Labna-Ha revisited

Second day of cave diving and my third visit to the famed Labna-Ha. The owners are expanding their development of the land for tourists so someday soon I might have to call it "Labna-Ha Resort and Spa." For now they do mostly snorkeling, jungle tours and a Zip line. I'm not sure exactly what else they are planning but it does look enterprising. They're currently building a welcome center and 20-car parking lot on the main highway.

Their property is 3-4 miles back on a very bumpy Mexican road. Its more like a limestone trail that cars can ride on, but I suspect as Labna Ha and Nohoch nah Chich (which shares the same road) gain popularity/prosperity, the road will improve. It sure beats the donkey rides through the jungle that the first cave divers had to do. That was a few years before my first visit to Nohoch.

Anyway.

This week being a small-ish group of only six divers, Connie took us in one group down the main line. Dive was called predictably on 3rds, by the same diver who always does, exactly 60 minutes into the dive. And according to Connie, called only 15 feet short of our goal which was a "T" in the line, though I didn't see it myself. It was a fun dive and long at 119 minutes, but wasn't as enjoyable as having gone with Micael with Sergio leading last month. Smaller teams just make better cave dives.

We did lunch made by Labna-Ha staff, which was good as always; then the zip line into a dry cave cenote which was fun (but short) as always; and a tour of the dry cave led by Sergio. It amazes me that I have been on his tour of the dry cave three times now, and each time he talks about completely different aspects of cave geology and history.

Footnotes

Footnote 1: Hmm... I was off by my estimation of this week's median age. Everyone else is well into their 60's. Being decades younger in a sport predominated by an older crowd, my ability to estimate age has been thrown off somehow.

Footnote 2: I played with the Dive Rite LED 500 some more in this cave. Yes indeed, the light does not penetrate through the water as cleanly as my HID. I am pretty sure the reason is the colour temperature difference! HID is a broad spectrum light with strong output in blue and near-ultraviolet. As these are colours that water filters out last with distance, HID simply goes further. However I should note that not all LED's run at the same colour temperature and there are some LED that are more blue-ish. But my initial impressions of the Dive Rite LED 500 are: It makes a truly excellent back-up primary or primary substitute but it can't replace a 10 Watt HID.