Mexico + Florida June 2011

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Sas

Contributor
Messages
7,599
Reaction score
225
Location
Melbourne, Australia
# of dives
500 - 999
I got Cave certified in April last year and have been diving solely in Mt Gambier, South Australia. However, after reading lots of trip reports and seeing Youtube videos of Mexico cave diving I decided I had to go check it out. Given it’s quite a lot of travel effort to go to Mexico I decided to visit Florida as well though I didn’t know much about the cave diving there other than there was a lot of it. I was told it was far more challenging than either Mt Gambier or Mexico, and that there was flow, which is about all I knew when I decided to go there. Another purpose to the trip was to get experience diving different cave environments which is something instructors like to see when you do Advanced Cave in Australia, which I hope to do next year so I can do some more sites in Mt Gambier (everywhere else I had no restrictions on the diving, nice for a change after a year and a half of CDAA site diving).

Mexico

Travel

It’s a bit of a PITA to get to Mexico from Australia I found out. A direct flight to Cancun was $3300 (AUD is roughly the same as USD) with not a great deal of time saving compared to flying to LAX ($1100 return to Melbourne) then LAX to Cancun ($240 one way). Anyway it took 32 hours of travelling from Melbourne to Cancun, arriving at about 1am. I got a shared taxi from the airport (can’t remember how much, probably was ripped off but I was tired at this stage :p) and crashed for the night at a cheap hostel. From Cancun I took the bus (ADO is the name of the bus) at about 10am the next day to Tulum (92 peso) which took around two hours, maybe a bit more.

Entrances were quite pretty as well as underneath! :)
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Accommodation

I was originally going to stay in Playa Del Carmen but was recommended to stay in Tulum by a cave diver Jean who I have chatted a bit with via Flickr. His advice about getting around Mexico and things to do was invaluable so made things very easy for me (such as telling me what bus to catch, pros and cons of different places to stay as well as what caves were good). I ended up staying at Posada Yum Kin Hotel - pyktulum.com. It cost $65/night including breakfast, the cost was shared between me and two friends so very cheap! Also had good internet! Was a really great hotel, room was very nice and clean, the surrounds were lovely and it had a really awesome pool. The manager was very helpful telling us nice places to eat and things to check out, helped us hire a car, organise spa treatments and so forth, so highly recommend this place! The only downside people might find is that it is not in a picturesque area being six blocks out of town (10min walk) though I enjoyed the walk to and from town (was 30 peso taxi ride to town, 100 peso to beach front). I spent a week there before I moved to an apartment in Puerto Aventuras (as my two friends had to leave and I wanted a cheaper place). No idea about the details of that as it was organised by my cave guide.

Dive guide
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Diving

I didn’t have a buddy on this trip so decided to hire a guide. I went with recommendation from a cave diver I know in Australia who recommended Dennis Weeks at Diablo Divers Diablo Divers. Anyway, he was an awesome guide and can’t speak highly of him enough! He went above and beyond what I expected, not only diving stuff but taking me to Playa Del Carmen two nights and other places (Puerto Aventuras and some other place I forget the name of) for dinner and/or sightseeing after the diving (as I had no transport), helping me organise things like a new place to stay after I finished in Tulum, fixing my drysuit for me (it got damaged in transport, three holes :(), teaching me how to use stages in caves, answering all my random questions about Mexico, translating Spanish for me and just overall being very accommodating about what dive sites to do.

Blue Abyss :)
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The first cave I did was Gran Cenote and we did two dives there on the first day. I was a bit worried how I would go diving AL80s as I have only ever dived steel twins, however trimmed out fine straight away and they were very comfortable. Anyway, I was just amazed at the difference between Mexico and home – the water was 25C/77F (can be down to 11C/52F in Mt Gambier but does warm up to 59F in some caves), also the caves I had dived before were very small and not highly decorated. On the first dive I swum 55 minutes into Gran Cenote before I hit thirds, which is just not possible at most of the caves I have been diving in Mt Gambier. Also they were far more complex navigationally; with most dives we were doing involving 2-4 jumps.

Spikey ceiling
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I went on to dive Jailhouse, Chan Hol, Tajma-Ha, Minotauro, Nai Tucha, Tres Estrellas and Pet Cemetery over the rest of the trip. I loved the halocline in Minotauro (here is a video I got: Beautiful Halocline | Flickr - Photo Sharing! doesn’t really do it justice though) so that was one of my favourite dives but Pet Cemetery was my favourite over all as I loved just the appearance of the cave as well as the Blue Abyss. Though getting into the cave was quite uncomfortable as the place was SWARMING with mosquitos and I got bitten up quite badly. Bring bug spray!

