TAKING OUR CAVE DIVING FURTHER
By Peter W. Knudsen Back in 2006 my buddy Anders – who is also my son – and I finished our Full Cave class with Steve Gerrard in Puerto Aventuras – Mexico. Sadly we don’t have any caves here in Denmark, so we have to drive to France or Norway if we want to go cave diving. Since it’s a 1000 miles drive it’s not something we do every day, so normally we have to do with the many shipwrecks found here in the Scandinavian waters. When we penetrate the wrecks we use many of the skills and techniques we learned in our different cave courses. Just as in the caves the use of reels and spools gets you safe out again.
Both of us are the happy owners of the Submerge N-19 DPV which is great machine to get an overview of the bigger wrecks if and when the visibility permits the use of DPV’s. But we both felt we could do with some more training in the use and handling of the DPV’s, so in December 2007 we decided that we definitely needed to see more of the beautiful caves in the Riviera Maya area. We mailed our friend Steve and asked if he had time in March, 2008 to teach a SUBMERGE LONG RANGE DPV COURSE and luckily we could find 9 days in March, 2008.
After 20 hours of flying we landed in Cancun airport Friday, March 14th. Steve was doing the graduation dive with another team that day so we took the bus to Cancun and from there a taxi to Puerto Aventuras where our Condo was waiting. Later that evening Steve and Joe (the famous Cocker dog) came down to welcome us, it was nice to meet our 2 friends with whom we had shared so many great experiences. We had planned to use Saturday for theory and equipment discussions – the best way to start at least with students coming from colder climates, we needed an easy day to get used to the heat.Sunday the diving began and at 7:45 A.M. we headed towards Cenote Manati for an open water session.
We started with one Submerge UV-26 DPV each, just to get used to the UV-26 which is somewhat bigger then the N-19 we normally use. Little by little Steve added equipment, first 1 stage, the 2 stages, then a second DPV. Carrying 2 stage bottles and 2 scooters you start feeling like a swimming junkyard. Every time we felt that we had everything 100% under control Steve added unforeseen events to the task load, “suddenly” I was out of air, doing share gas drills with 2 scooters is FUN. Then we started doing line drills, adding line while on the trigger, recovering line, all the things you think you are really good at, well add a couple of scooters and everything suddenly is much more difficult. After the dive we had a great Texas BBQ at Casa Cenote, catching up on everything with Steve.
For our afternoon dive we went to Cenote Chac Mool, using the Little Lrother entrance. The dive was great, we only used doubles and one scooter each, as it was meant to be a no failure dive, to see how Anders and I acted as a team – but since Anders and I have close to 400 dives together we did OK.
The Chac Mool upstream is simply stunning, crystal clear water, white walls and beautiful formations. Scootering in the halocline is just amazing, the 3 of us spread out to the sides so that no one had to be in the area with no visibility behind another diver, watching how the salt and the fresh water mixed in front of your scooter, and how the prop wash suddenly became very visible is something everyone should try to see – it really gives you a good idea of how the water flows around your scooter.Back at Steve’s bodega we unloaded everything – charged the scooters and called it a day.
Our first day of diving had been a great success.
Monday at 7.00 A.M. we drove to Steve’s bodega to pick up 3 scooters, 3 sets of doubles and 3 stages. With everything safely secured on the truck we headed of into the jungle towards Cenote Thus Kapaxa. After driving 30 minutes on a small dusty track and then driving another 15 minutes down an even smaller track we finally stopped – 100 meters after I thought the car couldn’t possibly get any further. We now had to hump all our gear the 150 meters down to Tuhs Kapaxa. Using an aluminium back plate it is possible to carry the scooters – but it is hard work. Close to the entrance pool Anders was stung by a small black wasp – no pain no gainJ We motored all the beautiful power passages and saw the mastodon and what is supposed to be bear bones, in between Steve managed to put in some sharing air drills. Just after the bones we went left at another T and came into the most beautiful cave I have ever seen – changing from highly decorated to plain white walls, imagine the most beautiful place you have ever been and the multiply it by 10 and you will be very close. On the way out Anders was supposed to be out of air, so he turned to me and got my longhose, motoring next to each other with me leading the way, and Anders with the light pointing down from his d-ring and a firm grasp in me with his the left hand and his right controlling the trigger. We had no problems with the drill, and afterwards Steve told us that he was very impressed with the share air drill and that we did it almost perfect. Due to the nature of the cave you ascend slowly from 13 to 6m where we spend 3 min and then a 6 min ascend to the surface. Back on land we started to get all the gear to the car, this took away the last energy we had, but the dive was sure worth it. We dropped all ideas of a second dive that day and went for a well deserved lunch at a great seaside restaurant Lol Ha in Akumal.
Tuesday at 7.00 A.M. Steve picked us up at the condominium, the plan was to dive Mayan blue. First we went to the Bodega to get 3 scooters, 3 sets of doubles, 6 stage bottles and some oxygen tanks.
On this dive we were going to breathe 2 stage bottles and only use the back gas as bailout.
Starting at the Back door to the B-tunnel we dropped the oxygen bottles at 10m and then hit the trigger and continued down a beautiful white tunnel with a halocline in the middle, we then jumped to the E tunnel which was even more clear and here you could really see why the cave is called Mayan Blue as the water and walls has a bluish shade. We made another jump to the F line and scootered some hundred feet through beautiful decorated cave and a minor restriction before we hit a slope going up through the halocline in a very silty area. The trip back out was even more beautiful than the trip in.
