6,017 days after my first dive in Cozumel, the stars aligned and I finally got a chance to do something I'd been looking forward to for a long time. A boat full of skilled divers and a perfect day with calm currents meant we were going to get a little hellish.
I have read stories about Devil's Throat for years. Opinions seem to vary between "Awesome!" and "meh, I'd rather look at fish". I knew the gist of the dive - you enter a long-ish swimthrough around 50 feet and traverse for several minutes until el Diablo spits you out around 130 feet below the surface. It was never something I felt I just HAD TO DO, and I figured when the time was right it would come around.
Today the time was right.
We headed south and got a super-serious-business dive briefing. No bullshitting around on this dive. Overhead environment for most of the swimthrough. Anyone can call the dive for any reason at any time and we will all go up together. If anyone hits 1,000 PSI we are done (rule of thirds) and we exit immediately. There have been incidents here (we know what that means) so take it seriously and don't screw around. Etc. "You know the drill!" We got the message. This was going to be a fun, spectacular, but slightly challenging dive. Let's do it right.
The briefing put us all in the right frame of mind and we geared up as we arrived at the site - no other boats around yet. This was gonna be great!
We dropped in and started to swim - but after a couple minutes we knew something was up. After 6 minutes and a max depth of 41 feet, we ascended to the surface; we had missed the entrance somehow. No big deal, we yanked our fins and climbed back on the boat still wearing the rest of our gear. We all laughed and decided this dive would forever be known as "The Devil's Forehead". This broke the tension a little bit as we chuckled at our supreme humor. 3 minutes later we were back in the water in the right place and we headed for The Throat. I was calm and excited at the same time; I had looked forward to this dive for such a long time. I wanted to make sure I did everything correctly, that I soaked up as much of this experience as I could, and the most important thing of all - don't be the guy who runs out of air first!
The swimthrough of the Throat was quite entertaining. It's dark in there! Having done some cenote diving in the past this didn't bother me, or the others on the dive seemingly. Within a minute or two of entering, everyone had decided the dive would be better without lights, and they clicked off one by one. The gloom was fantastic and as my eyes adjusted I just concentrated on pulling in this atmosphere and enjoying every second of it. After a few minutes of swimming we came to the downward chute - you swim almost straight down for a bit and then into a very dark cavern area. I could tell we were getting close to the exit as the light level started to pick up. I was still completely comfortable so I risked yanking out my camera and filmed the last minute or so of the exit. This isn't going to win any filmmaking awards, but if you want to see the contrast of the darkness and then the pale blue glow as you approach the exit, take a look:
I was the last to exit and I killed the video just as I rolled over to bask in the 130 ft view to the surface above me. We gathered up, checked air and NDLs, I took a quick peek over the ledge to peer into the abyss, saw it peering back at me, and then we proceeded to ascend back up to around 60 feet. We spent another 20 minutes or so puttering around the reef there, spotting several southern rays below us while a few people worked off some deco. 39 minutes after dropping in we were back on the surface talking about what a cool experience we just had. I'm sure Devil's Throat and Devil's Forehead will be my two shortest dives of this trip, but they were worth it!
We motored over to the shallows near El Cielo to enjoy our SI before all the snorkelers showed up. It was calm and peaceful. After a little while a bunch of rays started investigating our boat (looking for a handout no doubt) so a few of us jumped in the 2 ft deep water to get some footage. These guys are not shy, and some of us got close enough for a kiss! It was very cool to watch them swim around and under us. We even got a visit from a momma and her baby, but I wasn't close enough to capture them unfortunately. I did get this big guy swimming right by me:
The SI complete we headed over to Delilah to finish off our diving day. This was a super relaxing, peaceful, chill dive after the excitement of Devil's Throat. We all just cruised along the reef doing our own thing. Our DM was able to find a baby peacock ray in the sand, but you aren't gonna get any pics of that guy from me - they are TINY! Shortly after I spotted a splendid toadfish and quickly moved out of the way so the Cozumel first timers could check him out, but all the commotion drove him deeper into his hole so they didn't get a good look. Bummer!
Next up, Muddy Mudskipper's cousin the Sand Diver put in an appearance:
Halfway through the dive we got a flyby from a green moray. I don't think I've ever seen so many out swimming around in the daytime before, this was the third one in 8 days!
And my moment of zen for the dive - I just sat and watched this squad of grunts for a couple minutes and let my mind wander in the peacefulness of it all.
Another great day in Cozumel! That's all for today. We have some weather coming in tomorrow with a pretty weak Norte, so it's uncertain if we're going to get closures over the next couple days. Fingers crossed that we can still pull off some more diving. Until then, adios amigos!
