FKD - Cave Diving Feb/Mar 2011

CAVE DIVING - MEXICO FEB / MAR 2011

In February 2011, Brian, Jeanna, Nick Ambrose, Jeff Seckendorf, Kim Cardenas, George Watson, John Bailey and Sergio went to visit Ela and Adam, of Cave Heaven, for 10 days of cave diving in Mexico as part of UTD Cave Week. Since the new Cave Heaven facility in Tulum isn't completed yet, we stayed in Puerto Aventuras, as it's central to many of the cenotes we'd be diving.

Jeff and Kim were taking UTD Cave 1 training from Ela. We observed their class for the first couple of days at Ponderosa, Chac Mool and Tajma Ha before breaking off for a week of Cave 2 dives with Nick at Jailhouse, The Pit, Carwash, Pet Cemetery, Dos Ojos, White River and Gran where George joined us as well.

The final tally was 20 dives with 28 hours of bottom time, with a nice mix of dives we'd done before and new-to-us dives. It's safe to say that if we weren't diving, we were returning and picking up tanks or planning the next day's dives.

The group consisted of a wide range of experience levels as well as open circuit backmount, rebreather and sidemount.

The dives we did, in order, were:

Ponderosa
Cavern and River Run

Chac Mol
Giant Dripstone and Mainline

Tajma Ha
Chinese Gardens and Upstream / Buena Vista

Sac Aktun / Gran
Cuzan Nah and Cavernas de los Colmillos

Jailhouse
Saxbe and Swiss Siphon

Dos Ojos
Traverse to Dos Palmas and Bat Cave

The Pit
Downstream and Upstream

Carwash Downstream
Satan's Silthole and Chamber of the Ancients

Carwash Upstream
Luke's Hope, Room of Tears and Adrianna's Room

White River
Downstream

Pet Cemetery
Blue Abyss (via Diaz) and Dark Side of the Moon

Check back often. We'll post pictures and videos frequently!

Pet Cemetary

Blue Abyss & Dark Side of the Moon

Arguably the best cave dive I've done. Though exhausting (2 stages, 4 hours, kicking), it was well worth the effort, though I wouldn't suggest doing this as the last dive of the trip.

We did Blue Abyss first, using a single stage and backgas, via the Diaz line, through the King Pong restriction. The trip to the Abyss features some very highly decorated and ornate cave. The Blue Abyss itself is a large hole that drops to over 200ffw. Upon arriving at Blue Abyss, we dropped to 100ffw as we were using EAN32 and didn't want to push our PPO_2.

After leaving Blue Abyss and making the trip back to the IHOP line, we switched stages and went to Dark Side of the Moon, which features some unreal highly ornate and decorated cave. After making a couple of T's leading to some of the most amazing cave I've seen, we turned for the long trip back.

Nick and Jeanna got some really good footage of both sections.

102'

:240

BG - EAN32, Stages - EAN32

Brian #1, Nick #2 (stills), Jeanna #3 (video)

BG - EAN32, Stages - EAN32

BG EAN32, 2 stages EA

Blue Abyss & Dark Side of the Moon from FKD on Vimeo.

The Pit

Logistically, diving the Pit takes a bit of planning and time. It requires a :30 drive in, on very rough terrain, followed by bringing the heavy gear (doubles, rebreathers, etc) in via ATV and a :10 minute hike, followed by dropping the gear down into the pool via pulley system.

Jeanna and I did a dive downstream, then upstream. George and Ela were doing a deep dive to the Wakulla Room and Nick was diving with Jeff. We were pleasantly surprised with both dives, but particularly the downstream dive. Very white and decorated. Upstream is fairly tight, with many very short jumps.

Downstream

44'

:86

BG EAN32, stage EAN32

Brian #1, Jeanna #2 (video)

Upstream

49'

:66

BG EAN32

Brian #1, Jeanna #2 (video)

The Pit from FKD on Vimeo.

Jailhouse Cenote

Jailhouse was a favorite of Nick and I, and Jeanna hadn't dived it yet, so this was a must do dive this trip.

