Nohoch Na Chich (cave dive)

When people talk about the most beautiful caves to dive in the world they probably have some criteria in mind. Mine would include: multicolored formations, flowstone in all imagineable shapes and sizes including stuff I can't imagine, rooms with thousands of soda straw stalactites and walls that change character from one passage to the next. But when it comes down to it, there are probably five or so that most cave divers who visit the Riviera Maya will agree are the "best of the best." Nohoch Na Chich will undoubtedly be in that list.

For this dive, Glenn and I were required to contract with a dive shop that had a qualified cave guide on staff. Why? Apparently the landowners where the caves are situated are becoming more and more concerned about liability, both for themselves and for the caves. This can be a good thing, the caves could be better protected. But it is bad too: hiring guides is expensive and how much liability will be realised is dubious. In the end, the cave community suffers because many caves are now priced out of the reach of anything more than a one-time visit.

To make a comparison on price: our visit to Sac Aktun (including site fees, double tanks, renting a car, petrol and ferry trip from/to Cozumel) came to about $76 per person, two dives, using one set of doubles each. Protec, the company we dove with, required one set of doubles per dive and charged me for something I'd never had to pay for before: an air fill for each tank. This was in addition to the tank rental fee! Thus, the total came to $194 per person including the guide, transport, tanks, cenote fees and air fill, plus ferry trip from/to Cozumel. You can see why I bellyache about the difference in cost! Mind you, I think Protec is a really decent operation and I understand the need to make profit to stay in business. From a budget cave diver's standpoint, though, it looks like which caves we can visit is going to be a shrinking list.

Enough politics. Now about the dive.

Our guide for the trip was Dallas, a very pleasant chap with a British passport who calls Marseille, France home. We planned two dives in the upstream sections along different guidelines, making about two jumps on each dive. Access to Cenote Nohoch was by a narrow gravel road, typical and familiar to most of the cave dive sites in the area. On the way out we passed a white truck with tanks in the back; we weren't the first divers at the cave today. But it seemed like they were leaving rather early....



At the site we are greeted by the landowner representative and our fees are paid. Glenn and I are handed a sheet of paper in a protective sleeve which essentially read: "it has come to our attention that certain cave divers have take it upon themselves to change the lines and markers within Nohoch Na Chich. Let it be known that the landowners have not authorised such changes and anyone caught doing so will be banned." Apparently, the truck we passed earlier was none other than Steve Gerrard, and he had just been banned from Nohoch. Wish I were a fly on the wall half an hour ago!



Off we go. This cenote is more commonly used by AllTourNative Tours to do snorkeling. It certainly seems a nice place to snorkel but the star attraction is undoubtedly the cave system. And system it is! Dallas shows us a hand-drawn line map of the general cave plan. There are passages and jumps all over the place. A cave diver's paradise. Unfortunately, as is company policy, the first dive will be to a maximum penetration time of 45 minutes so that we can be evaluated by Dallas as to our buoyancy and competence. There are also some drills to do to demonstrate basic skills before the dive, but this is not unexpected or very noteworthy.



I will have to repeat what so many cave divers before me have already said -- Nohoch na Chich is an incredibly diverse cave with some of the most bizarre flowstone formations I've seen in the Riviera Maya. There are frozen waterfalls everywhere. Areas where the hundreds of stalactites look like upside-down pine trees, with spines all over. Complex rosettes in all shapes and larger than life.



*FLASH* *Flash* *flash* *flash* goes the camera, then *No Flash*. DAMN. The TTL card cut out again!! And I thought I had that problem solved. So, less than halfway into our penetration and before I could take pictures of the really interesting stuff, the camera is out of commission. I stow it under my arm and just enjoy the rest of the dive.

During the surface interval I madly tear apart the housing. Everything checks out, I can't find any water in the connectors that would've caused the problem. But I do have a replacement battery for the TTL card. Here goes, fingers crossed. Luckily, that seemed to solve the problem and on the next dive I make up for the first one by taking a whopping 250+ pictures!

Our 2^nd dive was to a different passage section, still upstream, but I requested a different plan to extend our dive time effectively by about 20 minutes. This involved shooting up one passage, backing up to the last jump, then laying a reel and taking that leftward passage. Both directions were spectacular, but the leftward jump was remarkable! The tiny room at the end of the line was barely big enough to fit the three of us. It was characterized by a perfectly flat ceiling but ringed by the soda straw stalactites that had been following us everywhere. Still pictures cannot do this room justice -- once again I wish I had video capability.

The dive ended at 105 minutes. A wonderful time and a great set of dives. Time to start saving pennies for another visit to this marvelous cave.

The question I have to ask myself now is, was it better than my favourite cave system, Sac Aktun? Maybe my answer will change as I think about it later, but for now the answer is "no." Sac Aktun still holds a special place in my heart, it seems to have more personality and more welcome-factor going for it.