"Damn, it's awfully dark in here!"

Another fine day of diving in Aerolito de Paraiso. Since I am sure some of you are wondering what Aerolito really looks like, I decided to take the camera this trip and show you. Here are pictures of the entrance to the cave and the surrounding cenote. As you can see there is a group of five divers about to go in for a training exercise. The entrance to the cave is towards the right side of the picture. I think I'd mentioned in a post last year that you have to share this cenote with the local crocodiles. There used to be a small sign near the entrance that stated simply "Peligro - Cocodrilo" but now there is this distinctly placed sign, written in two languages. I've only once ever seen crocodiles here and they were far from the cave entrance.

When tourists or passers by see me in dive gear with double tanks, they naturally get curious. Questions I often get are: is there really a cave in there? is it dark in the cave? how far back does it go? do you need any special kind of training? is it salt water or fresh? how long do you dive in there? The answers are: Yes, yes, thousands of feet, yes, both, a long time.

I'd been having bad luck with the camera on previous dives with Brad in Aerolito, mostly because of a bad sync cord or a bad bulkhead. Probably both. Since those problems were sorted out a while ago it's been smooth sailing in open water dives, but could I get a successful photo session Aerolito? YES! So without much further ado, I'll spend the rest of this post uploading photos and making brief comments. Read my blog post from yesterday for some elaboration of what you see.


Above: The cave floor, in the passageway(s) at 55-60 foot depth. Well into the halocline layer and away from the freshwater flow that deposits so much silt.


Above: An albino starfish, originally thought to be endemic to Cozumel caves, it has recently been identified as a species of deep-sea starfish. It is still a mystery how it got into Aerolito.


Above: A blind cave shrimp. Sorry its not well in focus, I was in a rush to take the picture as it was moving fast, and it is quite small. Probably only 1" long.


Above: Brittle star. Common, same variety as can be found in the ocean nearby. The cave floor is littered with these, but usually they are hiding in holes in the silt. It took a bit of searching to find a good photography subject.


Above: This is a.... I have no idea what this is. Some kind of sponge? A symbiote of two sponges? This was in the middle of the cave floor not far off the permanent line. It was about 9 inches in diameter and 15 inches tall. I'll have to ask Brad if he knows what it is.


Above: A type of fire worm. This one was about 2" long, and moving pretty fast.


Above: Permanent main line covered with sponges, as described in yesterday's post. This section was by no means the worst I'd seen.


Above: Some stalactites in the cave, at about the 50' depth level. Dark, aren't they? Aerolito has only a few places with speleothems like this, and they are all dark colored same as in this photo.

Macro photography in Aerolito is easy, as long as you're not too close to the halocline layer. But on all of my attempts to do wide-angle of the cave passage, I have been thwarted. Even with a wide aperture on the lens, high ISO setting of up to 800, and even with my uber-powerful Ikelite 400 strobe set to maximum output, I still could not get a good shot of a passageway wider than 3 or 4 feet. This cave is just so incredibly dark, it just absorbs all my strobe's light!

I really need to do a set-up with both my 400's and spend a whole dive working on the right camera settings. So the only good photo I have to show you of cave passage comes from Brad himself, taken two years ago. Here is a link to that picture.

Our dive today was to find and explore the cave passage we were looking for on yesterday's trip, which should have been a "T" or a jump off of the loop/circuit someone made up to replace the old line. Well, we did find it but were only able to penetrate a couple hundred feet until Brad's two spools ran out. That was far enough to run into another permanent line but neither of us knew which one it was. The original line we were following was still there, but torn apart at virtually every tie-off and would have been unsafe for navigation.

Dive was called at about 45 minutes after running out of line. We surfaced after a total of 95 minutes which included a 5 minute safety stop. A considerable amount of time was spent in the 55' deep passageway but neither of us incurred any deco.

Aerolito de Paraiso, Cozumel

Heading to dinner in Cozumel on Christmas Day, I had a chance encounter with a cave diving buddy from a few years ago. Since he had a car and a line on double tanks, I was most appreciative to be invited to join him on some cave dives to what I suppose is my alma mater of cave diving, Aerolito de Paraiso. Brad had been regularly making trips into Aerolito for photography of endemic cave organisms... star fish, fire clams, blind cave shrimp, sponges, etc. His goal was to produce a book on the biology of Cozumel underwater caves but recent changes to the economy have cut back his vacation schedule and I believe his ambitions for the book as well.

I was warned by Brad that the permanent lines in Aerolito are in poor condition. They had been infrequently used and lacked maintenance for so long that a large number of sponges or corals had started growing on them. His warning was an understatement. The lines were -coated- with the things, so much so that they were sagging under the weight of them. There are sponge "balls" growing in many places that exceed 4" in diameter. Brad suggested I carry at least one glove "just in case" a silt-out or light-out situation forced me to use the permanent line, as there might be stinging corals on them. It seemed like sound advice.

The cave passage itself was much as I last saw it; dark walls, lots of halocline, very silty floor. Brittle sea stars living below the halocline have found the silt an ideal feeding ground for whatever they eat. They quickly tried to slink out of sight as our bright cave lights passed over them. Whether they are able to see the light, or just feel some kind of temperature change from the beam, I am not sure.

Our plan today was to take the main line to its abrupt drop-off where it goes from 30 ft to 60 ft. Brad had discovered a side passage there but said that the permanent line had been severely deteriorated and intended to replace it as we went. However after making the jump, we discovered the line to be brand new. Certainly in better shape than any other permanent line in the cave. A brief 10 meters along this line, it hits a "T" intersection, with one permanent arrow leading back the way we came. I can see Brad pondering this but he chooses to take the right fork. I put a cookie down as I pass just for safety's sake.

This passage is at 55-58 feet and in nice clear salt water. The way is narrow but typical of many passages in Aerolito, it has a tall, sharp cathedral-like roof. The floor is clean of silt and instead is littered with eroded limestone pieces that look like a lattice of broken honeycomb. Our bright lights are not very reflective here but the water is clear enough that we can still see well ahead of us. There are occasional small white puffy starfish on the cave walls (which Brad later tells me are a species usually found in the deep, deep ocean) but the brittle stars which were so plentiful in shallower depths don't live here.

We continue along the passage which, I quickly note, takes a lot of sharp left turns. Sure enough, a mere 50 meters or so we come back to the same "T" from the left fork side. The dive is called at a short 35 minutes, only because we didn't have any agreed plan how to deal with a situation like this. Brad tells me later that there was supposed to be a continuous line or a jump to where the passage continues for quite a ways, but no jump is marked on the line we were on. So, back we go, but at a slow relaxed meandering pace so we can eat up the air in our tanks (it's paid for already, so why not?) As we head back along the main line we get closer looks at the side passage lines and the condition of their lines. A few changes to line locations are evident since the last time I was here, most notably the jump to Sulphur Falls has been moved one stalactite closer to the main line. It can now be seen easily from the main line whereas before it was a good 60 foot jump.

Dive ended at 81 minutes which included a 5 minute safety stop. I probably hit 3rds during the safety stop itself.

As I pop up out of the cenote, I am mildly surprised to find four divers gearing up in doubles. It turns out to be German Yanez, two students, and an "assistant." Must be an intro to cave class. Brief pleasantries are exchanged but German is focused on his class as they gear up. Whatever.

Busy day at Aerolito de Paraiso!

