Halocline at Cenote / Sistema Eden Q. Roo

[Scuba Diver Mexico]

Beautiful River Run cave dive ¡!


Last week I was in Q. Roo taking care of some stuff and also went cave diving a few days.

My good friend, partner and founder of CINDAQ Sam Meacham, his family, and myself had a picnic at Cenote Eden (aka Ponderosa), and later we went for a brief 70 min cave dive in the River Run (upstream from the large basin of the Cenote).

Even though we first dove there more than a decade ago, we wanted to go back to visit it once more ! This area was filmed a few years ago with Sam/Cindaq and featured in the BBC Planet Earth documentary Caves episode.

YouTube - BBC PLANET EARTH Episode 4 CAVES [HD 720p] PART 3 (from minute 3:13)

This is the underground river /cave area where the halocline has been best put on film for divers and non divers to see (minute 8:52). The fresh water flows beautifully on top of the salt water as a surface river does over the riverbed !!

Halocline - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



These amazing underground rivers of Q. Roo are among the most unique and pristine in the world so we must conserve them properly.

www.cindaq.org


Happy diving in Mexico!!

 

[lamont]

River Run was my first cave dive in Cave 1, first dive beyond the cavern zone.

 

[TSandM]

I love the halocline in Cenote Eden (and I love the site, because the open basin is one of the prettiest I've seen, with beautiful fish). For some reason, the salt water there seems MUCH warmer than in the southern caves, where the halocline is deeper. Dropping into the salt water in Eden feels like dunking into a bathtub!

 

[Spratman]

We hit a pretty significant halocline when I was diving Chac Mool. I am looking forward to hitting some others in Sept.

 

[Scuba Diver Mexico]

I also visited the Chac Mool system last week,


M. in Sc. Olmo Torres-Talamante had just received his Haclyon prize that morning and we both planned to go for two dives afterwards. (see image bellow and link)

Congratulations to our Halcyon MakeOver Winners! | Halcyon Dive Systems

We were going to go to a far away system that I worked in back in 2003 but since it was getting late, instead we decided to take it easy and go see the giant stalactite in downstream Chac Mool and then do a second dive upstream and in the Kukulkan section. I had not been there for some time and he had never visited the place . The halocline is also amazing in all this area and much of the stalactite is in saltwater. Only the uppermost part of the almost 80 feet tall Xix Ha Tunich room where the huge stalactite formation is located has fresh water running towards the Caribbean sea.

I have the great opportunity to dive with marine biology researchers very often around different places of Mexico (all the way from the great whites in Guadalupe to the tiny Nudibranchs in Bahia de Banderas) but diving with a UW cave biologist is always a different, refreshing and a very rewarding experience.


We both felt very grateful to be able to witness once more the magnificence of such extraordinary places ….

 

[TSandM]

We dove Chac Mool in June, but couldn't quite get to the stalactite on Cave 1 limits. Yet another thing that will be good about getting Cave 2 done!

 

[Scuba Diver Mexico]

I used to dive Chac Mool a lot in the past both upstream and downstream especially with intro cave/cave 1 level divers (respecting the penetration and comfort limits of course).


I always thought it was a relatively simple and beautiful cave dive with lots of stuff to see. I enjoy it very much personally also due to the huge size of passages !!

Hope you get to see the giant formation some day very soon when you do your Cave 2 !!

Safe, enjoyable diving !!