth: 50'
Temp: :37

Dive 3 we did a 500psi penetration on the Little Joe line. This is a beautiful dive with many stunning cavern zones throughout the dive, an awesome halocline, as well as lots of ups and downs jumping from 55' to 15'.

Max Depth: 55'
Temp: :72

This video has footage from all 3 dives at Ponderosa

Jailhouse Cenote

We switched teams up and Richard and Brian did a stage penetration in Jailhouse while Melody and Jeanna did a couple of dives in Mayan Blue.

Jailhouse Cenote is very small and silty. You must find the line before getting in the water as it will silt up as soon as you get in. The entrance is very small, dark and silty as well. You must go in single file and it's basically mud until you hit 30'. This makes for some interesting deco at 20' on the way back. At 30' the vis opens up, but the cave is still very very dark from tannins.

For this dive, we went left at the first T, right at the second T and right at the 3rd T. We'd do a 1300psi penetration on stages, where we'd drop them, and continue on with an additional 600psi penetration on backgas.

This was one of my favorite dives of the trip. This is a challenging and gorgeous dive. The halocline is at 58' and basically makes for 2 dives. Above the halocline is very dark, while below the halocline is very white. This dive has huge phreatic tubes and rooms with large speleotherms. We turned just before a restriction ~1600' in.

We did ~:08 of deco, in a very tight, muddy exit.

Max Depth: 75'
Runtime: :90

No video of this dive. This dive had multiple navigational decisions along with a fairly long, deeper penetration which would require all of our resources. I'm not great with video anyway.

Sistema Sak Aktun

We kept the same teams as yesterday, with Brian & Richard making a stage penetration on the Paso de Lagarto jump line and Jeanna & Melody doing the main line to Ho Tul and the left line.

For the Paso de Lagarto jump, we'd do a 1300psi penetration on the stages, then continue on with 600psi on backgas after dropping the stages.

We made it to the PdL jump at about :14 and dropped the stages at ~:30 on the PdL line. We passed the jump to Bosh Chen and continued until we hit the Calimba T. We turned at the T, as we both had pretty much hit our limits for referencing the cave or tracking landmarks. We had used just under 500psi of backgas.

This dive was very similar to Nohoch, only not quite as ornate. Absolutely stunning beauty...very white and ornate.

We met Jeanna and Melody on the cavern line on our exit, exited, re-calculated gas, then did the cavern line.

Max Depth: 41'
Runtime: 1:50