Footnote on Cenote Visitor Fees

To my knowledge, there is no fee to dive in any of the caves in Cozumel. Aerolito itself appears to be a public park and is frequently used by the locals as a swimming hole. Two other cenotes I have dived in, One-Click and Chankanaab, are so remote that without a guide you would never find them. I don't believe they are on property owned by any individual. Cocodrilo is on the property of San Francisco Beach Club and although I don't believe there is a fee, you have to sign a written waiver and get permission from the beach club's owner.

The situation in Riviera Maya is very different. Virtually all of the cenotes around Akumal are on private land and the land owners have gotten greedy. What used to be a 30-50 peso fee (US $2.50-4.00 at current rates) only two or three years ago is now a whopping US $20. Yes, they charge in US Dollars now too! Grand Cenote, Dos Ojos, Hidden Worlds, Nohoch nah Chich, they all charge US $20. The ugly truth is, the land owners can charge what they want. Cave divers wanting to tour on their lands will pay it, because the only alternative is not to cave dive.

If you plan to do a one day tour with a guide the costs add up quickly. Assuming you are staying in Cozumel, fees add up like this:
* $22 round trip on the ferry
* $20 for each set of doubles (one set per dive)
* $140-160 for guide fees (which should include transport)
* $20 site entry fee (x2 if you visit two different cenotes in one day)
* $20 or more for food and sundries
So... yes, a one day tour of two cave systems could run you $300. At prices like that you can see why doing a week-long cave camp tour like Connie's is a better deal.

By contrast, the only expense for today's dive in Aerolito was a mere 88 pesos (US $6.80) to fill the air in both sets of doubles Brad and I used.

Reflections of Cave Diving

I'm back in Cozumel now, and after having been home only two days I have already made my first dives back into open water. It's... just... not... the... same. Not to say I didn't have good dives. I had great dives at Palancar Horseshoe and Paso de Cedral. Great photos too. But I miss the heavy weight and security of double tanks. I miss the start of a cave dive, when we suddenly transfer from daylight zone to total blackness, save for the lights we bring with us. And that moment when you first see daylight again coming out of the cave. And the sight of stalactites everywhere, watching me as I pass by slowly. And seeing all these lines in the cave, wondering where they go, what else there is to see. And, and and....

I spent today catching up with mundane matters, particularly paid work which of course was put on hold for a whole week while I was underwater. But I realised I had better get my Reflections done before I forget all of the points I wanted to make.

Reflection 1: Primary Lights

I'm sure you saw this one coming. Well, of the most likely reasons that a cave diver might have to cancel or turn a dive, having a primary light failure ranks up there at the top. You see it now and again but to have so many in one week was downright freaky. And it gave me pause for thought about my own situation: I am carrying a high-power light with a filament that is literally made out of glass. One drop, one bad tap, one sudden impact and it's out of service until I can get the $140 HID bulb replaced. I baby my light: pack it inside my wetsuit or clothing for land trips, insist I take it on my carry-on for airline travel, and I don't let anyone else use or even handle it. But the inevitable is coming. It will one day quit working.

So after a lot of hee'ing and haw'ing I've decided to get a Dive Rite 500 lumen LED flashlight (the one piece unit without the cord) which is strong enough to use as a primary light, yet nigh indestructible. This won't be the end-all-be-all of primary lights, but it is like someone wrote in a magazine recently: LED lights are in their infancy. LED's themselves are not. They've been commercially available since the 70's and ultrabright technology has been in consumer products since the mid-90's. But as dive lights go, the manufacturers still have a long way to go to make a reliable product that stands up to the brightness and versatility of HID's.

I need a bright spotter light I can take on a dive boat or liveaboard and not worry about it getting knocked around. I need a backup light which is bright enough to continue my cave dive if my primary goes out. (Of course, to do that under the guidelines I would have to carry a total of four lights, not three.)

Reflection 2: Guided vs. Buddy vs. Solo dives

Yes, I will admit it: I have been solo in a cave. And I enjoy the experience more than having any number of other divers with me. But there is great prudence in having at least one other diver with you when cave diving so most of my dives will be in teams of two or more. "The more the merrier" does not seem to apply to cave diving, an axiom made obvious by my experiences of the past week. Each diver has their own speed, limitations, intentions. As the number of divers increase, the likelihood of some kind of incompatibility increases.

My best dive of the week was in Labna Ha where my team had only 3, all of like mind, good air consumption, and thoroughly enjoying the dive. My worst dive of the week... well, I'm not going to say there was any "worst" anything because all the dives were good. But larger teams increase the probability that someone will have a primary light failure, someone will call the dive because they're cold, or have a "bad feeling." And of course, a dive gets called when the first person reaches their 3rds, not the last person. Thus it can be said that cave diving teams follow the "weakest link" principle. I can honestly say that of the 10 cave dives we did last week, none of them were called by me.

Who you choose as a dive guide also makes a difference, though in more subtle ways. A guide has more training, more experience and in all likelihood better equipment than others on the team. So he or she will probably not be the weakest link. But what I think sets one guide apart from another is their own motivation for why they cave dive. Connie clearly loves caves and she takes a solid, practical manner in which to lead teams. She takes her time and has worked out some excellent routes to lead people into some of the best parts of the best caves. Lena by contrast is more goal-oriented. It seems she chooses a route and executes it to get from Point A to Point B, not so much to smell the roses along the way. Case in Point: on the traverse dive from Dos Ojos to Monolito, Connie takes two breaks at cenotes Dos Palmas and High Voltage. Lena takes only one break, at Dos Palmas. I got the impression she wouldn't have stopped there either except that it is somewhat traditional.

I see a less subtle but very similar contrast when comparing open-water dive masters. The really good ones seem to take it upon themselves to be "ambassadors of the oceans" and enjoy finding interesting fish and pointing them out to divers in their charge. These dive masters truly enjoy diving and sharing with people the things they love. The not-so-good divemasters are the ones who are there because it is a paycheck. They drift along, doing only the minimal amount of watching over the other divers, counting the minutes until they can call the dive and be done with it. The less scrupulous of them will even choose deeper profiles so as to cause air and/or bottom time to run out faster.

Reflection 3: First or Last

Cave diving as a team is an entirely tandem experience. Although the rules can be redefined based on needs or plans, usually a team maintains a specific order throughout the dive. Dives other than traverses (i.e. one way only: go in one cenote and come out another) the team simply changes direction when the dive is called, thus the last person in line then becomes the first going out. Because of how powerful our lights are, and sometimes because of characteristics of the cave such as haloclines, which position in line you are can radically change your visual experience.

When diving in large teams (more than 2) I sometimes prefer being the last diver. That is because there is so much light from everyone else's light that I get a great panoramic view of the cave. If you've studied photography you'll also know that light sources at angles to your line of sight produce better contrast and definition to irregular surfaces. The effect is especially true when cave diving, and I can see a formation like a wall of stalactites much better when another diver lights it than if I light it up with my own primary.

Another reason I like being in the back: I love to turn my light backwards or cover it with my hand, then glide along behind the team. This always gives me this awesome "I'm watching a real-life movie of cave divers in a cave" perspective. I disappear as myself and become a 3rd person observer; the cave seems to gain a personality of its own as if it were part of the movie. Unfortunately the disappearance of my light sometimes causes concern for the person ahead of me. Quite often Mike 1 would look backward searching for me when my light beam would disappear from his vision for a minute or two. I'd then uncover my light to allay his concern.