Yaxbe Saltwater Passage

Dive 1 we did Saxbe saltwater tunnel, an absolutely stunning dive that I was eager to do again. The cenote itself is very small and silty, with the line tied off to a tree out of the water. The cenote silts up immediately upon entering it, so you must find the line prior to descending. Once descending you swim through a throat with very limited visibility. Once through the throat, you enter a very dark brown tannic section of cave with unique and interesting structure.

This is where the dive is almost 2 dives in one. After some time in the tannic section, you enter the halocline at ~58'. Below the halocline is the saltwater passage, which turns to a gorgeous white, blue and tan passage with beautiful decorations.

75'

:114

BG - EAN32, stage - EAN32, Deco - O2

Brian #1, Nick #2 (stills), Jeanna #3 (video)

Swiss Siphon

Nick had a massive suit flood from a large tear in his drysuit on the Saxbe dive, so he left after that dive to get his suit fixed for the next day, so Brian and Jeanna did the Swiss Siphon.

Swiss Siphon is an unmarked jump in the saltwater section. We had a general location of the jump, and after finding what looked like a logical spot to search for it, we found it within 3-4 minutes. The Siphon is some of the most beautiful cave I've seen. Extremely decorated and ornate, lacking description that would do it justice. We followed the T right to my favorite section of the cave.

We'll definitely do this again on our next trip, especially on a dive with Nick so he can see it.

75'

:93

BG - EAN32, stage - EAN32, Deco - O2

Brian #1, Jeanna #2 (video)

Video coming soon.

Gran Cenote

Cuzan Nah/ Colmillos

Our plan was to spend a full day doing 2 long stage dives. The first dive to La Boca via Cuzan Nah and Cavernas de los Colmillos and the second dive to Lithium Sunset.

This was Nick's first dive of the trip, and he had already made it clear that we had to wait for him to do any dives in Gran Cenote. Though we had picked up his tanks the evening prior, we still needed to get weights, etc that morning. Additionally, since it was a Sunday, the cenote was closing earlier than normal, so we only had time for one long dive that day.

We ended up doing Cuzan Nah and Colmillos, which I wasn't disappointed in the least to do. I'd done the PdL line past the Bosh Chen jump to the Calimba T, but never Cuzan Nah and was eager to see it.

There were 4 of us on this dive - Brian, Jeanna, Nick and George Watson, so we elected to have 2 teams of 2. However, if one team turned, both teams would turn.

To get to Colmillos, we took the gap to HoTul, then jump right, another jump right, then a hidden jump left, dropping our stages on a table rock just prior to navigating a restriction.

As I'm a big fan of highly decorated caves, I loved the area beyond the restriction. It was absolutely beautiful. We thumbed the dive at :52.

48'

:122

BG - EAN32, Stage - EAN32

Team 1 - Brian #1, Nick #2 (stills)

Team 2 - George #3, Jeanna #4 (video)

Aktun Hu / White River

Downstream

White River a pretty dive with a lot of contrast. The floor/silt is very black, while the walls and structures are white, providing some very cool scenery. This dive was recently connected to Nohoch, which is connected to the Sac Aktun system.

This dive also features a pot (age/origin unknown) and old bones of some kind of larger animal off a hidden jump.

Nick spent the day taking pictures of Ela and Adam on the downstream line, so Jeanna and I ventured downstream to see the pot, bones and whatever else the cave had to offer. We took a jump left, which was rather short and uneventful, before turning the dive around :45 in.

56'

:83

BG - EAN32

Brian #1, Jeanna #2 (video)

Video coming soon.

Carwash

Downstream - Satan's Silthole, Chamber of the Ancients

Having not done Carwash yet, this was a must-do for the trip. For its reputation as a training site, Carwash is a fairly challenging, but worthwhile and satisfying dive. Satan's Silthole we did right @ 1^st T, right @ 2^nd T and left @ 3^r^d T, looping us back to the 2^nd T, in essence creating a mini-circuit. We looped back, returned to the sign, dropped our stages, recalculated and moved over to the Chamber of the Ancients, a room featuring ancient firepits and ashes, which was very impressive.

