Finally got the videos edited and complete (good thing its been slow at work!). Videos have been uploaded to YouTube (best viewed in small size - sorry for the compression). Keep in mind that we have just started taking photos in caves. Its a whole different thing taking photos in the dark. This is also the first time weve seriously undertaken shooting video in caves during swim dives, so we werent as steady as we would have liked to have been. Nevertheless, the photos and videos give you a good idea of what the systems we dove were like. I only wish we had bigger lights to really show you the larger rooms in some of those systems.
Anyway, lets start with the photo slide show here:
Okay, now for a trip report followed by video footage of the dives we did.
We arrived in Cancun Thursday afternoon, got our bags and headed over to get our rental car. My mother was flying in from the east coast to hang out on the beach while we went diving. She was supposed to arrive before us, but her flight was delayed so we headed to a small beach frequented by the locals to stick our feet in the water. Well, a small crasher came up and got more than just our feet wet! After that experience, we got back in the car and drove towards hotel zone (my first trip to Cancun). Talk about Americanized! I dont think we saw any locals once we hit the zone. And all the restaurants are American! Id rather head south and enjoy the more untouched part of Mexico.
Anyway, Moms flight finally got in. We picked her up and headed south to Playa del Carmen (not so unAmericanized, but still better than Cancun). We stayed at the Viva Wyndham Maya in Playacar. Its an all-inclusive, which took the issue of planning meals away. It was a nice place with decent food and gave Mom a lot to do while we were off diving. We got settled in, went to the beach and had some pina coladas and eventually made it to the buffet for dinner. BTW, you can see the buildings and lights of Cozumel right from the Viva Maya beach.
The next day we woke up early, excited to head to the cenotes for our first dives in Mexican caves! We had breakfast and then headed over to the main lobby of the resort to wait for Dennis, our guide for the weekend. Dennis arrived, we loaded our gear into the back of his pickup and headed to Cenote Ponderosa (the usual place guides use to check out cave divers they havent been diving with). Its a good thing we hit there first. It had only been 2 months (to the day) since our last cave dive, but it was our first time diving double AL80s and it was a little different than diving double steels. Throw in the halocline to mess with our buoyancy We didnt touch top or bottom or silt things out, but it was an experience. Nothing like dropping through the halocline and having to dump air from your wing so you dont pop back up through it or ascending through the halocline and having to add air. Our first dive lasted a little over an hour, but we didnt get to penetrate as far as we would have liked. Oh well, Dennis dropped a cookie on the line and during the second dive we were able to do the River Run circuit. Even with the buoyancy issues from new tanks and fresh to salt/salt to fresh on the first dive, we had a great time diving Ponderosa. It doesnt have the formations of some of the other caves, but it was so cool swimming through the halocline. During the 2nd dive, I spent about 10 minutes of the dive swimming in and out of the halocline just because it was such a neat thing to experience. Its so weird to be swimming in crystal clear water and then dropping through and stirring up the water to create a blurriness. At times it was even difficult seeing the gold line because of the blurriness. There were moments I was relying on the light from Jens light to let me know where the line was. It was pretty cool to be swimming under the halocline and looking up to see the sheet of fresh water moving along faster than the salt water (you can see this in the video). Then swimming above the halocline and looking down at it made it seem like we were flying in the air over a body of water. Dennis told us the water temperature between the 2 waters was only 2 degrees difference (77 for fresh and 79 for salt), but it seemed like a 10 degree difference! I swear I was sweating when we were swimming through the salt water. Its also very strange to taste salt while diving in a cave! This cave has a lot of percolation happening. Our bubbles would dislodge little pieces of silt from the ceiling and it would come dropping down. It was neat watching this because the silt seemed to hang in the fresh water zone for quite a long time. Dropping down below the halocline cleared up any sight of the silt pieces. It was also strange to be swimming along a cave and coming across sunlight pouring into the