Three divers lose their lives at Chac Mool in Riviera Maya. 2 Brazillian, 1 Spaniard

[PfcAJ]

Would anyone, especially experienced cave divers, like to comment on scenarios where the husband would still end up with a bit of gas left? It seemed a bit odd, unless you're willing the postulate a second emergency on top of being lost/too far in. A medical issue might be one explanation. At 200 psi, the regs might breathe harder but a person should still be able to forcibly suck the last 5 cf out of the tank, especially when desperate. Of course, panic could make someone less rational, but one would think if it's the ONLY source of air available, a person would suck it dry. Another significant possibility is that the gauge was wrong. Don't know how careful the rescuers or investigators were at making the measurement we're hearing about, or if it was more carefully measured after the initial 200 psi figure was circulated. Any other possibilities?

Perhaps diver A saw how low their gas supply was and started sharing gas with diver B. Diver B runs completely out of gas, diver A panics and subsequently drowns with a scrap of gas in their tanks. Perhaps the reg was knocked out in the panic of trying to find the way out and they couldn't recover it. Who knows.

Your brain tends to go to mush at times like that; dark, cold, scared, no way out, possibly just watched a friend drown. Any 'logic' goes right out the window. Also, this person wasn't the first to drown with gas left in their tanks.

Such a preventable set of deaths

 

[Karibelle]

Not all cenotes have the signs, and the signs are generally placed somewhere near the exit end of the main line, or at least on the rational path from OW or the cavern line to the main line. It is possible, at least in some places, to take an indirect route off the cavern line and reach the mainline without passing very close to one of the signs. I really don't remember this particular cave well, to know how open the passage is or how visible the sign is from the cavern line.

I dove Chac Mool on March 9. I have a photo of one sign warning divers away from a cave entrance; the sign is clearly visible from the cavern line. There may be other cave entrances; my map shows three.

 

[WSOPFAN]

Does anyone have a link to a map of the cave where the divers were found? I read there is one room in the cave section that contains the world's largest underwater stalactite. I wonder if this was where they were going?

Not sure where they were found
Yes
Not Sure

Cenote Chac Mool | Pluto Dive

Here are a few pictures of Chac mool.....the 3rd picture looks more like the guide has them in a cave not a cavern.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3919900

Sign; Chac-Mool Cenote Diving Map

 

[Thalassamania]

Not all cenotes have the signs, and the signs are generally placed somewhere near the exit end of the main line, or at least on the rational path from OW or the cavern line to the main line. It is possible, at least in some places, to take an indirect route off the cavern line and reach the mainline without passing very close to one of the signs. I really don't remember this particular cave well, to know how open the passage is or how visible the sign is from the cavern line.

This should be on a sign at the entrance to every cave: "Anybody can swim into a cave; training may be required to exit." Thanks Lynne!

 

[scubawife]

I did my first cenote dive with Ismael at Akumal Dive shop early in 2011. I think the "this year" reference is in the context of when they typed that into the website page. And so that in itself does not tell you which year he joined Akumal Dive Shop. Ismael knew the area cenotes well and I had every reason to believe he had a lot of experience (even in early 2011). I was doing all of my diving with a highly experienced instructor (who at the time was working for Akumal Dive Shop), however she is not cave certified and so we needed a caver certified diver for our cavern dives and Ismael was chosen. As I've stated previously in this thread; one of my vivid memories is coming up to the "death sign" in the cavern area with Ismael stopped and watching to make sure we both passed the sign without any wrong turn out of the cavern area into the cave area. Akumal Dive Shop is an excellent dive shop; I am a conservative diver and I had only positive experiences.

Ok, that could be. There were other staff with 2011 start dates, so I thought "this year" was referencing 2012.

I know all 3 Akumal shops, I've spent quite a bit of time and done a lot of dives in the area over several years. Dive Shop, however, is the one I haven't personally used. Not for any specific reason other than it just didn't fit into our plans, and over the first few trips we found a shop that better suited what we were looking for. I know each shop there has it's loyal customer base and I think they're all about equal in quality.

For cenotes over the years we've used different guides. You really don't know how good or experienced one is until you have some first hand experience with other ones. Sometimes as we experience others, we still the first was the best, and other times we find a new "best"... at least until we come across a better one. I've got my first choice for guides. The other 3-4 we've used have been when they weren't available. The good part of those experiences is that my first choice is still my first choice, and I have two solid second options.