I liked the crinkly types of tunnels
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Dive guide ahead
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The diving itself was so easy and nice as the water was very warm, the viz so good, the caves I was in didn’t have any real restrictions, and it was shallow so I didn’t have to do any deco. Deepest dive was 22m or 65ft, but mostly around 13m/43ft. As I was going to Florida I brought my drysuit and was diving a trilam suit with just tracksuit pants and one stripy thermal top on underneath. Most dives were 90mins+ and I did not get cold despite many dives ending up soaking due to the leaks in my suit (fixed one, next day still leaking, fixed another, next day still leaking, found three in the end). One day I got fed up with having a wet drysuit so hired a 2mm wetsuit and was quite comfortable in that for three hours in the water that day. If I go again, I would bring my 7mm wetsuit as I prefer to dive wet and it is easy to do in Mexico.

Gran Cenote cavern
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Me
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Besides cave diving I did heaps of non diving stuff as I spent most of the first week there with non diving friends. We went to the beach which was awesome – water was bath warm and there were beds on the beach so I could lie in bed all day on the beach whilst getting drinks delivered to me, my friends did a Mexican cooking class one day which they loved (too much seafood for me to consider), we all went to Gran Cenote to snorkel, went to Tulum ruins and also Coba (where you are able to climb one of the pyramids). Tulum was quite nice, not as busy as Playa though with not as much to do but the amazing beach would definitely mean I stay there again. Was very convenient for a lot of the cenotes as well. Anyway can’t wait to go back, probably next year at the same time :) as June is off season so things were not busy and also cheaper.

More pics: Mexico Diving - a set on Flickr
 
Florida

Travel

After my stint in Mexico I flew from Cancun to Fort Lauderdale ($130) as I originally planned to do some ocean diving though kind of ran out of time for that, where I met my cave diving buddies wormil and one of his friends. BIG thanks to wormil who organised heaps around the diving in Florida as well as gear for me and also being a great dive buddy :) Also had dinner with netmage and tasdiver so it was cool to meet up with some Scubaboard people (also met up with ScubaSam in NYC, which was great fun!) We went to Ocala for the night and spent the next day doing American things such as shooting guns and eating hamburgers, as well as collect all our tanks to go to Luraville – on some days we had 10 sets of twins in the van :O. Think it took about six hours to get from FLL to cave diving but was in two bits so didn’t seem that long. Orlando would be a better airport to fly into for cave diving I think.

Orange Grove
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Accommodation

I stayed at a place very close (walking distance) to Peacock Springs called Cave House. Located on 10 acres of secluded woodlands Nice place with lots of room, internet, TV, laundry and so on. The kitchen was nice too so could cook meals easily, though we got supplies out of town as there is NOTHING in Luraville.

The great Wormil
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Diving

The first dive I did was the Grand Traverse in Peacock Springs, so I only managed one dive on the first day as that was quite a long dive at two hours and tiring with all the swimming. I had LP95s that I borrowed for the trip and I didn’t find these 100% comfortable (heavy and a bit short, prefer longer tanks) but it was nice to have stacks of gas! :) My buddy on this dive I had to spend a bit of time working out metric to whatever whack system is used over in the USA :p Compared to Mexico the cave was not very decorated and was quite dark and a fair bit colder (though still quite warm compared to home at 20C/68C) but I still enjoyed the dive a lot. I switched back to my 200g thermals for these dives, which were comfortable for all the dives I did (especially after wormil managed to find the last hole in my suit and I went back to being dry on dives!).

I was poor at not ending up with duckweed all over me
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Our deco gas at Madison Blue
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The next day I dived Little River which was fun and got my first experience of flow but it was not particularly strong at all. Ended up turning before thirds as I didn’t feel like doing heaps of deco (I like to keep it under 20mins mostly, 30mins max most of the time). The next dive I was joined by wormil and a friend of his (there were five of us on the trip), and we did the Well, something else that I forget and the Peanut Tunnel in Peacock Springs. I lead a lot of this dive so went at my usual pace which is slow as, so we didn’t get very far on this one but I prefer to see less and not swim so hard as overall I am a pretty lazy diver. :)

Olsen on the Grand Traverse
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I also did the deep section of Orange Grove, Cow Springs, which I REALLY enjoyed, found it quite interesting, the rope was quite funny – the flow wasn’t very bad but I used it anyway. Madison Blue I was diving with wormil again -which was my favourite as it was a fun dive, he was happy to go at my mega slow pace and we found some Godzillas in the Godzilla room which I thought was a cute thing to have on a dive. The final dives were at Ginnie Springs, just when I thought people were making a big deal about flow in caves for no reason… Was completely taken by surprise at trying to get into this cave and I lost most of my fingertips on this dive as well as gave myself a bit of a headache trying to swim too fast (haven’t done that since I was a new diver) so I was not really a fan of Devil’s Eye/Ear dive… maybe if I had a scooter or had more experience in dealing with flow and pull and glide I would have enjoyed it more. The other three on the trip went back in for a second dive there but me and wormil went to do the Ballroom for an easy dive to finish up my cave diving trip.