cave. During our circuit dive, we swam past a couple of different cenotes Little Joe Cenote and Zazil Ha Cenote. It was also strange to see a couple of pairs of legs penetrating the surface. I wonder if they saw us and what they must have thought about seeing 3 divers coming out of the darkness. We had a couple of great dives in Ponderosa. Dennis brought us over to the fill station in P. Aventuras (man I wish I owned that many tanks!), then we swung by his shop, Aquanauts and he gave us a quick tour of the dolphin jail and the beach in front of the Omni resort. After that he brought us back to our resort where we found Mom sunning herself on the beach. We dropped off gear and cooled ourselves off in the water. Heres a video of our dive in Ponderosa:
The next day we drove down to P. Aventuras and met Dennis at his shop to save him the drive north to pick us up. We transferred gear to his truck, headed over to the fill station to pick up tanks, then headed to Cenote Grande Garden of Eden. After having gotten used to the double 80s the day before, Dennis decided he was going to keep us on our toes. For the first dive, instead of the 80s, we used steel 104s. Talk about heavy tanks!! I knew they were much heavier than any other tanks we had been in before, but I had no idea how heavy they would feel in the water! We did a giant stride off the platform with fully inflated wings and dropped right to the bottom. My feet hit the bottom (thats never happened before) and Jen could barely get herself back to the surface. Once on the surface, even with fully inflated wings, we had to keep kicking to keep our chins out of the water. And we were wearing 7mm wetsuits! I also spent half of the first dive trying to correct my orientation in the water. I set up my rig so the tanks were sitting high on my back, but I was still foot heavy at the beginning of each dive I did in those. The first dive we did was to the Calimba T. We got to the T and found some silt just hanging mid water. Afterwards, Dennis told us it was probably caused by some other divers that had entered the system at the Calimba Cenote. Cenote Grande is a beautiful system with some awesome formations. This was our first dive where we were able to see so many stals and soda straws underwater. For the 2nd dive we went back to 80s and swam the Cuzan Ha Loop. This dive was a lot of fun. We went through some passages that were on the smallish side. In fact, before the dive, Dennis had even asked us how we felt about small passages. No problem for us and these passages were not the smallest weve been in, but it was fun to maneuver through the passages. What I call the sand slide was pretty interesting as well. Even more fun was the fact that a couple of fish decided to follow us on this dive. Every now and then on the video you can spot them swimming in front of the camera. I just kept hoping they would stay with us so they could make it back to the cenote with us. One of the things I really like about Cenote Grande is the huge cavern area. Its strange to be tying off the primary in what appears to be overhead, but when you look up you can see that it actually is open water, just open water with a ceiling above that! You can see the stals coming through the surface of the water at the end of our video. Im looking forward to returning here and spending a little more time in the cavern exploring and even snorkeling it. Heres our video from Cenote Grande:
Anyway, lets start with the photo slide show here:
Okay, now for a trip report followed by video footage of the dives we did.
We arrived in Cancun Thursday afternoon, got our bags and headed over to get our rental car. My mother was flying in from the east coast to hang out on the beach while we went diving. She was supposed to arrive before us, but her flight was delayed so we headed to a small beach frequented by the locals to stick our feet in the water. Well, a small crasher came up and got more than just our feet wet! After that experience, we got back in the car and drove towards hotel zone (my first trip to Cancun). Talk about Americanized! I dont think we saw any locals once we hit the zone. And all the restaurants are American! Id rather head south and enjoy the more untouched part of Mexico.
Anyway, Moms flight finally got in. We picked her up and headed south to Playa del Carmen (not so unAmericanized, but still better than Cancun). We stayed at the Viva Wyndham Maya in Playacar. Its an all-inclusive, which took the issue of planning meals away. It was a nice place with decent food and gave Mom a lot to do while we were off diving. We got settled in, went to the beach and had some pina coladas and eventually made it to the buffet for dinner. BTW, you can see the buildings and lights of Cozumel right from the Viva Maya beach.
