What the Future Holds

Been a while since I've posted, but not because I haven't been diving. During May I took a planned-at-the-last-minute trip to St. Croix for a week and had some fantastic shore dives at Cane Bay and the Frederiksted pier.

In July, I will be going first to south Florida to visit Kathleen and Gianni, our wonderful friends in Ft Lauterdale. We'll tour around some of the Florida Keys and maybe do some diving there as well as hang out at their beautiful villa in Plantation.

On July 6th I hop on a plane from Florida to Cozumel for a 6-day cave diving trip with Brad Reynolds. I've mentioned Brad before in this blog, I think, as a fellow underwater photographer with whom I've dove with several times in Aerolito de Paraiso. This will be my first time ever in Cozumel during the sweltering hot summer months. Though I'm not looking forward to the heat, I'm thinking ahead to exploring more of Aerolito.

Cave Diving seems to be a constant drain on my budget. True, diving with Brad in Cozumel costs next to nothing compared to most forms of diving, especially cave diving. But I keep upgrading my gear and to get the good stuff you gotta pay the bucks.

For this trip, I now have a *new* dive computer, the just released Suunto HelO2. With great thank-yous to my favourite east Caribbean Dive Shop Dive Experience of St. Croix, I now have this new top-of-the-line technical diving computer. Its main features include:

• Wireless tank pressure transmitter (one less hose to carry!)
  
• Deco and No-deco dive tables built in
  
• Up to 8 gas mixes, trimix or nitrox
  
• Ability to switch gas mix during the dive
  

It's overkill for most of the diving I will be doing, but next time I go on one of Connie LoRe's trips (more on that later) I'll be ready for the stage dives she leads.
I hope we get to visit Blue Abyss again.

After owning a Suunto Cobra dive computer for eight years and a Vyper for ten, I found the HelO2 to be somewhat confusing. It wasn't intuitive at all in how the menus are organized, at least not if you're expecting it to be like a Cobra. It took several consults with the instruction manual before I had gas mixes, time/date, PO2 setting, and even my personal dive profile adjustment set how I wanted it.

One nice feature on the HelO2 is the new settings for the personal profile adjustment. The Cobra and Vyper have P0, P1 and P2 settings, with P0 being the least conservative. However even on P0, the Suunto computers tend to be among the most conservative in the dive industry. That's good if you want to play it safe all the time, but not so good if you've got excellent air consumption and your computer won't give you the bottom time to match.

The HelO2 adds two new settings: P-1 and P-2. They are, as you'd guess, less conservative settings. The manual describes them as for "Ideal conditions, excellent physical fitness, highly experienced with a lot of dives in the near past." This, I like very much. To give you an idea on the difference: at a 60 foot profile you get 50 minutes on a P0 setting. P-1 gives you 54 minutes, and P-2 gives you 58 minutes. That's not a whole helluva lot but it is extra time to spend underwater. I'll take it.

Map of Aerolito

The map above is a very old one of Aerolito de Paraiso dating back to 1989. To my knowledge not much exploration of Aerolito has been done since then although it is believed that there is more cave passage to be found.

I've marked the journey Glenn and I took last Saturday on this map as a thin red line, with some annotations related to my blog post (text in a darker red). In order to see the line and all detail, click on the image for a full-size copy.

Cave maps are drawn using many different styles. As with most maps, this is a fair representation of the passages one will find in Aerolito. But passage size, depth and character cannot be adequately depicted in this 2-D medium. This is why progressive penetration is the safest technique to use when exploring a cave without a local guide. Or even with a guide.

Copyright note: This map was emailed to me from a friend. I am not aware of any copyright on the map itself nor any conditions for its distribution. If you are the copyright holder and object to its being posted here, notify me and I will promptly remove it.

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!)

Wonderland and Broken Lines in Aerolito

For my last cave dive of this winter's trip to Cozumel, Glenn and I took a really fascinating tour up the Sulphur Falls line and then down to the Wonderland passage. This is an area I had only once before visited, but this time I penetrated well beyond and into areas of indescribable beauty... places I could not imagine Aerolito possessed!

Our plan today was fairly complex but logical: We would take the main line down to the 4th set of double-arrows and do a jump to the right to the Sulphur Falls line. We would go about 200-300 yards until we hit either a "T" or a jump that I remembered, and then take that to a right-angle right turn down to the Wonderland passageway. Brad and I had visited Wonderland two years ago and I remember having seen a "T" in the line there, but we did not go beyond it. Glenn and I hoped to penetrate one, if not both of those directions off the "T".

I would be lead diver today, running reels and determining when to turn on one of several possible scenarios: Out of Reels, Out of Bottom Time, 3rds, Line Ended, Sidemount Territory, etc.