Me in Peanut Tunnel
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Dinosaur :) (was interesting seeing all the arrows with how far you were on them)
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So Florida was great to dive as well as Mexico but not as easy diving as there was a bit of flow on most dives, we had deco on nearly every dive, colder and not as pretty. Think it was definitely helpful in improving my overall cave diving experience though :)

Got some pictures from this as well: Florida Diving - a set on Flickr
 
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Sarah - Great photo essay/write-up of your North American tour, felt like I was right there with ya as I was reading it. I hear ya on the duck weed and devil's finger tips :shakehead:. The cenotes are definitely more decorated than FL caves. I'm a lazy diver too, like to take it nice and slow to enjoy the sights and not rush.

Was wonderful to meet you when you were in NYC albeit too brief. Please come back again when I'm not about to fly out of the country so I can show you my beautiful city through my eyes. :hugs:

Gonna check out your pics on Flickr now....ciao, sweetie!

Edit: Flickr is blocked on my work PC so I'll check out your pics tonight when I'm home.
 
Was wonderful to meet you when you were in NYC albeit too brief. Please come back again when I'm not about to fly out of the country so I can show you my beautiful city through my eyes. :hugs:

Yes was great to meet you as well! I really enjoyed our lunch. And yes it would be interesting to get another perspective of NYC. Whilst wormil was a good tour guide I am not sure I can 100% trust some of the things he told me in NYC... Apparently the Statue of Liberty was designed as a symbol of "America's freedom from socialism and free health care" and that most of the dinosaur bones in the Museum of Natural History are fake and made up by scientists with good imaginations. :rofl3:
 
Yes was great to meet you as well! I really enjoyed our lunch. And yes it would be interesting to get another perspective of NYC. Whilst wormil was a good tour guide I am not sure I can 100% trust some of the things he told me in NYC... Apparently the Statue of Liberty was designed as a symbol of "America's freedom from socialism and free health care" and that most of the dinosaur bones in the Museum of Natural History are fake and made up by scientists with good imaginations. :rofl3:

:shocked2: Wormil is absolutely correct!! And the big indoor Ferris wheel at Toys R Us was left here by aliens so they build a toy store around it.

:rofl3: I'd love to take a Wormil tour of NYC and see it through his eyes!

Back to your wonderful thread about Mexico and Florida caves. Again, great write-up and pics. You got to dive so many caves when you were on this side of the pond. Thanks for sharing your report and pics with us!
 
Wonderful report, and I'm so glad you got to see the cave diving in our hemisphere :)

Dennis really gave you the grand tour . . . you hit all my favorite places, although some of them would repay several days of attention (Grand Cenote and Jailhouse, for example). I really love the Diaz line, on the way to the Blue Abyss -- it's just the right size, just the right colors, has enough technical challenge to make it interesting without being frustrating or difficult. It's just a delightful dive!
 
Hey Sas, if you're planning another Mexico tour next June, please let us know ... I'd be up for joining you (haven't done Mexico yet), and maybe we could talk Sam and Donna into coming down too. Would be kinda cool to get a few SB'ers together down there ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
Hey Sas, if you're planning another Mexico tour next June, please let us know ... I'd be up for joining you (haven't done Mexico yet), and maybe we could talk Sam and Donna into coming down too. Would be kinda cool to get a few SB'ers together down there ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Sas, the hugable Bob and cenotes, how can I say no? Throw Lynne in there and I'm done!! :bounce:
 
Great write up and pictures Sas! It was wonderful meeting you. I used to really hate diving Ginnie until I got "schooled" on how to get out of the flow :wink: That June 2012 Mexico trip sounds like fun ! Let us know if you do put something together.
 
:rofl3: I'd love to take a Wormil tour of NYC and see it through his eyes!
... I'd love to take a Wormil tour of just about anywhere and see it through his eyes ... it's just that at my age, I'm not sure my heart could take it ... :shocked2:

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
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