As I said, I don't personally know anything about this guide. Your dives sound like they were the way they should be. This ill-fated dive obviously wasn't. They were in the cave zone when the couple were only open water certified, and with only about 50-55 dives each, so they weren't even all that experienced divers in general. If the guide knew Chac Mool, then it's hard to believe ending up that distance into the cave zone was done unintentionally. With lights, and keeping the appropriate distance between divers, it's also tough to believe one of the divers went in there accidentally. I still keep coming back to a few things - if the guide had changed out his tanks instead of doing 3 dives on the same set of AL80 doubles, they would have had more air to make it out, and, if they hadn't gone in the cave zone in the first place, they would have made it out. No matter how good a guide he may have been, there just isn't much to chalk these deaths up to other than poor choices on the part of all three of the victims. I don't see any other fault. Not equipment or the cenote.

 

[vancouverdiver]

I don't think this was reported on SB. If it was sorry for the duplication. Here is a link to a detailed report.
Three cave divers died at cenote Chac-Mool - DIR Explorers


The pertinent details are here:

Nando spotted a light “on” and then found the body of the male Brazilian open water diver floating in mid-water above the guide line facing towards the exit. He had 200 psi remaining in his single 80 cubic foot tank and had some injuries on his face. The dive was called and it was an 8 minute swim back to the surface. They returned to the same area and found the male Spanish guide and the Brazilian female 200 feet further upstream facing into the cave. The Spanish guide had his long hose deployed and no mask on his face. Both victims had 0 psi in their tanks floating in mid-water near the guide line. This was the third dive of the day for the guide using the same set of double 80 cubic foot tanks as the group had made two dives at Cenote Dos Ojos earlier. There was NO REEL used between the cavern zone and the permanent cave diving line of upstream Chac Mool.

So sad that the male Brazilian was only 8 minutes away from the surface, and the other 2 appeared to be going in the wrong direction.

 

[Pez de Diablo]

If a complete briefing was provided risk is minimized, if the topics/rules discussed during that briefing were adhered to risk is minimized, if the guide maintained control of the group risk is minimized. In my opinion at least one item (complete briefing, following of the rules and maintain control) was lacking and it lead to these very sad yet avoidable deaths.

So often I hear/read how divers loved their guide and how they felt so safe on the dive. Most likely they had an excellent guide. However if you want to checkout the dive briefing overview that guides are to follow, click on the link and scroll down to the dive briefing overview and download the 2 pages. See if those topics were covered before recommending your guide.

Cenotes – A Unique Cavern Dive | Diablo Divers (located just below the photo)

---------- Post added May 4th, 2012 at 08:20 PM ----------

So it looks like some tours are given in unapproved Cenotes and this was one of them. I see a huge sanction coming.
​

There has never been a list of approved cenotes.

---------- Post added May 4th, 2012 at 08:29 PM ----------

So far I've seen two open water divers coming out of the cave in eden, but that wasn't guided. I haven't seen guided dives involving cavern divers on the cave line. I wouldn't be too surprised it it happens quite a bit, and its just my limited experience (although we're talking about 8 trips down there now I think), but it doesn't happen every day...

Lamont,

Eden has the tightest controls of any cenote.

How do you know that those divers that you saw without a guide were not certified cavern divers in single tanks? How do you know they didn't surface while the guide was removing the reel?

Even with your 8 trips, I think your experience is limited and unsafe practices do not happen as often as you think they do. Perception can skew things... just as it does the cavern diver who would swear that they did a CAVE dive after following the guideline around the bat cave at Dos Ojos, well within the cavern zone.

Dennis

---------- Post added May 4th, 2012 at 08:34 PM ----------

I've done a couple of cenote dives in Chac Mool. 2 different dives as I recall. My question though is really about Dos Ojos and kind of related. A divemaster once took me on a guided dive in Dos Ojos to an area where there was a halocline. Off the bat cave route I think but it's been a while and I'm not 100% sure. I wonder if we were in a prohibited area?

In regards to seeing light as another poster mentioned I have been on guided cenote dives where there was no visible light I'm pretty sure. Even the route back from the second eye to the first eye on the barbie route dive has a few minutes where there is no visible light I believe. A couple of the Hidden Worlds cenote dives definately do although I don't think we were ever too far from access.

If you saw a halocline off the Bat Cave line, you were past the limits of a safe cavern dive.

During your briefing the guide should have told you that "we will be at the limits of natural light and that you may have to cover your light and look up, down and behind you in order to see the light, but you will always be able to see natural light." If your guide took you to an area where you cannot see light, you were beyond the safe limits of a cavern dive.

