Calimba to Bosh Chen

Just a short entry today because tomorrow is the last dive, a long one in the wonderful world of Nohoch Nah Chih. But I'm getting ahead of the story....

Today our group of six (lost the seventh to exhaustion, I think) visited Calimba (or Kalimba) for two dives. I took the video camera on the first dive after assurances that there would be enough room to maneuver. The selling point was being told by Connie "you'll regret not bringing it." She was right.

For the first dive we took the mainline towards the Paso de Lagarto line until we reached it. Then two quick jumps (one of which was a snap-and-gap) and off we went towards cenote Bosh Chen. Boy! Some of those passages were tight. Considering I was pushing the video camera the whole way I think I did really well with the restrictions. We reached the 4th jump but then confusion ensued: Connie was trying to establish with the rest of the team whether or not anyone had reached 3rds; one diver tried to state "turn around" as a question and that got interpreted as "yes, it's time to turn around" so turn around we did. I still had 350 psi before my turn-around, I could easily have made it to Bosh Chen.... but there's always next time. We did miss some of the larger and more decorated rooms which were just ahead.

The second dive was after lunch, and this time it was a right turn on the Lagarto line, with no further jumps afterwards. I didn't take the video this time. Yow! Right after the jump onto Lagarto we were doing sandwiches, vertical ascents and descents, really tight squeezes through delicate stalactites. Remember me metioning a rhino in a china shop? Ditto for today! Dive was turned (predictably) at about 40 minutes, for a total dive time of around 82 minutes.

Talk about tight... This cave emphasizes the "O" in Overhead Environment.

Wait until you see the video!!!