Reflection 4: Fitness Makes A Difference

I'm going to be brief about this because it is now late, and I've got to be on the dive boat at 8:00 AM tomorrow.

Last year I went on Connie's trip and was exhausted at the end of most days. I hadn't been exercising all that much leading up to my trip to Mexico and I guess the lack of muscle tone made it much harder on me to slag the 100 lbs of tanks 'n gear through muck and mire. This year I had made a commitment to do some kind of break-a-sweat exercise regularly for a few weeks before the trip. This was part of my initial motivation to learn rock climbing.

What a difference good fitness makes. I knew even after the first day that all that climbing had paid off. Even the torturous rides in the van to and from the cenotes didn't bother me. This year even though I brought ibuprophen and naproxen, I never took a single painkiller. There was no pain to kill!

You can be sure that I will keep up the regimen of climbing when I get home, for as long as I can retain interest.

"My Soul Needed This..."

It's been an action-packed last three days of Connie's cave tour as we made dives at Temple of Doom (or Calavera as the locals call it), Dos Ojos, and Nohoch na Chich. More on these dives in a bit.

On Thursday evening during dinner, I hadn't heard of any more primary light failures. So I asked the group to raise hands if they had a light failure that day hoping there would be none. Unfortunately two more hands were raised making four days and about ten light failures. Thinking this was beyond uncanny, I asked a second question: "Raise your hand if you have NOT had a primary light failure this week" to which out of 10 people, only Mike 1 and myself raised hands. It has not been a good week for equipment.

Friday night on our last dinner together, I asked people to compress into a single word (or phrase) their feelings on the diving for the week. (I added the stipulation that they could not use the words "primary" or "light.") Some of the responses were "stellar" "satisfying" "invigorating" and "amazing." But the one I liked most was what Simone said: "My soul needed this." In a subtle way this one phrase echoes how I felt about the tour this week.

Have I ever mentioned to you how much I enjoy cave diving?

The picture at right was taken by Connie at Vaca Ha. I had just pulled myself out of the cenote which is why I look like a drowned rat. For those of you who know about scuba diving, look carefully and see if you can find all of these pieces, which total probably over 80 lbs of gear:

Two 3mil wetsuits

Three 2nd stage regulators

Two backup flashlights

My primary light (note: the battery canister can barely be seen; it is on my right hip)

One mask

Two fins

One 3lb weight (in pocket, left hip, to counteract weight of canister)

Two dive computers

Dive tables and writing slate (hidden, in weight pocket)

Tanks, bands, manifold and two first stage regulators (you can only see the two manifold valves in the picture)

Temple of Doom

This was the only cave we visited during the week that I had not previously been to. It is nowhere near the most decorated nor the most interesting cave, but it does have two things going for it. First, a good amount of the cave is at 40-60 feet so there is halocline visible during most of the dive. Second, this cave has a LOT of variety, from very bright passage to extremely wide and dark passage, from small cozy rooms to huge yawning caverns.

There is one room with an enormous stalactite/stalagmite combo that cave divers call "The Fang." (Funny, the Fang I first met was in Chac Mool.) This "Fang" was impressive because it was by itself in a huge room -- the vibe I was getting was leaning towards imposing. Didn't make me nervous but it didn't give me the welcoming feeling that I would want to reach out and touch it.

One long jump off the line past the Fang we came to another huge room with halocline right in the middle of it. The room was ringed with ledges at halocline level, maybe because the salt water is dissolving the rock more rapidly than the fresh water. Some of the ledges had delicate stalactite formations on them and I swear to you that as I popped up from the salt water into the fresh water, I felt like I was a sea monster popping out of a lake heading towards a city of tiny towers. This room really gave me the feeling that the salt water was a lake, and the fresh water above it was air. The passage of divers had ever so gently put ripples on the halocline border. I wish I had the video camera with me at that moment.

Another fascinating effect in Temple of Doom is how the light from our HID and LED primary lights made the halocline reflect green and purple light on the cave walls. I'd seen this a little bit at Minotauro but at Temple of Doom it is much, much more vibrant.

Temple of Doom will be worth further exploration. There are quite a few side passages which seemed like they would be easy to navigate, as long as you don't lose the lines. I can see this happening easily, as with the enormous size of some of the rooms in the cave it could be very dangerous to stray from the line and not be able to find the line through the halocline.

Dos Ojos traverse

In the same plan I did with Connie last year, our team took one of the eyes of Dos Ojos on a downstream cave passage traverse past several cenotes. We surfaced at 42 minutes at Dos Palmas, went past High Voltage, and climbed out at Monolito. (Connie's only variant was that she takes her group up into High Voltage for a 2nd break. Lena had us only going up once at Dos Palmas.)

For this dive I lead the team of 4 which went me-Mark2-Alex1-Lena. There are a lot of side passages off the main line but they all looked to be white line, whereas the main line was gold. Thus it was easy to keep my line awareness (which in non cave diver language "line awareness" translates to: Don't lose the freakin' line or you'll get lost and die!) I'm not sure if Lena put me in lead because I'd been on the tail end of most of the dives all week, or if she were testing me. I didn't ask, I just lead and didn't get lost.

Dos Ojos by contrast to other caves we did this week is pretty dark, less reflective rock and somewhat tinted green water. That is not to say visibility was bad, but our bright primaries have less penetrating power.

Dos Ojos is a frequently visited cave because of its easy access to the highway. As a result, there is quite a bit of damage to the formations especially in narrower passages. It is a sad but true fact: by diving in the caves we can only make them worse, not better.

Nohoch na Chich

I've made many dives in Nohoch; the trip today is not different from other visits I have blogged about so I don't feel it is particularly noteworthy. I will say that our plan was to do something different than Connie's group, to go the side passage (sorry, cannot remember the name of the line) that Glenn and I "discovered by accident" last year. This passage is much smaller than the main line or Charlie's Line. Small is relative in Nohoch; most of the cave is so enormous that when I mean "small" it is still quite generous. This line winds around and eventually connects back to the main line just past the National Geographic platform.

Our plan was to continue away from the Nohoch cenote on the main line until reaching or passing the tiny cenote about 2500 feet further down. Sorry, I cannot remember the name of that cenote. Our pace was really slow in both directions. One of the team members who has been the albatross of our group all week, seemed to run out of steam about 2/3rds of the way towards our goal. We kept slowing down. I tend to be a more vigorous swimmer and don't get tired in a cave dive, so to change pace like this was bothersome. I hope that this individual (who I know reads this blog) will understand that his limitations, or his voluntary choice to be the albatross, has caused frustration and grief to his teammates all week. Maybe he will one day have more consideration for others who are sharing his journey.

Connie has a set tour for Nohoch to take the main line then jump to Charlie's Line, then rejoin the main line near the tiny cenote. Then a little past where there is a large airdome perfect for a surface break and a turn-the-dive point. In Lena's group we neither surfaced at the cenote nor surfaced at the air bell. We were essentially the same distance up the cave when the dive was turned on 3rds at about 52 minutes, but instead of taking a break we just turned and headed out. I would have preferred to take the break, as it seems a more relaxing way to do the dive plan. Lena does seem to be more goal-driven as a guide, less interested in touring the cave for the sake of sightseeing.

On a positive note, our slow pace did give me the opportunity to pull out my slate and take notes on some of the side passage lines I saw. I had an opportunity to discuss them with Lena after the dive and now I have some more ideas where I'd like to go in Nohoch na Chich the future.

