Sidemout Diving at Cenote Regina – Tulum, Mexico

I am back in Mexico for a short trip and I gotta tell you I miss living here.  Living in New Jersey and raising a family is pretty damn fulfilling, especially when you have the coolest wife, son, family and business in the world.  But I still miss it.  It is easy to fanaticize about how much easier life was when we were living here with very little responsibility beyond getting coffee, diving and working enough to get by.  I know the reality is that it would be radically different with family in tow and the long term commitments and responsibilities that come with them.  But I know that you are not reading to get insight into the life of a repatriated cave diver.  You want to know where I have been diving, how cool it was and if, by any chance, I learned anything at all?

Well, today I woke up on Patrick Widmann’s floor (I got to travel cheap with a growing family), tossed all my stuff in his truck and we made our best time for Akumal, where I was to meet with Mauro Bordignon so we could do some sidemount diving.  Unfortunately, Patrick had a Stage Multi-stage course to complete today for two fine Swedish students, so he couldn’t manage my checkout dive.  Luckily, Mauro, one of our cave exploration partners and an instructor himself, was free to dive.

Mauro and I elected to try out a new cave for my checkout dive.  After debating Mayan Blue and Naharon, we settled on Cenote Regina.  Cenote Regina is just past Naharon south of Tulum.  It is a pretty cenote with a resident duck.  Access to the water is very convenient; however the water was a nasty green color, which I suspect the duck contributed too.

I broke out my gear which had been in storage and discovered that I didn’t have my booties with me.  I guess this is why we inspect our gear and do checkout dives.  We did some critical thinking and problem solving; arriving at the idea of wearing socks and flip flops in my ‘flippers’.   Truth be told, I had done this once before on a recreational boat.  Well, it worked out.  As long as I didn’t drag my heals on the cave, the fin straps stayed on.  I did get a little blister on the end of my right big toe, but it was well worth it.

Regina is a relatively deep cave.  Our dive averaged 49ft and maxed out at 79ft.  We dove for about 85 minutes on a set of side mount 80cuft tanks.  It is very nicely decorated and provides plenty of entertainment because it undulates and changes direction often.  The section of cave we dove is backmount sized passage.   There are many marked jumps.  However, on the way in we elected to stay on the main line.  When we returned to the entrance we decided to re-entered the cave becuase  we had sufficient gas reserves.  Mauro and I checked the second jump and found a very beautiful passage, cause both of us to ‘give the horns’ in celebration when we saw the passage.  The cave dropped down and turned into what looked like a perfectly half round passage with a brown clay floor at about 60ft.  When we exhausted out gas reserves we turned the dive and exited.

Overall it was an excellent checkout dive.  We had about 4 minutes of decompression on my LiquiVision  X1, which was no problem and gave me some time to chill out and enjoy the serenity that diving provides.

Tomorrow, Patrick, Mauro and I are supposed to check some ‘new’ in the Tulum area.  I will be sure to check in and update you.