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.

Ponderosa and Gran(d) Cenote

Hello again, I'm back in Aventuras Akumal staying in Villas de Rosa on another of Connie LoRe's cave diving weeks. This is a larger group (9 divers total, split into two teams) and competence level on both teams appear to be pretty good.

Our first dive this morning was at Ponderosa (as cave divers call it, or "Garden of Eden" as it is marked on the signs) which is a relatively large cenote and a rather plain cave. There are virtually no formations along today's route, but our destination which is called "The Chapel" made up for that, and more! The Chapel is an air dome formed from a breakdown. The water is about 20 feet deep, and the dome itself is a mere 3-4 feet above the waterline. The roof is totally coated with stalactites! Thousands and thousands of them. And they are still growing. It was an awesome experience to lie on my back in the water and float around, watching a whole carpet of stalactites drifting past my field of view. Connie said that the cave diver legend is that if you catch a drop of water in your mouth as it drips off the end of a stalactite, you'll be blessed with long life. I was able to get drops to fall, but only by blowing on them to agitate them. That may have been cheating, I dunno.

Our dive time at Ponderosa was 86 minutes, almost exactly 43 minutes in and 43 minutes out. With a 20 minute break inside the air dome. Dive was called on end of plan, and thirds. One of the most memorable aspects of this dive was the water temperature! The salt water layer, which starts at -38 feet, was measured at a scorching 84 F ! That may be the warmest water I've ever experienced in a cave. There was not a well defined halocline in this cave. I don't know if it was because of all the divers agitating it, or if the freshwater flow is just stronger in this cave.


The afternoon dive was at Gran (or Grand) Cenote. Here the two teams went mostly the same plan: Gran Cenote, past Ho Tul Cenote and then around Cuzan Ha Loop. Both teams were supposed to go up the line in the middle of the Loop, but since we were the first team in the water and the last out, I didn't see Connie's group. Our team also did a jump up the La Boca line (which the other team didn't plan to do), to go until 3rds were called. We made it maybe 500 feet along the line before 3rds, which is respectable considering the distance and tight passageways. We did the Cuzan Ha loop clockwise this time, which was maybe only the 2nd time I'd gone that direction. I have to say that going counter-clockwise is more dramatic.

Tomorrow is Labna Ha day. More later!

Eagle Rays and Moray Eels

Another glorious day on the waters of Cozumel! We were invited to spend a day with Blondie and Donna, and their son Renee. Donna is one of the manager/owners of Aqua Safari, Blondie often works as a boat captain usually for fishing charters. They own three boats of which the Belinda is one (the dive boat I most often dive from when on Cozumel). Today we went out on their largest boat "Gypsy" which is a comfortable shallow-draft boat outfit for both scuba and fishing charters. The plan was to do a one-tank dive at either Eagle Ray or Barracuda (deep diving sites, but still within recreational limits) to look for eagle rays cruising the reef.

To make a long story short: we saw 11 in total, or possibly 2 groups of five which may have been the same five twice, and one solo eagle ray. I'd been having some minor problems with the video housing but today I was able to get it working flawlessly the whole dive.




Also on this dive, Renee spotted a full-grown Green Moray Eel. I am posting this video of it specifically for Walt, because he once commented on one of my pictures "this is why I don't swim in the ocean." I'll agree that Morays look like one of the nasty monsters of the deep that you really don't want to tangle with, but so far I haven't been bitten by one. (I do know someone who has... in the neck... but she is still alive!)

Swimming with Wild Dolphins

This week has been filled with small miracles. First, I went a whole week without getting a single mosquito bite. Then, my video housing which had been broken for over a month... started working again! (Much to my relief, I found that the irreplaceable electronics are fine, the main connector just had some corrosion on it.) And then a new gym opened up nearby so I could resume a work-out schedule while in Cozumel. Now, today, I got to swim with WILD DOLPHINS. I am not making this up.

Even better, I had the (now working perfectly) video housing with me on this trip, so I got in-water video while I was snorkeling. No, unfortunately I wasn't in scuba gear at the time we came across this pod of 5 adult dolphins, but what I got on video still looks pretty good. These were B-I-G dolphins. Easily thrice my body weight. The story played out like this:

We had just finished our 3rd tank dive on Paradise reef and were heading back to the dock. It's about a 15 minute boat ride. Suddenly the divemaster shouts "Dolphins!" and everyone scrambles out to the bow of the boat. I grab my video on the way there and sure enough, el capitan has set the boat right on their tails. Or they swam up to under the bow of the boat... I'm not sure which. So there I am on the forward pulpit over the bow, shooting video straight down of these lovely creatures as they pace the boat, leaping out every now and then. They soon wandered off in a different direction.

That wasn't all. We were then told el capitan was going to race ahead of them and we could jump in the water with snorkel gear. Nemecio was extremely generous to loan me his snorkel since I don't have one. So - In the water we go! I get a few distance shots of them and then suddenly the whole pod swims right underneath me. What a great experience!!! The moment is over all to quick, but thankfully captured on video.