Our dive went off without a hitch. The jump off the 4th set of double arrows is much shorter than it was two or three years ago, and visibility along Sulphur Falls line was excellent. The halocline here was extremely well defined today, almost hypnotizing to watch. The saltwater (lower) layer we were swimming in was still, clear and warmer. The fresh/brackish layer above us had a noteworthy current and lots of debris. I popped up into it several times to check on visibility but the cold-shock was enough to make me want to go back to the salt water. I kept out of the fresh water for three reasons:

1. it was an upstream current so I would be fighting it all the way up Sulphur Falls;
2. it seemed MUCH colder even though I was wearing two 3-mil wetsuits, and the temperature difference was probably only 2-4 degrees F, it seemed a lot more!
3. passageway height was variable and I would have to go up and down through the halocline layer to avoid it, whereas the floor of the cave was pretty consistent.

In fact, the only possible advantage of swimming in the freshwater was a slight reduction in air consumption, but that would have been cancelled out by having to fight the current.

Sulphur Falls area itself was beautiful to behold. In places where there were ledges just above the halocline, the freshwater rippled in tiny rapids like an inverted brook dancing over pebbles. Our fin-strokes, though optimized to keep from stirring the halocline, left wakes of oily-looking water where visibility went from 50 feet to zero in an instant.

At the turn to Wonderland I found the line was no longer a "T" but hooked the sharp right to Wonderland passage. There was a jump to the left, but I will have to save that one for another day. Almost immediately we descended from 35 feet down to 60 feet into Wonderland. Aaah! Those beautiful stalactites Brad had photographed two years ago were still as I remembered them -- plentiful, but dark and brooding. The "T" was there too, just as I remembered it, so with approval from Glenn I put a cookie on the exit line and went right-wards. The passageway opened up to a glorious large room reminiscent more of caves around Akumal than other parts of Aerolito. Grand stalactite formations covering both walls, but still very dark, almost black.

Then we encountered the first section of broken line. Some repairs (recent?) were notable but there was still a gap where part of the line had broken, the loose section trailing into the canyon. I pulled out my last jump spool and bridged the gap. The line then takes a sharp turn to the left and down deeper, but I also saw a jump here to go straight. Not having another jump spool, the direction was clear. Down we went! Almost immediately I encountered a minor restriction. I squeezed through it quickly, but it gave Glenn several minutes of frustration to get through. I watched him carefully for any signs of panic or needing assistance, but he seemed okay... just stuck. Meanwhile I check my gauge and read "75 feet, 22 minutes remaining no-deco time" though plenty of air time before hitting 3rds. I guess all that practice in minor restrictions at places like Calimba, Blue Abyss and Minotauro paid off -- watching Glenn struggle with what was easy to me made me thankful for all the cave diving and rock climbing experience.

The passageway here changed radically. We were now in a very tight passage only 6-8 feet wide and maybe 4 feet tall. The bottom was covered with a super-fine bright red silt that stirred exceptionally easily. There were stalactite formations here of indesscribable beauty like none I'd ever seen anywhere else on earth. Though the floor and walls were coated with this red dust, the formations were icicles in size, color and appearance. Against the red they virtually reflected green!! And boy, they looked fragile.

I continued on the passage very slowly, taking note of the condition of the line (it was okay) and trying to minimize how much my actions stirred up the silt. Even with my most delicate motions I knew that we were going to lose visibility. Not far later, maybe another 200 feet, the line simply ended at a wall of stalactites, though I could see the cave continue on, though much smaller than a diver could fit. I turned the dive on "End of Line."

And then it happened. Total silt-out. Glenn's turning around followed by my own in that tiny passageway stirred up so much that I lost all visibility. My bright 10 watt HID light made the water glow red but I wouldn't have been able to see the fingers in front of my eyes! Here again, proper cave training paid off. Anticipating the silt-out, I already had my fingers on the permanent line before I lost sight of it. Remembering where it was positioned relative to the cave just before I turned, it was easy to follow the line gently by touch alone for about 20 feet until the silt-out cleared up almost entirely. I exited this beautiful passage reluctantly, admiring all the delicate formations one last time. But the bottom time clock was ticking and I was down to 7 minutes before facing deco obligations.

Back thru the minor restriction (Glenn got thru much faster this time) and then back up to the 60 foot depth. Whew! We retraced back to the "T" at the beginning of Wonderland. After brief discussion, we agreed to try the other direction of the "T" which was leftwards, for a brief time. This quickly became a very tall and relatively narrow passage with formations mostly in a crevice below us, and then suddenly opened up into an E-n-o-r-m-o-u-s room that I never would have suspected in Aerolito!! It could have been 150 feet across, easily. And maybe 30-40 feet from floor to ceiling in some places. In the center of the room the line was tied to a stalagmite and made a sharp jump to the right. I could see a short jump from this point to a line straight ahead. I turned right and continued as it went to the edge of this huge room.

Shortly after reaching another passage from the room, the line was obviously deteriorating with more sections broken down. I turned the dive on "unsafe line" and we unwound our way, back to the huge room, back to Wonderland, back through Sulphur Falls, back down the main line, and out.