85'

:113

BG - EAN32, Stage - EAN32, Deco - O2

Brian #1, Nick #2 (stills), Jeanna #3 (video)

Nick's strobe failed on this dive, so no pictures, but video will be uploaded soon

Upstream - Luke's Hope, Room of Tears, Adrianna's Room

Gorgeous dive past Luke's Hope and to the Room of Tears. We dropped the stages just prior to the rabbit hole jump. Room of Tears is some amazingly decorated cave. After leaving RoT, we returned to the mainline, picked up the stages and proceeded up to Adrianna's Room, which is also very impressive. We proceeded past Adrianna's Room though a couple of restrictions and turned at the T.

60'

:82

BG - EAN32, Stage - EAN32, Deco - O2

Brian #1, Nick #2 (stills), Jeanna #3 (video)

Pictures and video of Downstream and Upstream coming soon

Dos Ojos

Traverse to Dos Palmas

"We're going to get our asses kicked on the way back", says Nick after surfacing in Dos Palmas after an 84 minute swim from Dos Ojos, with noticeable flow pushing us. Now we had to swim back, against flow. NoT to worry too much, we had plenty of gas, and we weren't kicking hard on the way.

The cave was very pretty, particularly as we got closer to Dos Palmas, which I found especially appealing. We dropped our stages just after the Mott Mott jump.

After taking a quick break at Dos Palmas and jokingly (sorta) offering to pay a couple for some lunch and a ride back to Dos Ojos, we started our trek back.

Traverse to Dos Palmas

35'

:84

BG - EAN32, Stage - EAN32

Brian #1, Nick #2 (stills), Jeanna #3 (video)

Traverse to Dos Ojos

34'

:64

Video and pictures coming soon

Bat Cave / Cavern

32'

:34

BG - EAN32

Brian #1, John Bailey #2, Jeanna #3 (video)

Dive report, video and pictures coming soon

Chac Mool

Giant Dripstone

We spent a couple of dives with the Cave 1 class, then decided to go check out the "Fang", supposedly the world's largest known underwater dripstone. While the swim to the dripstone is fairly uneventful, but does remind me a bit of the River Run line in Ponderosa, the dripstone itself is quite impressive, as does the topography prior to the dripstone, with deep canyons and cliffs just past Emergency Air Cenote.

The dripstone hangs down 40-45' from the ceiling, with the floor at 85ffw.

We spent about :08 - :10 at the dripstone prior to returning.

50'

:84

BG - EAN32

Brian #1, Jeanna #2

Video coming soon

Mainline

Observed day 2 of the Cave 1 class. Critical skills / failures dive in the halocline

42'

:37

BG- EAN32

Tajma Ha

Chinese Gardens

48'

:71

BG - EAN32

Brian #1, George #2, Jeanna #3 (video)

Having done Tajma Ha, but not the Chinese Gardens area, this seemed like a good dive to try out and we were pleasantly surprised. George had arrived the evening prior and was eager to get in the water, so the 3 of us decided to hit Chinese Gardens for the first dive, while the Cave 1 students continued with their beating.

We arrived at the Chinese Gardens jump rather quickly and continued on, arriving at the Gardens at ~:40. The Gardens were very beautifully decorated. Well worth the swim

Video coming soon

Upstream / Buena Vista

Having not done the Upstream line yet, we decided to try that for dive 2, jumping up to Buena Vista. We hit the jump in ~:05 and continued toward Buena Vista, which featured some very nice white passage

48'

:75

BG - EAN32

Brian #1, George #2, Jeanna #3 (video)

Video coming soon

Ponderosa / Eden

Cavern

Shake down dive, as this was the first dive of the trip, and it'd been awhile since we were in double al80's, in drysuits. This was dive 1 for the Cave 1 students, so we simply followed them while getting acclimated.

38'

:34

BG - EAN32

River Run

Dives 2 & 3 of the day/trip. Observed the Cave 1 students' first 2 critical skills dives in the halocline of River Run.

45'

:37

46'

:63

BG - EAN32