We went two more times to jump in and snorkel with them but the first encounter was the best. This was such an amazing trip! The capitan and crew of Aqua Safari's "Ocean III" were incredibly generous with their time and accommodating to the five of us divers who enjoyed this trip beyond words. We all tipped well today.

About the Video

I just learned today that Blogger allows me to post video. This is my first attempt doing a blog with a video snippet. All told I have about eight minutes of video, most of it above water as they danced among the three boats that were there at the time. Trying to handle the camera while snorkeling is much harder and much more restrictive than while scuba diving as I quickly learned, but for a spur-of-the-moment encounter I am pretty happy with it.

Some still shots

Here are a few stills extricated from the video using Pinnacle Studio. They are grainy but the best I can do with what I've got. If you see me in person anytime in the next few months be sure to ask to see the whole video.


The image above was captured from the video when I was on the bow of the boat, as the dolphins paced us this one turned to "look" at me as I was filming it.

The following pictures are excerpts from the video above.

Turks and Caicos Explorer

Well... our time in Cozumel had ended for this year. It was 100+ glorious days on the beautiful "Island of the Swallows" with scuba diving galore. I think my final tally was 95 dives making my total dives to date around 303. But Wait... there's more!

For six months we'd been planning to do the Turks and Caicos Explorer, a liveaboard run by Explorer Ventures. Our first experience with this company was two years ago on the Caribbean Explorer II, an excellent scuba trip with an itinerary that had us diving in St. Kitts, Statia (St. Eustatius) and Saba. Could this trip be as enjoyable and perfect as the last one? Read on to find out...

The Turks and Caicos are a small set of islands near the Bahama Island chain. They are a non-sovereign territory of the United Kingdom. Scuba diving is so popular here that on the immigration form there are checkboxes just for scuba as your reason for visiting. In terms of commercialization the island seems moderately built-up but there are no cruise ship visits here that I know of. The island's economy and general appearance reminded me a lot of St. Croix. Food is very expensive here: a simple snack/dinner for two consisting of one appetizer, a glass of wine, a bottle of beer (local, tasted like rusty pipes) and some water came to $50.

Our group consisted of four people: Andrew, Kathleen (whom we'd met on the Caribbean Explorer II trip), Tracey and myself. The passenger list showed there were a total of 15 divers for this trip. The boat has a maximum of 20 passengers.

We arrived a day early, partly to give time to decompress after a day of travel and partly to add assurance that we wouldn't miss our boat departure. Four others on this trip did miss the first day because of weather delays in Minnesota. For our first night we stayed at a lovely hotel near the town of Providenciales called the Miramar Resort. On the day of our embarkment, the T&C Explorer had already arranged our taxi to the dock so we had an easy morning walking around "town" and relaxing until the pickup at 3pm. With the exception of small groups of hotels at beaches and a few retail shops to keep their tourists happy, we didn't see much in the way of a downtown area.

We arrived at the boat mid-afternoon and were greeted warmly by several of the crew. I then spent several hours assembling the digital camera housing. Unlike the Cozumel trip, I was most pleased to discover that not a single thing was left at home. Relief.

On to the business of diving. This boat trip was a 7-day itinerary very similar to Caribbean Explorer II. Five days of diving with up to five dives a day, then a last day with two early morning dives. That's a total of 27 dives you can do in one week!! A daily plan kind of went like this:

7am - Light breakfast

8am - First dive

9:30am - snack

10:30 - Second dive

12noon - Lunch

1:30pm - Third dive

3pm - snack

4:30pm - Fourth dive

6pm - Dinner

8pm - Night dive

Some of the most awesome things we saw on this dive trip:

A wild dolphin played with us! No shit! After 300+ dives this is the first and only time I have seen a dolphin underwater.

Good picture of a Reef Squid at night, showing the mesmerizing galaxy of colours they display under our artificial lights (see pic)

Humpback Whales (two adults and their calf) although they avoided our boat, probably protecting the calf

Tracey found a blennie that wasn't in the books, apparently the Reef folks are just now classifying it. She's excited about the find nonetheless.

For the most part the dive sites had much the same topographical dive profile, same depth profile, and generally the same fish and corals. There were variations in the health of the reef and sizes of fish schools but in truth it was a slight disappointment not to have a bit more variety in the dives. Added to this was the limited visibility, usually about 50-70 feet. However this didn't deter my main activity which was underwater photography. Each site had limitless opportunities at macro and wide-angle, and I made use of both configurations throughout the trip.

For a quick look at (unprocessed) photos from the trip, go here:
My Google/Picasa photo album

I ended the week with 22 dives (total dives to date = 325), approximately 1,100 photos, no sunburn but plenty of smiles. Would I go on this trip again? Probably not, but not because of the boat or the crew. Instead I would choose another destination like maybe Roatan or Caymans. When spending this kind of money on a dive trip I'd like to get a wider range of dive experience. It was great to dive Turks and Caicos once, but I don't feel an urge to return anytime soon.

Did Explorer Ventures live up to their reputation? They sure did! Would I book another liveaboard tour with them in the future? Absolutely.