In The Dark

One of the primary rules of cave diving is that you must be equipped with (at least) three independent sources of light. The title of today's blog post refers to what happens when your primary light fails, and both your backups fail too. Yes, this actually happened to one of the divers today, though it was someone in Connie's team, not ours. Fortunately he was in the middle of a line of 6 divers and had light from other people's bright HID lights to go by. Still, I can only imagine this was very frustrating for him.

So, we finish a 4th day of our cave dive tour and haven't yet broken our streak of primary light failures. Will it never end....


I enjoy cave diving for so many reasons. So even when a dive is less than average it is still a very good dive. Both dives today were examples of this. I still enjoyed every minute.

Vaca Ha

Now that I have my story straight, Vaca-Ha means "Cow Water" in the Mayan, or literally a watering hole for bovines. I guess it is no surprise that there are cow bones inside the cave entrance in about 15 feet of water. I have started calling this cenote "Cow Wash" because it is only about a mile from the well known cenote "Car Wash." Connie will not dive in Car Wash because a nearby garbage dump is leaching heavy amounts of bacteria water and causing many cave divers to get ear infections.

Vaca-Ha is a relatively deep cave compared to the others we visited, and has only a smattering of speleothems (decorations). Its average depth is around 60-65 feet and it is easy to hit 90 feet if you want to. I did this dive with 34% nitrox and was happy I did, as most of the others on the team using air incurred a minor amount of deco by the end of the dive. This cave is best known for its plentiful and well-defined halocline. It is a pristine blu-ish shimmering layer that is perfectly set in the middle of long passageways for most of the cave at about 65 feet depth. Aside from the halocline, there is not much else noteworthy as it has only a few areas with stalactites as compared to other nearby caves.

Calimba towards Bosh-Chen

Calimba has seen better days. One rumor has it that the land owner had damages the cenote in an attempt to open it up for snorkeling. Now it has a high bacteria content because of the high light exposure and lack of flow, and I am over-zealous to use ear drops whenever I dive there.

Calimba is an entrance into system Sac Aktun and for you readers who have been paying attention you will remember that it connects to Grand Cenote. In fact, Connie used to do a traverse (go in one Cenote, come out another) from Calimba to Grand Cenote. I don't know if she still does but it is an easy traverse that takes only about 50 minutes bottom time.

Our dive today was to go in and take two "T"s to the Bosh Chen cenote. There are five of us today, Lena-Alex1-Mike2-Mike1-me. I like being last sometimes, for reasons I'll explain later in my "reflections of cave diving" post. Calimba has many winding passageways including one called the Boa Constriction. I enjoy challenges like this as it is the ultimate test of how good my trim and buoyancy are. Well, maybe not the ultimate but these restrictions are lots of fun.

We make the 2nd jump on the Bosh Chen line. Lena then takes a jump to what she thinks is the Bosch Chen loop but it turns out is a side passage that leads back to where we came from. The jump she intended to make was another 20 yards further. Anyway, we go on this line for about 5 minutes and then one of the team calls the dive because of "a bad feeling." It was not me who called the dive, however I respect the choice to call the dive for such a reason because if you are diving in a cave and you suddenly don't want to be there, you should get out. The cave diving culture has a golden rule that states: "Anyone can call the dive for any reason at any time." And that's exactly what happened today.

To date I have made three dives from Cenote Calimba. I have yet to see Cenote Bosh Chen. Here's hoping it'll happen on #4....

Three Cheers for Labna-Ha!

Today's adventure was to go to the wild untamed adventureland of Labna-Ha. Actually, it is pretty well tamed for the average tourist to go visit and they have three primary attractions (snorkeling, zip line, and a dry cave) and the only wild parts are (1) the bumpy road to get there and (2) the plethora of large hungry mosquitoes. I kept a bottle of Cutters 100% DEET in my pocket and applied liberally whenever necessary. I still ended up with 2 or 3 more welts.

Mosquitoes aside, our group went there to venture into Labna-Ha's 4th and less well known adventure, Cave Diving. The owners of Labna-Ha bought this property specifically to explore and exploit its underground cave system. The cave here is marvelous. It is mostly white formations in excellent condition, though the water has more bluish tint than other cenotes close by. By comparison to the well known cenote Nohoch na Chich which is nearby, Labna-ha is a much smaller passageway with many minor restrictions and delicate cave formations in close proximity to the line. These take extremely good buoyancy and finning technique to avoid damaging.

We are first given a briefing by both Pep and Sergio, two of the owners. We will be in three groups: Connie will take the Carolina folks as one group (six people all told). The Mikes and myself will go with Sergio. Alex 1 will go with Lena as a 3rd team. Mike 2 decides not to go, so Sergio's team is just Mike 1 and myself. We are 2nd in the water, just two or three minutes after Connie's team leaves.

Everyone else is doing the main line. Since Mike 1 and I have been to Labna-Ha before, Sergio will take us off the main line to a side passage that, after two T's and lots of twists and turns, ends up back on the main line. Sergio's pace is slower and more relaxed than Lena's. This gives us more time to enjoy the passage and take our time through the many minor restrictions.

Cave Diving is a really amazing experience. The most aethereal and undoubtedly the most dangerous of all that I do. Rock climbing might be more physical, ultralight flying might be more exciting, and machining is undoubtedly more hands-on. But cave diving is a sport where I never get bored. Never. I can spend two hours on one cave dive and I'm more likely to get cold or hungry than to want to leave the cave for any other reason.

There are natural formations in these caves that I cannot adequately express in words. And I am ever surprised that one cave can have such a variety. Today in Labna-ha I saw long stalactites which were mostly smooth from roof to tip, but at the very bottom on the last 3 or 4 inches there was a sharp barb of rough spiny material. It reminded me of a rack of morningstars... yes, the medieval weapon. No idea how something like that would be made by nature.

Sergio is an excellent guide. Mike 1 is an excellent cave diver. Our dive is flawless, making it onto the side passage, past two T's and a jump back to the main line. Then maybe another 300 yards before Mike 1 calls on 3rds, at about 58 minutes. On the way back, Sergio stops us to take a side trip up into a tiny cenote, just large enough for the three of us to rest and admire the blue sky through the beautiful water well we have come up into. After finishing the dive we had completed 107 minutes of bottom time. Very nice dive, and the best I've had so far this week!

The other team also had a successful dive making to about the same point on the main line where we turned. However they reported two more primary light failures. This time both were Dive Rites. (oh, no!) Fortunately at least one of them was simply an inadequately charged battery which does not mean the light is damaged. Still, this tour seems to have it in for the lights.

Up Close and Personal

I am sometimes asked by people who see my cave diving pictures "How close are you to these stalactites?" I say, "often times this close" and show a span with my fingers about two inches apart. Diving in caves is not like the sterile conditions you find in a commercial dry cave like Luray Caverns. To the public, they have made those caves so protected it is impossible to even touch a stalactite unless you climb a fence or gate. In cave diving, there are no ropes, no gates, no grills. A lot of training and a fierce amount of attention span goes into techniques that allow us to glide through extremely tight spaces with minimal contact with the cave.

Damage to the cave is inevitable, however, as even our exhaled air bubbles are forceful enough to cause the delicate stalactites above us to loosen and fall. On virtually every dive there are pieces of calcium carbonate raining down. Even the most skilled divers will kick up or run into formations and break them. A diver sometimes finds a stalactite stuck between their tanks or valves after they get out of the water. Once the damage is done, it's too late.