---------- Post added May 4th, 2012 at 08:39 PM ----------

A lot of that is really pushing the definition of cavern to its limits, however. I think you're supposed to be no further than 130 feet or something like that from the open water lip of the cave, and I'm fairly certain that the caverns down in MX violate that. Cavern divers are also supposed to get some training, significantly more than the orientation that the guides give.

And in this case the divers were on the cave line, so beyond the daylight zone, violating the distance limit, without a continuous guideline.

I also have a hard time with the "someone bolted into the cave" theory of how this accident occurred, since they just accidentally wound up on the cave line and not some crevice in the cavern, and that would mean that the guide significantly lost control of his charges. Could happen, but I can chase down OW divers pretty quickly and grab their tanks and physically yank them around before anything escalates too far. So, you've got a diver that bolts, directly into the cave, and the guide doesn't notice until very long afterwards, and then happens to be able to deduce where they went and find them, but without having enough time left to save them and everyone dies...

Far more plausible that they went into the cave, knowingly violating limits, and then had a minor incident there which spiralled into the triple fatality.

Total penetration distance from the surface:

APSA Cenote limit: 200 feet
NACD: 200 feet
NSS CDS 180 feet
PADI 130 feet

I agree with you that the diver didn't just mistakenly turn into the cave.

---------- Post added May 4th, 2012 at 08:51 PM ----------

I did not know ANY land owners were asking for any credentials. I was surprised to learn that Chikinha and Garden of Eden are asking. When I dive in the Pacific it is only the dive shop that asks, the same in the Caribbean.
In the case of the Caribbean in Mexico, we are diving in Federal property. Providing our credentials to the Mexican government and getting them approved before a dive would be a major hassle and expense. And I'm not sure it would make diving any safer.

I hope things don't move in that direction, in that it becomes a requirement to get a review and approval of dive credentials from the land owner prior to a dive. What an individual land owner may decide to require is that land owners business. I think if I was a land owner with a cenote, I'd keep a list of approved guides.

There are a few more Cenotes that ask the guides for their credentials:

Eden has always asked for them, in fact you need to drop off a letter and a copy of your certs before you get access.

Chac Mool start the list over 1 1/2 years ago, checking that all paperwork was in order, a guide or two may have fallen through the cracks, but the owners have done an amazing job IMO of posting the rules and doing what they can (IMO their responsibility ends when the divers hit the water.

Dos Ojos started check guide credentials a couple of years ago.

Rio Mystico also started check credentials this year.

Grand Cenote asks for your cert cards if you don't have a recognized guide (this can be hit and miss).

Diving in the sea is regulated by the local harbor Captain or Marine park, the checking of credentials does take place.

 

[WSOPFAN]

There has never been a list of approved cenotes.

So the article I linked to in that post says this:

According to Regulation Aquatic Rescue and Salvage Solidarity, Article 4 states that it is for Civil Protection and Fire Municipal Public Security to prevent, maintain and preserve order, security, search and rescue.


Article 14 states that all facilities providing tourism services program must show their waters closed, open or confined for review and approval where appropriate.

So if what you are saying is correct, any and all tours EVER done in the cenotes were in violation of the law since none of the cenotes were properly or legally approved prior to diving them. Were you or any of the the other tour operators aware of what was in that article and that you were risking being fined just for diving there? Am I mistaken or am I misunderstanding something here?

 

[lamont]

Lamont,

Eden has the tightest controls of any cenote.

How do you know that those divers that you saw without a guide were not certified cavern divers in single tanks? How do you know they didn't surface while the guide was removing the reel?

They were alone and definitely did not have a guide. Fred saw them coming out of the cave while we were running line in and passed us (we saw them going past in the cavern). When Fred confronted them in the parking lot afterwards they swore up and down that they were only on the cavern line, but I'll trust Fred on that one.

Technically, though, if you read what I wrote, I agree with you. I do have limited experience, but I've never seen guided cavern tours on cave line. It is not an everyday occurrence, like WSOPFAN and some others on this thread with nearly zero experience are trying to portray it...

 

[Pez de Diablo]

So the article I linked to in that post says this:

So if what you are saying is correct, any and all tours EVER done in the cenotes were in violation of the law since none of the cenotes were properly or legally approved prior to diving them. Were you or any of the the other tour operators aware of what was in that article and that you were risking being fined just for diving there? Am I mistaken or am I misunderstanding something here?

IMO Civil Protection has not used the law or regulation to produce a list, nor have they advised the vast majority of land owners that they need to be on a "List".... They have shown up at a couple of cenotes and ask that certain items be addresses, Chac Mool was one of those Cenotes that Civil Protection had looked at.