approachtosugarbowl

Cenote Taj Maha (aka Taj Mahal) is one of my favorite dives. The dive starts with a short walk down cement formed stairs to the waters edge at cenote Taj Maha. After our predive checks we descend and make our way into a large formation filled chamber known as Points of light. The chambers gets it's name from the sunlight penetrating through small holes in the ceiling like laser beams of light dancing through the water. From here we continue our descent to 43' where we encounter a Halocline. Swimming along we approach Cenote Sugar Bowl where we need to ascend to 8'. By now we are only 9 - 10 minutes into the dive so with a nice and slow ascent we arrive in the Sugar Bowl safely. Fining across the Sugar Bowl admiring the amazing light show a diver has an amazing sense of being weightless in an alien environment. We descend back down through the Halocline this time reaching a maximum depth of 45'we make our way to the furthest point of penetration and the skull and cross bones sign reminding us that to penetrate further would be to break the rules of a safe cavern dive. Looking at the many fossils in the floor and ceiling in the area of the skull and cross bones sign we turn towards Cenote Bill's Hole (part of Cenote Mangrove) slowly ascending to 25' as we make our way to Bill's hole we have another visual burst of light as the vivid greens and yellows are reflected off the sunlight from the surrounding plants above the water. Checking the light show and looking for a few more fossils we continue back towards the Sugar Bowl and back down through the Halocline. Arriving at the Sugar bowl around 30 minutes into the dive we ascend to 15' to complete a mid dive safety stop. After the safety stop we continue following the guideline around the Sugar Bowl and up to a depth of 5'. Because of this shallow depth I choose to complete a safety stop part way through our dive.

After leaving the Sugar Bowl we start our descent for the last time in Taj Maha passing by a gorgeous formation known as the Devils Tower named because of it's similar appearance to the Devils Tower NM in Wyoming. Working our way back into the Halocline we follow the line taking a hard right turn and while gradually ascending we make our way around the Points of Light chamber.With many formations above our heads it is very important to maintain good buoyancy control in order to protect this fragile environment specifically if we become distracted as we gaze in amazement at the beauty around us. A good point is made of the importance to maintaining proper buoyancy control and trim as we gently fin over a large stack of formations that were collected and assembled in an organized mound - a sad tribute to formations that took thousands of years to grow but had their life ended in one careless move or lapse in judgement of a diver.

Spending the last 8 minutes of our dive between 20 and 15' we approach the end of our dive having completed our safety stop while still enjoying the sights around us. With a final thumbs up followed by an Okay from each diver, we ascend the last 15' to the surface to reflect on the dive, the beauty, the environment and the safety.

Dive Safely

Dennis