Diving the Cenotes (caves) of the Yucatan

There is nothing better than diving the caves of the Yucatan. It is my absolute favorite thing to do, of all of the things I have tried. And there have been a LOT! We were trained by one of the best divers in the world, Scott Carnihan of ProTec. ProTec offers incredible technical training. Tech diving is interesting becuase it is equipment and procedure intensive, and you also have to have a very good understanding of dive physiology if you are going to be safe. There are a lot of interesting medical problems that arise in technical diving that are different from recreational diving. The primary reason is that physiologic limits are pushed by mixing different gases to obtain greater depths and durration of dives. One of the problems with assessing risk in these divers is that we really aren't completely sure why some people get decompression sickness (DCS) and others don't, or why it happens to people when it does. It is not at all obvious when looking at the data.

This is Scott's "Mother Ship." I needed a belay to get into the damn thing. But it held about 20 sets of double tanks. That's a lot of space AND a lot of weight. Cave diving is definitely gear and proceedure intensive. I think that is why I like it so much. I would really love to get more experience and training in expedition caving (staging bottles and decompression diving in caves). I would also like to do some scootering, but the caves are so fragile that I am not sure that the Yucatan is the best place for that.

This beautiful girl is of Mayan descent. Her famliy owns the property overlying this cenote. She was more than happy to pose for pictures, sweet girl.

Cenote is the Mayan word for "well." The cenotes held great mystery for the Mayans. In one cenote, there is a room very far back and very deep called the "bone room." The cenotes were dry until about 10,000 years ago. Before that, the Mayan shamen would go back and perform rituals. It was very dark back there, and it is thought that they found their way unaided by light. In this "bone room," there are bones and carvings in the cave floor. They date back at least 10,000 years. I feel honored to be able to see such places.

After the ice age receeded, the caves flooded and are now the water table for the area. They are the most highly decorated caves in the world, have virtually no current, and are realatively shallow, making them extremely interesting and very safe by cave standards. If it were not for the water, the limestone stalagtights and stalagmites would not likely have survived. I only took viedo last time, but on our next trip, we will take some still photos and update the blog so you can see how incredible the caves really are.

This is Scott and me getting ready for a dive. You can see that we use two tanks. They are connected by a manifold which can isolate the tanks in the event of a catastrophic failure. Each tank has a separate regulator so that there is redundancy. We dive by the "Rule of Thirds." We only dive as far as a third of our air will take us. The second third is for the way out. The third part is not ours. It is reseved for any other diver in distress who needs help out.

We train extensively in total blackness, sharing regs, mask off, etc. We do a lot of drills on how to find the line, how to follow the line on the way out, rescue of a diver who cannot help him or herself, etc., etc., etc. It is safe if you follow the rules. There have been very few deaths of cave divers where the rules were strictly followed and where the divers had good training.

This is Seth and me in the entrance of a cenote. Scott took the picture. This was a GREAT dive. There is what they call a "planing" section in this cave, where there was softer rock layed out in a plane, and it is like a slice was taken away. It is only a few feet high and runs for about 40 meters. There are some restrictions, beautiful decorations, and a lot of stuctural variation and changes in depth. It was a very enjoyable dive. It is not a well-known cenote and that made it even more fun.

This is what the entrance looks like. It looks like a pool. But this is the largest wet cave system in the world. They are all over the place in the Yucatan, mostly unexplored. You can go for miles and miles (if you stage bottles and have a place to do a long decompression, of course), and they all eventually connect to the ocean. That is why the deeper caves have what is called a "halocline." That is where the fresh and salt water mix. It is no problem until it is disturbed. When it is, everything suddenly becomes so blurry that you cannot even see the line, even though the water is otherwise crystal clear. It is really cool becuase all you have to do is swim away from the wash of the person's fins, and you are back in crystal clear water with visibility at about 200 feet. Contrast that to the sometimes 5-10 feet of visibility in the summer in the Puget Sound!

This is one of my favorite cenotes. The cave entrance is down and to the right. Fortunately, that ladder isn't the only access to the entrance! There is NO WAY I could get out of there with about 80 pounds of gear on. :) Most people use these as swimming holes. Few people, other than international cave divers, use the caves to dive.

This is the view outside our room in Akumal. That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!!!
This is the best apres dive site -- EVER. It is appropriately called La Buena Vida ("The Good Life," for you Spanish illiterates). It is a sandy-floored bar with swing chairs. It has a very cool pseudo skeleton of like a dragon, or something, above the bar. It has these palm tree "tables" that literally sway HARD in the wind. The night we took this picture, the waiters refused to bring our food or drinks up to us. :) There is a little hatch door that you open to get to the "table." I LOVED THIS PLACE!!!!

Ahhhhh...Akumal. Someday it will be my second home!