Diving in Cancun

[spratman]

Howdy all!

Just got back from our annual venture to Cancun. We were at a different resort with a full view of the Caribbean. Spent every morning with the lovely misses watching the sunrise with coffee. Had to be at least 80 degrees every morning and 95% humidity....

Where to start....well, first of all, I decided to buy an underwater housing for my A70. Housing came in the Friday before I left, but it was the wrong one. Damn! Got an RMA, they got the wrong one back, sent me the correct one. It came to my house the day we left. Okay, bad timing.

Flight was no problem, except for my wife's hating to fly. We got to our resort about 4pm. Rang up my two buddies down there and by 8:30 they showed up with plenty of beer for our catch up time.

Sunday morning my buddy from the dive op called and asked if we (my son and I wanted to do a couple of reef dives. So, we headed out. Water was crappy from the hurricane, but at least we were diving! Water 80+ degrees, which is always a nice break from DS...viz was about 10m. Not much to see.

Monday I was headed out for another set of dives, but ended up missing the shuttle do to some communication issues. Oh well, spent time with the wife at the swimming hole. Had a couple of drinks and a nice dinner. So far, so good...

Tuesday I went to PDC for a cenote dive. An hour and a half drive with a Brit and two folks from Jersey. We chatted quite a bit and drove back into the jungle. Not quite what I envisioned for jungle though. Smaller trees, sandy soil and poisonous snakes.

I always wondered what the attraction was for cave divers into the dark realms of no light. If I had made not a single dive more, it was the most incredible experience I've ever had diving EVER!! Only problem I had was jumping in that freakin water that was 30 degrees different from my body temp!! I had a 2.5 mil shorty and it didn't do a thing. Took me 10 minutes before I got my breathing back to normal...WOW, that was cold! 70 degrees constant.

Chac Mool is the northern most cenote of the ones that are regularly dove. It is named after the Mayan rain god. Our cave guide was a Mayan and added much detail prior to the dive. On the first dive, we dove the room called Little Brother. Incredible diving into the light cavern, got one semi decent picture with a crappy throwaway camera. The rest if forever burned into my brain. We followed the gold line about the back of the room and down through an extended section of halocline. Seemed like forever getting through that. Our guide told us he believed his gods were on the other side of it. Good enough for me!

We saw stalagtites in the ceilings with layered passages going back as far as the light would travel. Catfish were one of the other occupants in the cave with us. Still the light could get in through the Ojos (eyes) in the ceiling. I was fascinated that our cave guide always spoke of all the eyes you could see from the air. As with Florida, most of Mexico is sitting on underground rivers. Ojos are just sink holes that allow entrance into the dark domain. We finished dive one just amazed at what we had just saw. We broke for lunch and a needed hot SI!

The driver provided lunch that consisted of hard rolls about a foot long, a couple of slices of unknown meat with carrots (?) and some delicious hot peppers in oil. I slathered on the peppers feeling confident that they would kill of an bad stuff in the sammiches!

Back down for the second dive. The entrance to the cenote was tricky, especially when wet from schlepping up and down the chiseled out steps. Second dive was much more comfortable for me. This time we were going back into the big room. No natural light entered this room. I had a pair of SL6's and it throws a laser beam. It was probably lost half way across the room. I saw one stalagtite about three meters long and just hovered looking at it, thinking how many thousands of years it took to form it. Totally fascinating!

The second thing I noticed upon entry into the large room was the silence. I don't know if the blackness heightens you senses to the feeling on solitude, or just the lack of divers thrashing around. We navigated up into the ceiling into an air pocket. Thoughts of NJTony's experience of giant cave spiders jumping on our heads immediately flooded my mind. Then, again, the incredible silence...shining our lights around at the stalagtites just inches from our heads, catfish banging into our lights, and small spiders on the ceiling. A tree root grew through the top of the room a gave it one of those great creepy tingles that runs up your back. All the time looking back through the small cracks filled with smaller stalagmites as far as the eye could see. I was just waiting for that big eyed Golum to pop out!

We dropped back down and went through another halocline and made our way out. Incredible experience. When we got back I told my wife about everything, and she said, well, I guess that means you are taking your cave training next year....HELL YEAH!!

My buddy called me on Weds. afternoon and talked me into a night dive. Usually these are good for octopuses, an occasion shark and lobsters. Not so, this night...I was more apprehensive about this because it was my son's first night dive. My buddy told me that the current was non-existent and they dove it a couple hours before and it would be awesome. We broke out into two groups, myself, my son and my buddy, the other group was the DM and two folks from Missouri that I met up with on SB.

We dropped into the water, started to head for the bottom, maybe 15m, and we are sucked into a 3+ knot current. My son was completely vertical and was moving swiftly off into the darkness. This was his fifth dive and was clearly out of control. I swam like hell to catch up to him and pulled him down to the bottom. MAN! I was freaked on that one! We sank down behind a coral head and still had problems hanging on. Again, as soon as we got out behind the coral head, WHOOSH, off he sailed again. Scared the heck out of him! The second dive on a different reef, which neither of us did, was very nice.

Did one dive Thurs. afternoon with my son and daughter. She had done a resort course in the morning. They both did extremely well on an hour dive. Another SNAFU with a camera, but I've already droned on enough....

Next year, more cenotes!!

Jack

[NJdiverTony]

Hey there Jack!

Great report! I told you that you'd like Chak-Mool! Too bad that you didn't get the big ass cave spiders crawling over your head, like I saw when I dove it a couple of years ago! LOL! Did the guide show you all the fossil's in the ceiling when you surfaced into the air pocket? Chak Mool was my favorite dive in Mexico.

[spratman]

Yeah, we did look at those. They have opened a new cenote to the public. It apparently was a sacrificial pit that contains human and goat bones in it. Really freaking deep too, like 170m! You'd need some serious gas for that or a death machine...

[Surelyshirly]

Nice trip Jack!

[hambleto]

Welcome to the dark side... FL caves are different though..

[BILLB]

Jack,

Great to see you got in some serious dives between the margaritas! I would love to do Cenote dives. When are you going back?

[spratman]

Well, I'm looking forward to checking out the Florida caves system. The guide told me that the Chac Mool system is the best for cave diving in Rivera Maya. I'm stoked!

Bill,

We usually make a once a year venture down. My parents have a time share in Cancun. I have a friend that is retired Brit Army that runs a vacation service for the guys in Belize. He has excellent rates for 5 star resorts, and he will book trips for anyone, but obviously caters to military people, current or former. His name is Al Mason. He can be found at www.britsincancun.com.

My other buddy has a dive op and it's the best in Cancun IMHO. Ben is also a Brit and has a fast boat and great staff. Asidro is his boat captain and cave guide. Really knowledgable. He can be contacted at benrmooney@yahoo.co.uk. His web site has been jacked again and will hopefully be back to normal shortly.

If you are just interested in cenotes, then I would recommend www.diablodivers.com in PDC. Dennis is a very reputable cave guide and has recently purchased www.aquanauts-online.com.

I would love to do another trip earlier in the year, but it's getting my wife on a plane that is the problem.