We make it to... BLUE ABYSS!!

Today, ah, today was the big day. I had posted a request months ago to (re)visit the famed Blue Abyss, a huge underwater vertically cylindrical cave that has a ceiling at 15 feet and goes down to about 236 feet. To get there is a long 45-50 minute swim from Cenote Pet Cemetery, and is often done as a stage dive due to the depth at Blue Abyss. Not everyone does a "depth charge drop" to the bottom, but having the stage bottle in the dive plan makes the option very easy.

My last visit here in February of this year was successful, and I hit 113 feet on my drop. That depth was a conservative calculation based on the fact that I had nitrox in my back gas with a M.O.D. of about 138 feet. Today my plan was to have a stage bottle filled with 32% nitrox, but only 21% air in the back gas. Maximum planned depth was, oh, whatever I felt like doing when I got there.

I was in Team #2, led by Connie. I was, as they say, the "caboose" or the last diver in the team. And the last diver to enter Blue Abyss of a total of 10 divers. To put it simply, everything went well. Very well. Until I reached the Abyss itself. There I was, getting really excited the last 200 feet of line or so, recognizing all the turns and restrictions and knowing I was really close. I pass the precipice, and... BLAM! Ear squeeze supreme! Totally unexpected. I'm screaming in my regulator "SHIT! SHIT FUCK!" as I'm trying every trick in the scuba diving handbook to get my left ear to equalize. I can't pass 35 feet... let alone drop to below 100 feet like I planned. At the same time one hemisphere of my brain is trying to deal with the problem, the other hemisphere is going "WOOOOWWW! Look at all the divers below me!" It was an amazing repeat of last year, with that beautiful almost cobalt-blue shine of the divers' lights as they tooled around the Blue Abyss. I wanted to join them in the depths... and couldn't.

Finally after about two or three minutes, I got it cleared up enough to descend. DEPTH CHARGE away! Down, down down down... down... I am watching my gauge, watching the walls slip past me... I hit 120, then 130, then 135. Then an interesting discussion started happening in my brain between the superego and the id. One side said "I feel great! Let's keep going." The other side said something like "don't be a risk taker. Put some air in that BC before you hit the bottom at 236 feet." I do some simple tests to see if I'm narced - I check my pressure gauge to see what it reads and see if I understand the number. 2500 psi. I check my pulse. Sort of racing, but I know that's from the excitement of being in Blue Abyss. I check my breathing rate. Slow, very normal. Certainly not fast enough to use up anywhere near the enormous amount of gas I've got. I check my ears and hearing. Yep, still good and I still know what that means. Very few, if any, signs that I'm getting effects from nitrogen narcosis. But common sense kicks in (darn that common sense!) and I start popping air in the BC. I hit 143 feet, and take a moment to look up at all the divers lights. Up, this time, not down!!!! Wow. I'd made it.

The trip back up Blue Abyss was uneventful, though I did get flagged for a deco obligation and did a required stop at 34 feet for a few minutes. For this dive I was using a Suunto HelO2 as my primary computer, which handles up to 8 gas mixes. I also had a Suunto Vyper set only to standard air (it won't switch mix during a dive). By the time I'd gotten back to cenote Pet Cemetery I expected the Vyper to be in error lockout, but I guess the combination of deco stop and the long 30' average depth of the passageway leading to Blue Abyss satisfied its deco algorithms.

I could've gone down further. Thinking back to it now, I wish I did. But I am here to tell the tale so I guess that is best.

To hear this tale you might think that Blue Abyss is the only thing worth seeing on this dive. That's far from the truth. The passageway is well decorated as are most of the permanent lines in the Nohoch system. Beautiful stalactite columns, pillars of rosettes scattered about. Great stuff to look at.