The next day we woke up early, excited to head to the cenotes for our first dives in Mexican caves! We had breakfast and then headed over to the main lobby of the resort to wait for Dennis, our guide for the weekend. Dennis arrived, we loaded our gear into the back of his pickup and headed to Cenote Ponderosa (the usual place guides use to check out cave divers they havent been diving with). Its a good thing we hit there first. It had only been 2 months (to the day) since our last cave dive, but it was our first time diving double AL80s and it was a little different than diving double steels. Throw in the halocline to mess with our buoyancy We didnt touch top or bottom or silt things out, but it was an experience. Nothing like dropping through the halocline and having to dump air from your wing so you dont pop back up through it or ascending through the halocline and having to add air. Our first dive lasted a little over an hour, but we didnt get to penetrate as far as we would have liked. Oh well, Dennis dropped a cookie on the line and during the second dive we were able to do the River Run circuit. Even with the buoyancy issues from new tanks and fresh to salt/salt to fresh on the first dive, we had a great time diving Ponderosa. It doesnt have the formations of some of the other caves, but it was so cool swimming through the halocline. During the 2nd dive, I spent about 10 minutes of the dive swimming in and out of the halocline just because it was such a neat thing to experience. Its so weird to be swimming in crystal clear water and then dropping through and stirring up the water to create a blurriness. At times it was even difficult seeing the gold line because of the blurriness. There were moments I was relying on the light from Jens light to let me know where the line was. It was pretty cool to be swimming under the halocline and looking up to see the sheet of fresh water moving along faster than the salt water (you can see this in the video). Then swimming above the halocline and looking down at it made it seem like we were flying in the air over a body of water. Dennis told us the water temperature between the 2 waters was only 2 degrees difference (77 for fresh and 79 for salt), but it seemed like a 10 degree difference! I swear I was sweating when we were swimming through the salt water. Its also very strange to taste salt while diving in a cave! This cave has a lot of percolation happening. Our bubbles would dislodge little pieces of silt from the ceiling and it would come dropping down. It was neat watching this because the silt seemed to hang in the fresh water zone for quite a long time. Dropping down below the halocline cleared up any sight of the silt pieces. It was also strange to be swimming along a cave and coming across sunlight pouring into the cave. During our circuit dive, we swam past a couple of different cenotes Little Joe Cenote and Zazil Ha Cenote. It was also strange to see a couple of pairs of legs penetrating the surface. I wonder if they saw us and what they must have thought about seeing 3 divers coming out of the darkness. We had a couple of great dives in Ponderosa. Dennis brought us over to the fill station in P. Aventuras (man I wish I owned that many tanks!), then we swung by his shop, Aquanauts and he gave us a quick tour of the dolphin jail and the beach in front of the Omni resort. After that he brought us back to our resort where we found Mom sunning herself on the beach. We dropped off gear and cooled ourselves off in the water. Heres a video of our dive in Ponderosa:
The next day we drove down to P. Aventuras and met Dennis at his shop to save him the drive north to pick us up. We transferred gear to his truck, headed over to the fill station to pick up tanks, then headed to Cenote Grande Garden of Eden. After having gotten used to the double 80s the day before, Dennis decided he was going to keep us on our toes. For the first dive, instead of the 80s, we used steel 104s. Talk about heavy tanks!! I knew they were much heavier than any other tanks we had been in before, but I had no idea how heavy they would feel in the water! We did a giant stride off the platform with fully inflated wings and dropped right to the bottom. My feet hit the bottom (thats never happened before) and Jen could barely get herself back to the surface. Once on the surface, even with fully inflated wings, we had to keep kicking to keep our chins out of the water. And we were wearing 7mm wetsuits! I also spent half of the first dive trying to correct my orientation in the water. I set up my rig so the tanks were sitting high on my back, but I was still foot heavy at the beginning of each dive I did in those. The first dive we did was to the Calimba T. We got to the T and found some silt just hanging mid water. Afterwards, Dennis told us it was probably caused by some other divers that had entered the system at the Calimba Cenote. Cenote Grande is a beautiful system with some awesome formations. This was our first dive where we were able to see so many stals and soda straws underwater. For the 2nd dive we went back to 80s and swam the Cuzan Ha Loop. This dive was a lot of fun. We went through some passages that were on the smallish side. In fact, before the dive, Dennis had even asked us how we felt about small passages. No problem for us and these passages were not the smallest weve been in, but it was fun to maneuver through the passages. What I call the sand slide was pretty interesting as well. Even more fun was the fact that a couple of fish decided to follow us on this dive. Every now and then on the video you can spot them swimming in front of the camera. I just kept hoping they would stay with us so they could make it back to the cenote with us. One of the things I really like about Cenote Grande is the huge cavern area. Its strange to be tying off the primary in what appears to be overhead, but when you look up you can see that it actually is open water, just open water with a ceiling above that! You can see the stals coming through the surface of the water at the end of our video. Im looking forward to returning here and spending a little more time in the cavern exploring and even snorkeling it. Heres our video from Cenote Grande:
