We don't make it to....

(post for Tuesday, Oct. 6)
Today was a disappointing day for cave diving, but having said that "disappointing" is a little too strong a word. The dives were both enjoyable in their own ways but I did not get that sense of Accomplishment that comes from a successful cave dive. What is "successful?" To me, in cave diving, it means that if you have a destination as a goal for the dive you actually reach it. Today's dives I did not reach the planned destination on either one. On previous trips, I had seen these places so it is not like I am still waiting to see them.

Our first dive was in Dos Ojos, to do the l-o-n-g stage dive from the west eye of Dos Ojos all the way (4,500 feet) to cenote Tikim Chih. I'd done this dive last year so I remembered most of the markings and turns. Because of this (I guess) Connie put me as lead diver of Team #2... laying reels, markers, etc. It was our same team of four, Sandra J, Sandra H, and Dave. We make it to the air dome in approx. 45 minutes into the dive, right on time. A brief pause to drop stage tanks, and some grouping changes. Our two teams are split up into four, to account for different air consumption rates. The plan now is to do the 2,000 feet to Tikim Chih in pairs and turn (as a pair, not the 4-team) if thirds are hit. My partner typically has as good air consumption as I do, so I was uber confident we'd make it. But...

The dive continued from the air dome and within the first three minutes the other pair of our 4-team calls it and returns to the air dome. I think there was an issue with a gas leak or ear problem... can't remember which. So the two of us continue on. 15 mintes later we pass the half-way marker. We pass another half-way marker 150 feet later (there's a story there, I'm sure!!) At 28 minutes into the dive, another dive pair ahead of us calls on 3rds and turns around... this didn't surprise me as I knew their consumption was higher. But two minutes later, my partner calls the dive which was a surprise as I didn't suspect anything could be wrong. Well, the golden rule of cave diving applies here as it does any other time: "Anyone can call the dive at any time for any reason." Turned out that her inflator hose had been leaking and she'd lost a few hundred PSI over the course of the dive. We were just four minutes short of the goal, but calling the dive is irrefutable. Connie was surprised, as her mini-team of 3 were the only ones to make it to Tikim Chih. Se la vie.

Second dive was at Calimba, a very small (and murky) cenote right on the main highway out of Tulum. One of the things I love about Calimba is the landowner's welcoming attitude towards the divers. He will light a candle for us in the shrine entrance of the cenote, as a blessing to wish us safe passage. I think Simone Lipscomb posted a picture of the candle-lit shrine on her blog last year, if you want to see a picture. To pass by all the idols while wearing scuba gear, and then to see the candle lit for us... well, for some reason it feels humbling.

My dive team this time included Sandra and Tommy, one of the divemasters(?) working at Aquatech. Our plan: follow Connie's team as they wind their way to Bosh Chen cenote. The best parts of the cave are in the large highly decorated rooms leading up to the cenote exit. I have nice video of this dive from last year, a snippet of which I posted on this blog back then.

I won't go much into diving Calimba itself, as I've posted about it at least once before. But I will mention that it is narrow most of the time, and has more minor restrictions (tight spaces) per kilometer than other parts of the Sistema Sac Aktun I have visited. Not that this is a deterrent... not in the least! I enjoy the challenge of restrictions whenever I encounter them. The Calimba line has the world famous "Boa Constriction" minor restriction. You don't remove gear to navigate it, but it is pretty bendy.

Well... as the title of this blog goes, We Don't Reach Bosh Chen. On this dive, Tommy was leading and though we reached the Bosh Chen line, he called the dive only a few minutes onto it. Problem with his inflator valve or so he said. Great disappointment as the best and most beautiful passageways were just ahead. We were nowhere near Bosh Chen.

All in all, a fun day, but disappointing because the goals I set weren't met.

The Blue Abyss

Often talked about as one of the most spectacular cave dives a certified full cave diver might do in Mexico, the Blue Abyss is this amazingly HUGE cave room filled with salt water (below 50 feet) with depth ranging from about 15 feet all the way down to 240 feet. The nearest open-air entrance is over 2,500 feet away. Clarity of the water is unbelievable and is what gives Blue Abyss that stunning azure glow in our bright HID lights.

There are many ways to get to this room, but if you don't want to use scooters from the Nohoch nah Chich cenote, then the best way to do it is to go from Pet Cemetery cenote. We followed the Pet Cemetery cavern line then jumped to the main line which I think is initially part of "X"-line. From there we jumped onto Diaz line which took us within one short jump to Blue Abyss. We did this as a stage dive, not because of the distance but as an added safety precaution because of the depth we would encounter in the Abyss itself.

Diaz line has the "King Pong restriction" which although short, does tend to cause some divers more difficulty than one would expect. Even with a stage rig on my left hip, I had no trouble negotiating King Pong in either direction. In fact, I had so much fun doing it that if I were by myself I would've turned around and did it again... several times. I was thoroughly enjoying this dive!

Sometimes when I tell my friends what cave diving is like and describe cave passage restrictions like this in detail, they start looking at me like they're thinking "There's something fundamentally wrong with this guy." Whatever. Some people like watching basketball. Other people like visiting museums. I happen to love negotiating very small holes in a water-filled cave, 1000 feet from the nearest exit to air and sunlight.

After a long swim you arrive at Blue Abyss from a passageway at a shallow 15 feet or so. There is tannic fresh water there which somewhat limits visibility, but then you float over the precipice and ... whoa! The edge of the world drops off and there is this gorgeous blue water below you.

The dive to Blue Abyss is now in hot competition for being Best Dive of the Week -- it was way cool. As agreed before we started the dive, Bill and I were to partner together once we got to Blue Abyss since we were the only two using non-enriched air. (For those who don't understand, if you use an enriched oxygen mixture in your tanks a.k.a. "nitrox", it limits the depth you can dive. On regular air, you can "safely" dive to about 210 feet -- with nitrox, it is less depending on how much oxygen has been added.) Bill stated only that "we can go down deep, but if there is nothing more to see when I reach a certain depth, I'm going to stop descending." Seemed sensible to me, so that is what we did. So on arrival, all six of us went to different parts of this enormous sinkhole knowne as Blue Abyss. Bill and I sunk down to a depth of 117 feet at which point he signaled that was enough. Up we went slowly, back to the only entrance at the top.

Apparently the bright lights from all of us touring around was a spectacular sight for anyone who was on the upper levels. The cave is very, very dark and the walls not so reflective but with that many bright lights it apparently looked like a disco. I didn't get to see that spectacle from my point of view, or not exactly, because I was on the bottom level. Still, I couldn't help but be in awe of the sheer size of this place, and admire that there could be a place on land over 100 feet wide and 240 feet tall, all filled with water.

I would have been happy to stay longer, but everyone started heading out as if the dive had been called (I don't know if it actually was); we just started shuffling out slowly like the curtain had been closed and it was time to leave the theater.

Total dive time was 97 minutes and because of the time it took to drive to and from Pet Cemetery, it was the only dive we did today.

Blue Abyss is a "must dive" for any full cave diver. Five Stars. I will be back.

Footnotes

When I said I was diving on non-enriched air, it wasn't exactly true. I picked up my set of doubles from the standard air pile, not from the nitrox stack. Because I anticipated diving as deep as 200 feet, I decided to test the air with my nitrox tester "just to be sure" and GOOD THING I DID! Turns out that I had a 26% mix in there! It could have been a fatal error if I'd only assumed the tanks contained 21% and dove to 200 feet on that mix. According to the tables, the 26% is only safe to 138 feet on PO₂=1.4 or 156 feet on PO₂=1.6. I usually dive 1.6.

My right post regulator apparently has been going bad for some time now. My first clue was that it "hisses" (almost imperceptibly) when you first open the valve but it does it only for 15 seconds then never again the whole dive. However, my 2nd stage/inflator was leaking a little bit (only when 10 feet depth or shallower) and I'd always thought it was the inflator that was just being finicky. On my way in to Blue Abyss my 2nd stage was leaking ever so slightly more than it usually does and down to 19 feet. Well, after some diagnosis tonight I determined it was the 1st stage which is probably over-pressurizing the low pressure side. My 2nd stage/inflator worked fine on another 1st stage regulator. Tonight I'm going to swap out the questionable 1st stage and replace it with the one on my open water regulator, which I'd been using for my stage bottle. Today was the last day for stage dives so I don't need 3 regulators anymore this trip.

Even though Blue Abyss and cenote Pet Cemetery are part of Nohoch nah Chich (which is, effectively, part of Sistema Sac Aktun now) the cavern is accessed from the Dos Ojos main entrance from highway 307. It's a l-o-n-g way into the jungle on a rough road. I sat on both my towel and my wetsuit to cushion the bumpy ride, which probably saved my backbone from a trip to the chiropractor.

The fees to visit Pet Cemetery may be the highest of all cenotes in the region at a whopping 200 pesos. Fortunately with the current 14:1 exchange rate that means it is only about US $14. However that's still pricey compared to Grand Cenote (120 pesos), Dos Ojos (120 pesos) and Nohoch nah Chich (150 pesos). However the new facilities there are excellent and very cleanly maintained. They were still under construction when we visited today and the electric lights didn't work yet, but hey, the toilets flushed and they even had a high quality toilet paper in the stalls. Sure beats a hole in the floor of a palapa with four see-through walls and a can of sawdust!

153 Minutes, 9000 Feet

Today's dive was a stage dive starting at Dos Ojos, to cenote Tikim Chi. I won't say a lot about this dive because most of the details are extremely technical. Stage diving is when you carry one (or more) extra bottle of air with you, to the left of your torso. The reason for "staging" on this dive was to extend our dive time beyond what we'd normally have in our two back-mounted air tanks. There are other reasons to stage, but this one was for the distance.

Tikim Chi is a whopping 4500 feet away from Dos Ojos. That may not seem like a lot to you, but try swimming that distance underwater with 130-150 lbs of gear! And I should mention there was a slight, but noticeable upstream current pushing against us.

I didn't realise the distance when we were first told of the dive, and didn't know it until I passed by two opposing line arrows which read as follows: "Dos Ojos - 3250 feet" "Tikim Chi - 1250 feet" Fortunately we had a break each way at a not-quite-halfway point, an air dome right on the main line. It was at this air dome that we stashed our stage rigs before the final push to Tikim Chi.

Of the six divers on the team, four made it to Tikim Chi. Two others who knew they may not have enough air before they started, called thirds and turned although they were a scant 150 feet or so from the goal. Normally we don't break up a team when a dive is called, but this had been discussed before we left the air dome and we were in effect two teams heading in the same direction. After a few minutes of quiet reflection at the Mayan Temple at Tikim Chi, we swam back. All six reconvened at the air dome before taking the 45 minute swim back to Dos Ojos.

When we initially arrived at Dos Ojos for our dive at 8:30am the place was deserted. We were the only ones there. When we returned on the dive to the West Eye three hours later, the place was packed with divers and snorkelers. There was even another team of three going in with double stages. Dos Ojos is a diver's playground. A bit expensive to visit, but well maintained and good facilities.