Cave Diving Grand Cenote, Tux Kubaxa, Minotauro

I'm posting this on Dive Day #2, as I was so tired yesterday there was no energy to post. I had to force myself to stay awake as long as 9:30 but the battle was lost and I was down for the 10 count.

It is about this time in the blog I planned to talk about the personalities of the 9 (yes, 9 not the original 6 Connie planned on) cave divers on this trip but it has been noted to me that some individuals on this trip are actually reading my blog! So I will save my commentary on the more personal side of this trip for later.

I will say, though, that this trip has taken a heavy toll on our divers' primary lights. These lights, specially made to burn bright and burn for a very long time, are hideously expensive. For many cave divers it is the single most expensive piece of gear they will purchase for this hobby. Good lights run around $800-2000. Having one fail... well... it usually makes for a bad day and often a lost cave dive. So far this trip, not one but FOUR primary lights have died or had serious problems in just two days. Two were Salvo, two were Sartek. None of the Dive Rite lights (and there are several, including mine) have died yet. [Knocking on wood.]

In fact, I was urgently trying to buy Salvo's new 21 watt LED light specifically to have it for this trip. It seemed all fate was against me getting it while I was here in Mexico, and I ended up shrugging my shoulders and said "If it was meant to happen, I would have gotten it." Good thing I didn't as more than a few people have told me that this particular model has serious problems. One of the four that died this week was this model. BOY am I lucky I didn't end up buying it.

Anyway enough about dive lights, and not talking about the personalities of the group. Here's my (somewhat terse) run-down of the cave dives so far.

Grand Cenote

Connie has, in picking up 3 more divers for the trip, hired Lena who is a cave instructor who works with Aquatech, the diving operation here at Villas de Rosa. So we go in two smaller groups, instead of making one unmanageably long chain of divers.

I am in a smaller group led by Lena. For our first dive yesterday we entered Grand Cenote and went along the main line of Sac Aktun, towards and past Cenote Ho Tul. But instead of doing the full loop of Cuzan-nah, we take a jump to a highly decorated section which Glen and I discovered last year. I had the video camera with me and got some EXCELLENT video footage of this part of the cave. The dive was turned at 46 minutes as one of the divers hit 3rds. Total time on the dive is 94 minutes.

Second dive was also at Grand Cenote and this time we took a jump to the Paso de Lagarto line, a long jump which some of you may know that its length may have contributed to the fatality of two cave divers about four years ago. Anyway, we're going the other way on Lagarto and there's no doubt in my mind Lena knows the way. Unfortunately one of the four light failures happens not far after we get to the Lagarto line and the dive is turned at 30 minutes. Total dive time is 61 minutes.

Tux Kubaxa

If you haven't read my blog entry for this cave of last year, let me reiterate its pronunciation from the Mayan. It is like "TOOsh Kuh-BAH-shuh". This is a beautiful and highly decorated cave. Because the usual profile is to do a lenghty swim to see the mastodon bones, I opt not to take the video camera. As soon as I start the dive I regret this, as the place is so fabulously beautiful I cannot express in any words some of the grand formations here. Things like... cascading rivers of white and yellow flowstone over 20 feet tall 50 feet wide, frozen in time. Sometimes with a cap of orange tint which is either iron oxide or tannin.

Anyway. Video camera or not, the place really needs to be taken with a still camera with a very wide angle lens. Maybe next year when I have the Canon 5D Mark II.... and then I can do both video AND still. That would be great.

We get to the "T" at 29 minutes when our dive plan said 30 minutes which is pretty good. We get to the bones not long after and I enjoy some really nice close-up looks this time. Dive was turned on end-of-plan at about 45 minutes. There are many jumps on both sides of the line that I noted on the way out -- talking with Lena later on she says it is fun to go with a stage bottle and drop the stage at the "T" at 30 minutes... visit the bones... visit the other direction of the "T" to a cenote or two, then return and use the stage bottle out. I am all for it and maybe I will ask Lena to take me there on this dive plan next month.

Dive ends at around 80 minutes, with no problems and thankfully no light failures.

Minotauro

For our afternoon dive the teams are reorganized a bit, and Lena's group is now four instead of five. I am 2nd diver just after Lena. Minotauro is a very interesting cave with halocline in a long section of its big loop. By contrast to Sac Aktun and Tux Kubaixa, Minotauro is dark and brooding, ancient in its overall appearance because in so many places the decorated ceilings have broken down and fallen to the floor in huge chunks. One might look at them like enormous combs left on the ground by some careless child. I have to wonder what geologic activity would cause Minotauro to fall apart like this but not other caves in the region.

Minotauro's halocline is well defined and a lot of fun to watch. A halocline is a defined layer in the cave between fresh water and salt water. The salt water from the ocean is denser but is easily disturbed. When turbulence from a diver's passage stirs the mix, visibility goes from 100+ feet to absolute zero. We try to stay above or below the halocline whereever possible but in Minotauro it is not easy because this part of the cave is not particularly tall.

At times when the halocline was well above us, Lena's light (a Dive Rite LED type) would make the halocline shimmer in a psychedelic combination of green and purple. It was really awesome to see this! I kept my light down much of the dive, preferring to see the cave in shadows from others' dive lights.

Our dive plan was a bit more complex than the "general" plan, making a side trip to Cenote Estrella which took us through Bill's Restriction... a sandwich of cave just b-a-r-e-l-y tall enough for a diver with back-mounted tanks to squeeze through. I enjoy challenges like this, and the visit to the cenote to take a break and hear stories of "some famous cave diver who got stuck here and had to walk for 4 hours in the jungle in the middle of summer to get to civilization."

This dive was VERY enjoyable; the pace was perfect, my buoyancy in all those squeezes felt really good, and the cave has lots to see. Even though it is not as highly decorated as the other caves we will visit.


Tomorrow we go to Labna-Ha to dive a cenote called Caracol.

Off to Cave Dive Camp again!

Hello, all! It's been a while since I've posted a blog but that's not because I'm not doing interesting things. In the past six months I've been diving in Belize, diving in Florida with Kathleen (dove Spiegel Grove on her birthday!!), survived Pennsic, and learned to Rock Climb. Climbing is my new "thing" and although I was sure I would enjoy it before I started, I know it is a sport that I will get more and more involved with as time goes by. The fitness is good. The thrill of completing a challenging climb is exhilirating.

But this isn't my climbing blog, it's about diving and more specifically Cave Diving. Well, we are back in Cozumel once again and I've been here now for about four weeks and roughly 24 open-water dives. Connie LoRe's week-long cave tour starts tomorrow and I have to say -- I'm stoked and ready! I've spent the past year going over what was successful and what I learned on the last trip and have made quite a few changes.

Bought a brand new Nitrox tester

Bought one more set of Atomic Aquatics regulators, then changed two of them over to DIN (the 3rd set remains Yoke for open water)

Got my Dive Rite H10 light serviced and overhauled

Tested the endurance of ALL my batteries: dive light, camcorder battery and camcorder housing lights

Repaired an annoying hole in my BCD's bladder

Bought new safety spools, spring clips, a brand new primary reel, stabilizer plates... basic cave diver knick-knacks

Made my own solution of Ear Drops which I will use at the end of each dive day

Bought a new bottle of "Oto-Eni" (just in case the Drops aren't enough)

Replaced my CPSC recalled regulator swivel with an official Atomic Aquatics swivel

Had Light and Motion clean the optics of the camcorder housing (even though I'd done a pretty good job last year, I decided to have them do it right)

Mind you, none of these changes will make me a better diver. But I felt it important to do things entirely "by the book" especially when safety is concerned. So, tomorrow at 11 AM, I will leave this tiny island of Cozumel to join five other cave divers I have never met and start cave diving some of the most beautiful underwater caves in the whole world.