We decided that due to the profile of almost and hour at 23m we would do 5min at 6m before we surfaced – we all surfaced all with a huge smile on our faces.The second dive of the day would also be Mayan Blue, with us not leaving the water between dives as we left the scooters and oxygen bottles at 3 meters we started the second dive picking everything up. This time with only took one stage and the 02 bottle and headed towards the A tunnel. As we only had 40 minutes of usable burn time left on the scooter (this not including the reserve) we would just see how far we could get in 20 minutes. The A tunnel is way darker than the B tunnel (freshwater), and the visibility was kind of blurry at times, actually at the beginning of the dive I was thinking what the heck am I doing here, why are we not diving the B tunnel which is so great, but when I got used to the dark I started noticing the minor details, and the tannic stained cave suddenly became much more interesting. Navigation wise this dive was no real challenge we was on the gold line for the first 13min and then took a left at a T, when reaching the second T we decided to call the dive as we had travelled 19min on the scooter and the cave was going to get very narrow. After the dive we loaded the car, and drove to Oscar y Lalos Restaurant where we had a great lunch, and also did a theory lesson and our exam for our DPV speciality.
Wednesday started at 6.30 A.M. where we drove to Steve´s Bodega to pick up 6 stages, 6 scooters and 3 sets of doubles. The reason for starting so early was that we wanted to dive Dos Ojos, and we wanted to get there before the rush in of cavern divers. When Anders had clipped on both stages and the second scooter was on the tow ring, he found out that his UV-42 was leaking. We did not have a real backup so we would have to shorten the dive. Anders was now diving a long body x-scooter with a UV-26 on tow, I was diving a UV-42 with a UV-26 on tow. We scootered from Dos Ojos west till we made a jump to the LSD line which we followed until we reached 45 minutes of scooter time ( approx 4800-5000feet from Dos Ojos west ) then we changed scooters. We surfaced after 90 minutes, having done the whole dive on one stage, we had plenty of gas for a second dive. We had persuaded Steve to bring his Nikon 100 and to do a photo session. First we went downstream, but the visibility was really bad in that area. So we went upstream and had a great cave dive using back gas and only one scooter, practicing towing divers and just playing around, Steve actually took pictures on the fly using the Oceanic Mako DPV – it worked!
Thursday we started with a scooter workshop where we disassembled and reassemble the scooter, to get a better understanding of how the scooter is working and how to maintain it – be good to you pony and it will be good to you as Steve said. Back at Dos Ojos we unloaded 6 stages, 6 scooters and 3 sets of doubles from the car. We dropped our first scooter and first stage at the jump to the LSD line after 42 minutes scooter time and 70 bar used on the first stage.
We now reached the canyons of the LSD area and wow this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I cant even describe it, just flying through these giant rooms with pristine white walls, seeing the percolation from my buddy’s bubble’s (plenty of it as not that many divers go to this part of the cave) I called the dive after 75 min with 120 bar left in my second stage, we turned around and headed off for our 3 km long journey back home. Just as the day before we ended the day at Pizza Leos with some great pizza and a well deserved beer, some theory and our Stage diver exam which we completed without any problems at all – beside calculating with LP104 filled to 3500 psi? Why can’t you Americans use metric measurements?
Friday morning both Anders and I felt a bit tired, so we decided together with Steve that we had time enough to take the day off – with Steve there are never any problems only solutions – I wish everybody was as easy to get along with as Steve Gerrard. We enjoyed the sun and relaxed, in the evening Steve took us to an amazing restaurant (ALUXE in Playa Del Carmen) built inside a dry cave, still with stalactites and columns, where do you take cave divers out for dinner if not inside a cave? Saturday was our last day of diving, but also the dive we had been looking forward to for months.
We were going to dive from Dos Ojos west to THE PIT, Anders has a top 5 list of dives we wants to do and the Pit is one of them. But arriving to Dos Ojos he didn’t feel all right, he took the hard but wise decision not to dive – being 10.000 feet back in a cave is not the place you want to be when not feeling well. So Steve and I entered at Dos Ojos and started scootering down the now familiar line towards the Pit, we tied on at the BarbieDoll/Crocodile, continued towards the air dome now called the room of issues as we had used the air dome to discuss issues with dive gear the previous days. We went very fast and passed the 2800 feet marker and past the jump to the LSD line, and continued towards Cenote Tikim Mich, where we dropped the first scooter and first stage. When reaching a “T” I placed a marker and made a left turn. Just about at the 8000 feet marker the cave starts to get smallish, as it is a bedding plane there is plenty of room but not for scootering, so the last 10 minutes before dropping the last scooter the progress is slow, and at approx 9400 feet we started to swim towards the Pit, talk about variety some place you almost have to squeeze through. Just coming round a 90 degree turn Steve asks me to turn out my light – my first thought was “He must be out of his mind to do drills here” but I did what he asked and just round the next corner the blue light from the pit could now be seen. THE PIT is not huge it is enormous with 52m to the other side and 120m to the bottom, we swam across the dome some times, and enjoyed the sunlight before we started the long journey back – This was the best dive so far in my diving career, the only drawback was that Anders was not with me – but now we have a great excuse to return. The trip back was uneventful, but of cause you always see something else on the way back, this cave gives you everything small canyons, white walls, dark stuff, small spaces, silt – simply an amazing variety in one dive.Sunday we packed our gear and prepared for getting back to Denmark. Again we spent a wonderful week with Steve, we improved all our diving skills – and had a great time together with Steve (and Joe). When winter here in Denmark gets to cold and dark – we will jump on a plane a come back to our 2 friends in Puerto Aventuras.
Anders & Peter Knudsen