Total time in the cave was 86 minutes, with a maximum depth of 78 feet. I used approximately 1550 psi in my double 80 c.f. steel tanks. Not bad for a long dive where most of my time was spent at or below 60 feet m.s.w!!

Footnotes

I'm writing these footnotes a few hours after having written the above. I realise I may have understated the seriousness of a silt-out event. If you read accident analyses on scuba diving and particularly cave diving accidents, silt-outs are a major contributing factor to underwater fatalities. All too often, divers are either unprepared for, or subject to panic when a silt-out occurs. My cave instructor (as I'm sure all reputable cave instructors do) was strict in teaching "Line Awareness" at all times while cave diving.

When I saw the silt-out happening on this dive, it was practically a second-nature reflex to reach for the line, then gently swim through as if I were on one of my "Lights Out" training drills. Absolutely no panic, or even a concern. It wasn't the first time I've been in a silt-out and it certainly won't be the last time. To me it was just a noteworthy event on the dive. However it truly stresses the point that in order to engage in cave (or wreck) diving, you really REALLY need to get proper training for it.

The only concern that we faced on this dive was the bottom time. Although we were within a few minutes of hitting deco, it was all calculated into the plan, including when I would turn at the 70+ foot depth to avoid deco. Glenn pointed out to me after the dive that deco isn't a big deal, but I had to point out to him that we did not factor deco time into our gas planning and thus it was most prudent to avoid it. That of course was the primary concern and really the predominant limit to how much time we spent in the cave this dive.

Nohoch Nah Chich

Our last dive of the week was in the highly decorated Nohoch Nah Chich ("Giant Bird Cage") named probably because of the rooms separated by walls of stalactites found along Parker's Line, which is not far from the Rancho San Felipe cenote entrance.

Connie usually takes a group up Parker's line to Charlie's Line, then past Drippy Dick and eventually meeting up with the main line for a return back to the cenote. I've seen Parker's and Charlie's a number of times so my desire was to go explore elsewhere. Part of my goal was also to have a longer dive than Connie would likely plan, so partnering with Dusan and/or Bill would mean more air time and possibly new things to see. Dusan opted to go with Connie as he wanted an easy and shorter dive, but Bill was keen to try an adventure.

Bill and I made our plan to go straight up the main line to about the 4th arrow where there is a jump to the right at a distinctive formation I would recognize. I knew from past dives there were awesome formations on this line but hadn't taken it very far. From there we'd just wing it, deploying and reeling up to 2 more jump spools as air and interest dictated.

It'd been a year since I last led a dive in Nohoch so I was very pleased when my memory of how to find the main line was spot-on. It is in the cavern zone but pretty far from the entrance. Along the main line we went, past the Nat-Geo platform, past Disneyland, past enormous rooms filled ceiling-to-floor with every large and small stalactite/stalagmite combination imaginable. The 3rd arrow was at a reach-gap I remembered well, but continued on to the 4th. I referenced the formation to Bill and then spooled the gap to the right as planned.

Ten minutes later we were passing what looked like a statue garden. Odd-shaped stalagmites in bizarre shapes appeared out of the darkness to awaken the imagination. One looked like an eagle or a hawk, beak forward and wing back. Another looked like a horse and rider. Then... my spiney spines! I'd taken pictures of these last year but there they were in all their glory. These are thin stalactites with spines that stick up and out of them like upside-down pine trees. And yes, the spines actually pointed upwards towards the ceiling!

On we went, and more stalactites had even more unusual bits "growing" on them. The line wound around, and I used both spools jumping to "T"s both times. We investigated all directions but these were all loops or dead-ends. I hit the main line twice. Doing all this back-and forth was totally enjoyable, not monotonous at all in case you were wondering. I could tell Bill was enjoying the maze as well.

Eventually the dive was called on "no more reels" or "no more lines we hadn't visited" and we un-jumped, un-spooled and started heading back. We opted for one last deviation when we hit the 3rd arrow (the reach-gap I mentioned before) but it turned out, as I suspected, to go right back into the same maze a short way in.

Total time on the dive was 97 minutes and Connie's group was already out of the water and mostly finished disassembling their gear. Amazingly I still had 1800 psi in my doubles when I was done! We accomplished all the goals of the dive and had a GREAT time exploring.

Footnotes

On this dive I had my yoke-type regulator on the right post, to replace the regulator I suspect is in need of service. Everything was flawless -- no leaks, no hisses, no problems whatsoever. Now I have to decide whether to have the DIN regulator serviced here in Cozumel or wait until I return home and send it back to the manufacturer.

I wasn't concerned about having one yoke regulator on this dive because Nohoch nah Chich is generally a big cave and I was sure there were no restrictions in the areas we'd be exploring. This was a safe bet, but I wouldn't want to take yoke regulators to Calimba, Blue Abyss, Minotauro or Labna Ha.

The Blue Abyss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Footnotes

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

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

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

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

153 Minutes, 9000 Feet

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

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

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

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

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