I'm ready!

How much does Cave Diving cost?

Here's a footnote on how much this trip will cost. This is the trip cost only, does not include any of the uber-expensive gear you have to own to go cave diving. Nor did it include my costs for getting there which were round-trip on the Cozumel ferry and a week long car rental. I got a stupendously good rate on the car rental.

For one week staying at Villas de Rosa, six days of guided dives by Connie into seven cave sites, being ferried to each cave site by chauffeur Roberto in a seven-passenger stretch van, three meals a day at Villas de Rosa, tips for the chauffeur and maid service, and applicable landowner/cave entry fees:

Approximately $1500.

The two extras I have tacked on are a $175 single-room supplement (sorry, I just cannot share a room with an unknown person, not knowing if they will snore and keep me up all week) and a $120 nitrox fee. Diving this regularly for such long dives, nitrox is recommended.


If you work it out to a per dive cost, that's about $120 per dive, or roughly $1.50 per minute of diving. (Each dive averages 80 minutes, probably longer)

Compare that to open-water diving in Cozumel. If I factor in room and board and assume 3 dive days per week (6 dives), that's $88 per dive, or $1.50 per minute of diving. (Each dive averages 60 minutes)

Hit that, hit that snare

What a beautiful day aboard the Roseway! She is a two-masted schooner built in 1917 and currently used as a tour ship and sailing education vessel. I neglected to bring my camera on this trip so my only photo memories come from friends and from my iPhone. The photo to the right was courtesy of Lisa Greenleaf. Thanks, Lisa!

Her top rated speed is 14 knots and with the wind we had during the week we were easily making 10 knots most of the two hour tour. We were permitted walking most areas the length of the vessel except the most interesting (to me at least) which is the bow. I *love* standing on the very prow of a ship as she porpoises over the waves. Nowhere else can you get a feeling for the speed and power thru the ocean as she makes headway in the wind. I seem to thrive where many people get seasick.

There is almost an acre of sail to catch the breezes. The mainsail has a really wonderful booming "thump thump thump thump" bass sound as the free edge whips in the winds. One cannot get a sense of how big these sails are from any angle -- on the boat as a passenger or by a distant spectator. She is truly a beautiful craft! If you are ever in St. Croix during the winter months, do spend the $45 and take a tour. It is well worth the experience!

Home again

Ok, so I'm back home again and in the odd state of not having any more travel planned. Where to next? Dunnknow. Maybe Florida for diving in late spring. Maybe to Paris in April as we met a contradancer who lives there and has a spare room. Maybe to Akumal Mexico if Tracey finds there is space in a REEF fish event during May.

On the way home in our taxi/shuttle driven by a caffeine-infused driver who thinks that 55 mph is a minimum speed limit, a song came on the radio from a new group called Paramore. I've fallen in love with this song, named "Misery Business." A perfect injection of angst ridden energy to keep me going as I plow through an overflowing in-box at work. On the album version apparently the singer says "Hit that, hit that snare" at the very beginning, which is where the title of this blog entry comes from.

St Croix - Diving, Dancing, Dreaming

Once a year there is a pilgrimage of contradancers to the island of St Croix, to indulge in a week of good dancing, great company, exciting island activities and of course to escape the heart of winter while it is storming away at home. One year while in St Croix the DC area got 30" of snow and no flights could get in for several days. I was stranded here on this paradise island!

Dive Experience is the oldest continuously running dive operation here in St Croix. They took me on my first "discover SCUBA" tour and made me fall in love with the sport. As the preferred diving vendor for Tropical Dance Vacation they have introduced tens, or maybe hundreds of dancers to scuba over the past many years.

This year the weather has been rough; Sam Halvorson ("Sammy Starfish") tells me that St Croix is in the throes of the "Christmas Winds" a period of heavy northeasterlies that hit the island around Christmas time but seemed to have been absent until now, arriving just in time for when we want to dive. The seas are choppy, making boat travel unpleasant even on short jaunts out of the harbor. Yesterday (Saturday) we had our first fairly decent break and successfully made a long trip to the famed Cane Bay dive sites... without anyone tossing cookies. We did North Star and The Pavilions as our two dives. I got in almost an hour each one. Andrew Donelson and I both took our Aquatica-fitted DSLR cameras for some macro shooting. Results were... pretty good... though I wish I could have previewed on-the-spot to fix some exposure problems.

St Croix has an excellent variety of tourist activities; this year I decided to balance my time between diving and other activities instead of allowing scuba to monopolize my schedule. On Friday I took Sweeney's tour and had a great time; the $45 tour fee is well worth it. Sweeney himself is like a gracious ambasador for the island, showing his enthusiasm for the beauty and diversity of the island and its communities, even after having done this tour for so many years. Today (Sunday) I forewent diving to do Advanced Contras with Lisa Greenleaf (yay!) and an afternoon sail on board The Roseway a beautiful 2-masted schooner with red sails. With these strong winds it should be an exciting journey. Another $45 I am sure will be well spent.

One Last Blast in Coz

OK, mostly packed and almost ready to leave Cozumel on Monday... but wait! It's Sunday night and this means there's a party in the Plaza. There's always a party in the Plaza on Sunday. But what I forgot is that Cozumel is now in the throes of one of its most flamboyant celebrations: Carnaval!!

Tonight on the stage in the plaza, blasting away at 20,000 watts of sheer ear bleeding PA power, was the costume/dance competition. Or at least I think that is what it was. My comprehension of Spanish is not at all good. Anyway, there were six contestants, three male and three female. All of them had the most amazingly elaborate costumes. The competition format seemed to be: dance for 4-5 minutes on stage, then dance 2-3 minutes more with an enormous headdress on. And when I say headdress, I mean these gorgeous wing pieces that were strapped to their shoulders! The stage was barely large enough to showcase some of them. The one in the picture above was the largest of them. The one to the right was titled "Africa" -- at least I understood that much from the MC.

My poor six-year old camera battery... I was taxing it pretty heavily with all the flash photography and rapid shooting. I was certain it was going to cut out at any moment. But it held out and I got shots from every segment of the programme.

For most contestants dancing is a liberal term. It was more like shimmying across the stage, especially when they were burdened with the wings. Even through the stage fog machine's smoke which hindered good photography, and being pelted in the head with candy by one contestant (are sweets some kind of bribe?) the show was mostly entertaining.

In my opinion there was one clear winner. This girl (top and bottom photos) came on stage with the best presentation, the best posturing, the best dance movements; she exuded confidence and sex appeal... and then did one great thing that none of the other contestants did: she Sang -- Beautifully! You could hear men's hearts melt in a two block radius. I was totally enthralled.

What a fantastic send-off from Cozumel.

And the line for esquites at Raspados Tropicales still had 50 people in it when I left...



(Photos taken with the Canon 300D Digital Rebel, with a 24-105mm f/4L lens, mostly at ISO-400 (flash) and ISO-1600 (no flash) in the "P"rogram mode, RAW format)

Credits and Thank-Yous

Our trip to Cozumel is coming to an end; the curtain of night closes on the last evening I will spend in a tiny flat on Calle 5 in San Miguel... at least until next December. Three long months on Cozumel have gone by like... well, three months. Not too fast and not too slow. I have many people to thank for the success of this long venture.

How I Did It

Before I roll the credits, here is a brief description of "how I took all those photos." Seen here is the Aquatica A300 with the flat port (hidden behind the strobe arm) and a Sea&Sea YS-90TTL strobe. Those four pieces were long-term loaned to me by Andrew, a most generous friend, a great diver, and an excellent underwater photographer himself. Also shown is the Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens with a 12mm extension tube attached, and two 6061-T6 aluminum zoom gears I machined myself specificially for this lens... for with and without the extension tube.

If you look carefully inside the housing you will see two homebrewed electronic doo-dads: a flood alarm (which thankfully never went off) and an in-water reset device for the Heinrichs-Weikamp eTTL converter... which never quite stopped malfunctioning but at least the problem was manageable. Also shown are two necessary tools of the trade: a paintbrush to knock off the daily layer of Cozumel dust, and a Giottos air blower for quick cleaning of lenses and drying of electronics ports.

On the right is how I stayed in touch with the world and fooled(?) my clients into thinking I was still home in Maryland. Call it "The one-chair internet solution." By special arrangement with our dive shop, I had excellent high speed internet service 24x7, with enough bandwidth to feed a Vonage phone. By forwarding the office phone in Maryland to this phone, we rarely missed a beat in the business world. Our calls back to the U.S. were cheap, too. Only 4 cents a minute. And believe me it was worth it, I consulted with one client for many hours!

The set-up may look hokey, but it is pretty powerful. That's a 14dbi unidirectional antenna going through 6 inches of concrete, to hit an antenna 300-400 yards away. Even through pounding rain I did not see degradation in bandwidth. There were times of the day where phone quality was less than adequate but for the most part it worked great.

And now... The Credits

In no particular order... Thanks!!!...

To all the divemasters of Aqua Safari, particularly Mariano, Asuncion, Miguel, Jose, Polo, Roger, Orlando ... sorry I cannot remember everyone's names!

To Bill Horn, for being both the Force and the Face that most people know behind Aqua Safari

To Joe, for fixing my (all too often) aching back -- I promise I'll stop wearing double tanks!! At least until next year

To Andrew and to Maia, for so many things

To Nemecio, for internet, for finding the impossible to find, and for just being a friend

To Connie LoRe, for leading a powerful week of cave diving in Akumal

To my wife, Tracey, for putting up with my bulky photographic gear

To Deborah and Peter, just for being themselves!

To Roberto, the "unsung hero" of Aqua Safari

To Gianni and Kathleen for an excellent week of diving and touring (let's do it again!)

To our apartment complex, for a clean and convenient place to live

...and all the geckos that crawled my walls and entertained me by their passing

To zolpidem, for letting me sleep when I REALLY needed it

To all the noisy street vendors of Cozumel ("Queeesooo, Waa-Kaa-Kaa", "Tweee, tweteeleeeooo" "Gas Gas Gas") for keeping Tracey's ears entertained

To La Choza, Manati and Prima for so many excellent meals

To Casa Mision for knock-you-off-your-feet margaritas and excellent seafood

To Sheryl for sharing REEF with Tracey

To Sac Aktun for showing me even more speleological wonders than I remembered

To Belinda and her captain, Augustin, for always being there when I surfaced

To Google, for helping me translate Espanol, find everything I needed on-line, and for providing Blogger.com to document these travels.

Things I Wish

There are a few things I wish Cozumel had...

More vegetables (easy to find in the markets, but ironically not in the Mexican restaurants)

Fewer mosquitoes and fleas (I *hate* flea bites!!)

A shop that sold car and moped mufflers, and a noise law that required them

A Greek restaurant and an Ethiopian Restaurant

A Costco (there's one in Cancun but it's too far away)

Decent bicycles for sale (or rent)

Four wheel drive vehicles that actually had four wheel drive

Hydroids (nasty, stinging fern-like corals) didn't exist

Some things I hope to do next year

Another week with Connie

HD underwater video

More dives with Nemecio

Enter and win some UW photography contests

Not touch any more hydroids on dives (ouch!!)

Macro Day on Reef Paraiso (Cozumel)

What a fun dive day. We did our two regular morning dives at Dalila and Cedral mediano -- both were excellent with good pelagic sightings and many lengthy turtle encounters. (Sorry, no photos as I was taking a photography stress break.) The third dive of the day is always done at Paradise reef (Reef de Paraiso) which is a popular spot mostly because it is very close to town... but it is ironically one of the best reefs for photogenic variety.

On this 3rd dive I finally did my macro set-up: Canon 300D with the 24-105mm f/4L lens and a 12mm lens extender, with a single Sea&Sea YS-90TTL strobe sitting almost directly above the flat port and at a 35-45 degree angle downwards. The extender converts my focal range from the normal 2ft-to-infinity, to a focal range of 2-18". Extreme close-ups are made possible with stunning results. Almost every picture I took (80 total) were keepers, a ratio unheard of with most lens set-ups. Here are a few:

Mantis Shrimp

I got one and exactly one photo opportunity with this subject; totally a luck shot. It appeared out of a hole, looked around for about four seconds (which allowed me this one amazing shot) and then POOF it was gone again.

Juvenile Drum Fish

-Extremely- difficult to photograph, these fish are not only very tiny but totally neurotic swimmers. They are always on the move; without a dSLR it would have been near impossible to get this kind of shot. Even with a dSLR, I had to constantly refocus and retry until the perfect side-on shot was made. This took about 5 attempts until I was happy with this one.

Look At Those Teeth

A spotted eel, taken at about a 6" focal distance. So close-up that I managed to do this at about f/22, which is why the amazingly good depth-of-field at such a close range.

Inside the Anenome

Anenomes almost always make good photography subjects. Look at the incredible detail you can get with macro!

Yellowhead Jawfish

The face only a mother (jawfish) could love! These are very shy; it takes several quiet moments to stalk them out in order to get one out of its hole. The current on this dive was making this extra difficult but I managed to get three nice angles of the same subject.

I Hate Sony

Long, long ago I used to have more than a few Sony products: tape players, minidisc recorders, Beta machines, even a Vaio laptop. That was before I learned about Sony's true anti-competitive practices and evil marketing practices. That was before I had my first-hand experiences with their brain-damaged customer service system. Now, knowing the Evil Empire that Sony Corporation really is, I have refused to buy Sony products of any sort for over 10 years.

Three months ago I bent the rules a little bit and bought a used Stingray II video housing with a Sony DVC-TRV11 digital video camcorder. The source was a good friend of a good friend and everything seemed to be in working order, except for some dirty optics on the housing which I have since cleaned. I figured that if I buy a used Sony product, that doesn't actually support Sony financially in any way. I even bought Fuji and Panasonic video tape... not Sony's.

The camera worked more-or-less okay, until last Monday. It just... suddenly... inexplicably... stopped working. I think the power regulators are blown, because it will power up for 1/2 second as it attempts to boot up, then goes totally dark. The cassette magazine is hanging out so I can't close the lid. The battery doesn't charge. The reset button does nothing useful. It's just a useless piece of Sony garbage!!

Now, I have four options:
(1) Sell the underwater housing and camera, either as a whole or in separate lots. In all likelihood I could sell the bits for more than I paid. A lot more. But I kind of enjoy taking underwater video and I'd have to start from scratch.

(2) Send the camcorder to Sony service and have it fixed. I estimate this will run $200-300. It also gives Sony money and pretty strongly offends my budget and principles.

(3) Buy a TRV11 or TRV20 off of eBay, approx cost about $200. (The housing is made for both camcorders.) This is my simplest option and I'm watching eBay auctions casually. This option still bends my anti-Sony rules, but not all that much.

(4) Buy a Canon HV-20 and retrofit the Stingray housing by replacing the control electronics and re-machining the camcorder mounting plate. Pros: I get a great camera (HD 1080p at that!) and no more Sony junk. It also means I am using latest greatest technology and not 8-year old stuff. Cons: tricky, retrofit not guaranteed to work. Cost: $680 for the camcorder plus many hours of my time to reverse engineer the Canon remote controls and adapt the video output for the LCD backplate on the housing.


I love Option (4) and may wait a few months to think about this before undertaking the project. The reason I don't want to part with the Stingray II is because it is a beautifully designed unit, in great condition, virtually leak-proof, and I believe a retrofit with at least some kind of HD camera is possible. It also came with a pair of 20W halogen lights which do a fabulous job both in the open ocean and in caves. Unfortunately I haven't heard of anyone doing retrofits for this kind of equipment. The underwater video folks are not a large community; most people would rather sell their old equipment and buy new, than try to do difficult upgrades.

Down with Sony!
Long live Canon!

To be continued... months from now.

Nohoch nah Chich (revisited)

If ever you wondered WHY I do this cave diving thing, the picture at right will speak a thousand words. Occasionally I come across stuff in the caves which is so utterly mind-blowing that it exceeds my understanding. These ARE stalactites. They ARE underwater, probably about 20 feet down but 2,500 feet from the nearest entrance. I KNOW that they formed during the last ice-age, but how?? How long did it take? Were air currents involved? This set of columns covered an area about 5x5 feet... not terribly large but amazingly complex. Click on the picture and see up-close for yourself how bizzare these are.

On Saturday, Glenn and I rented tanks from Villas deRosa and made two long cave dives into Nohoch nah Chich. Yes, this is the same cave system I blogged about earlier when I took the tour with Connie LoRe just three weeks ago. But this time we were there to have FUN. And I was armed to the hilt with camera gear! On this trip I had the Canon 300D in an A300 Aquatica housing, a 10-22mm f/3.5 lens, one Sea&Sea YS-90 strobe on the left side and a big honkin' Ikelite 400 cranked to full power (400 watt-seconds) on my right side. In addition, I put my second Ikelite 400 on Glenn's back using a remote sensor. The strobe points backwards and the sensor points forwards. This is a common configuration among underwater cave photographers and if you look closely at some of the best-looking cave photos you'll see these back-mounted strobes subtly in action. Hey, what the pros can do, I will try to do too!

The good news: It worked marvelously. This was my first time ever having both my 400's in the water, and the results were excellent. Not spectacular, yet, but it was definitely another big push forward in my underwater photography skills. The bad news: the remote sensor on Glenn's back flooded during the dive and malfunctioned horribly. But not before getting at least a dozen really nice shots. The sensor is probably toast; but what the hey. It was a $25 purchase off of eBay.

Glenn and I understood before dive that we both had a lot to learn about composition and modelling and that this was to be a training dive. I set the ground rules: "when I target a formation with my light, I want you to swim over to it, point your tail at it at a distance of 5-15 feet and then face me so I can get a shot. If there is any risk of disorientation, we place a directional marker on the line before photographing." For the most part this worked really well, but I think I should've pushed for wider angle on the lens. Too much Glenn, not enough formation.

And point of note, since I never really changed my orientation it never became necessary to mark the main line. But it was really good we discussed and agreed on this protocol before we started the dive.

Our first dive was not quite to plan; we both had trouble finding the main line and ended up on a completely different line. No matter, our dive plan was straight-forward which would have been appropriate for any of the lines in this cenote. This line ended up being a loop which put us back onto the main line after about 1000' penetration. Laughing in my regulator, I surmised this to be the main line and shortly afterwards recognized the formations to our right. I told Glenn to go left when we "T"eed and we ended up at the NatGeo platform within a few minutes. This was a good opportunity to explain what had happened and discuss our plan of action. We continued to swim back to the cenote, this time on the main line, until it was in view. Once Glenn was convinced it was the main line we turned the dive reversing our path, picking up our jump reel as we hopped back onto our errant loop trail. Total dive time: about 112 minutes. There was PLENTY to see along this passageway and I'm glad it worked out the way it did because I would probably never have explored this part of the cave otherwise.

It was nearly 4:00pm by the time we started our second dive and we agreed to turn it at 45 minutes or 1/3rds whichever came first. We knew we'd be coming out near sunset and we didn't want to inconvenience the landowners if at all possible. Our plan: We were to take the main line (now that we knew where it was) until we reached the second visible jump to the right, then take that jump for however long we had time. My goal was to look for the same beautiful passageway that Dallas had taken us on last year... and to find the "spiny spines" as I'd been calling them since I saw them the first time. The spiny spines are in fact the photo above.

There is other bizarre stuff here as well. This photo is... well, I don't know what it is. It was just there along our way looking like a carved statue -- maybe this is the bird in the "giant birdcage?"

Anyway. Two more great dives in Nohoch nah Chich and almost 200 more photographs to enjoy and share with my friends. I only wish more of my diver friends were into cave diving....

Chichen Itza - Can't See the Forest thru the ....

Vendors... too many street vendors! Chichen Itza is one of Mexico's most popular tourist destination and it has been overrun by its own success. There were vendors along virtually every section of walking path between the archaeological ruins. Pervasive. Annoying. Necessary? The entrance fee for Chichen is a very modest (US) $10 so I am guessing that the park service gets a kickback or substantial squatter's fee from all of the vendors. But I'd be happy - VERY happy - to pay more money for an archaeological site like this without the excess of mercantilism.

Last Friday, the four of us (Tracey, Kathleen and Giancarlo Antona and myself) rented a nice Ford Ecosport mini-SUV from Playa del Carmen and trekked the three hours to the site. Good easy drive, great weather all around. In fact, I cannot think of a more pleasant day we could've visited Chichen Itza. We pretty much toured the whole grounds, with me lagging behind changing lenses every few minutes. This was a great opportunity to play with my new 24-105mm f/4L lens and the circular polarizer. (The picture above was taken with the older 10-22mm rectilinear wide angle lens.)

Okay.. what is Chichen Itza? I can't go into too much detail because I really haven't learned much about the history, but suffice to say it is an old (1000+ yrs) Mayan capital city that was abandoned, gloriously intact, by an old Mayan civilization for reasons unknown. What is left are many gorgeous monuments, temples, a sports arena, and of course the enormous Mexican pyramid which is famously depicted on many artworks... it is also the one in the picture above.

Until recently (2-3 years) people were allowed to climb up the pyramid and view the spectacular jungle landscape. But a year ago on our first visit this was no longer allowed and neither was it permitted this trip. In fact, since last year they have roped off even more sections of stonework courtyards and temples, making this site a little less fun to visit. But still... for $10 you get quite a lot of excellent sight seeing. (If you still want to climb an ancient pyramid, the one in Coba - about 100 miles southeast - is still open according to recent reports.)