Cave Diving, Cave Exploration and Cave Mapping in Yucatan, Mexico

The Rubicon Foundation is running its fall fund raiser and I want you to support them.   From Gene’s post on Rebreather World:

The Rubicon Research Repository has grown significantly in the last few years. We have over 9,000 unique visitors from around the world each month reviewing our vast collection of FREE environmental physiology literature. We would like to request that you please consider a donation to support continued growth of this resource. We can’t do this without you!

For the fall fund raiser, we are offering embroidered hats for $US25.00 in the US and $US31.00 in the UK.

The hats are khaki and dark grey with the RRR logo on the front and url across the back. Please see our “donations” page for payment options (PayPal or GuideStar). Please select your color preference with your payment or PM me if you prefer.

The first order will be going in tomorrow afternoon. If you are planning to give one to your dive buddies for the holidays, please get your order in before the end of the month.

As always, please consider the addition of a link to Rubicon on your own web site.

Thank you for your continued support of our work!

The Rubicon Foundation provides an excellent resource for divers interested in research and scientific publications.  I know I have used their archive on more then one occasion.

And just so you don’t think I am only foisting the responsibility on you, I will be making my $25.00 donation when I am done posting this.

If you donate to The Rubicon Foundation, drop me a comment with why you elected too.  Or better yet, leave a comment telling me how you found it a useful resource and what you learned!

Here is more about The Rubicon foundation from their website:

The Rubicon Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization undertaking projects that:

• Contribute to the interdependent dynamic between research, exploration, science and education;
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Collaboration enhances outcomes by combining independent efforts to form a single force working toward the realization of common goals. The Rubicon Foundation is building a solid network of collaborators — public and private businesses, non-profit organizations, government entities and philanthropists.

Alain and I spent the day developing a protocol for team tape survey.

On Friday, Alain and I spent the day working on protocols for team tape cave survey.  It was Alain’s first attempt at underwater cave survey and it was my first attempt as part of a team.  When I took my survey class, I learned solo knotted line survey (KLS).  A knotted line survey is the process of using a knotted guideline to measure the data needed for the survey.  For those of you who haven’t surveyed before, here is the simplified process:

1. Talk to locals and dive a lot.  Eventually a good project will come to mind.  Do some test diving to make sure it is a meaningful project, get permission, and create a plan.  If you need a team to do the work, recruit them and train with them.  And before you start, check your motives.  (This one I got from Matt at Protec).  Ask yourself if the exploration is for your ego? Does it contribute to the cave community?  Are you going to follow through and give back to the community?  How much impact will it have on the cave?  Does the data exist and can I collaborate to minimize risk and impact?  Remember, exploration and survey is a high impact activity and conservation needs to be a close second only to safety.
2. Sitting at home or in your refrigerator box, use a knotting machine to put knots ever 10ft in some guideline.  This is the really tedious part.  Spool the knotted line onto your reel.  My exploration reel holds about 600ft and my exploration spool holds about 250ft of 18guage twisted nylon line.
3. Make some survey slates.  A survey slate has a compass and 4 columns for data:   depth, distance, azimuth and comments.  I attached my compass directly to the survey slate.  Trident makes these great slates that are 6in x 8in and have a nice slot for a pencil.  I choose to use a Suunto M3 compass  it has +-2 degrees of accuracy which is the minimum required for the grade survey I am interested in.
4. Put all the stuff and your teammate in your vehicle and go diving.
5. Once on site and to the area of cave you want to explore, install some guide line.  When you lay it, make sure you have nice straight level shots and the line isn’t kissing off anything.  Also make sure it isn’t a risk to other divers.  Installing the line is critical; if you do a lousy job here the rest of the job will be very difficult.  My advice is to spend a lot of time looking at existing lines and analyze their placement and their impact on the cave and the dive.  Do they look easy to swim?  Are they safe?  Can they be surveyed?  Then practice putting line into benign situations.  A tight or pristine spot isn’t the place to learn to lay line.  Be prepared!    I have heard some funny stories from Steve about him finding reels and lines that were obviously left by someone who had gotten in over their head.  And remember, take your time and enjoy yourself.  The joy is in the journey.
6. This is where you have a choice, conditions permitting and gas permitting you can survey the line you just put in on the way out.  Or, if you don’t have the gas or conditions are too nasty, you can exit and survey the new line on another day.  Collecting the data and staying alive are critical to the success of your project.  Drowning with a slate full of survey data is stupid and will curtail any further exploration. We witnessed this recently in Ginnie Springs and it was really sad.  It impacted me and everyone else in the cave diving community, whether they realize it or not.To collect the data you need to record the depth, distance, azimuth and notes at each station.  There is a fine balance between precision and speed and as you practice you will get faster.  I am still pretty slow and I make minor mistakes pretty regularly.  Usually those mistakes are a couple of degrees one way or another, I forget to write a number down such as 16 instead of 163, or I loose count when counting the knots.  Minimize your mistakes by taking your time.  Resurveying kind of sucks and robs you of time to make real progress.And now we have come full circle, it is called a knotted line survey, because you are counting the knots between stations.  When you get to a line segment that doesn’t span two knots you use arm spanning to estimate the remaining lengths.  I know the length of my forearm, tip of finger to tip of finger and tip of finger to the middle of my chest.  Using this method I can get 95% of my data within 1ft of accuracy.
7. At the end of the dive, immediately record the data from the slate to a notebook.  Slates have a way of loosing data by getting erased or rubbed off.  I have already lost data to this villain, you don’t need too.
8. When diving is done for the day, I go home and enter the data into Compass.  Compass is a cave mapping program.  If I have GPS coordinates, I place the new survey into Google maps so I can see my relative progress.
9. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

What I just described is greatly simplified and doesn’t really capture the difficulty or investment required to do a survey project.  Please do not use my instructions to go out and start a survey project.  I suggest that you seek training or mentoring from instructors who are experts in survey/mapping and actually do it themselves.  There are MANY tricks and ways to make it more efficient and I can’t really imagine learning to do it on my own.  Survey is the essence of tasking loading and perceptual narrowing.  I think it could be described as a right brain activity and it can blot out your sense of time and reprioritize things for you.

Moving right along, I learned to do KLS solo so I didn’t really have to deal with any of the complexities of communication or team logistics while surveying.  Recently, Alain and I decided to work on a project together.  The cave has existing line and the line needs to be resurveyed so we could continue our work.  The line is not knotted.  So he and I decided to do a tape measure survey and leave the existing line.  We decided to leave the line to save the impact and time of relining.  Additionally, leaving the line in maintains some of the history of the cave.  I would be sad to see my line taken out, someone placed that line with love and care and it should be respected.  I know I enjoy looking at the arrows and seeing the names and dates.  It gives me a real sense of who was there before me.

A tape survey is when you use a tape measure to measure the line segments instead of knots.  Almost everything else I described is the same.  A tape survey is much more accurate, however it is more difficult.  It requires two people or it requires one person to swim back and fourth repeatedly.  Alain and I selected a 100ft nylon tape measure.

To begin with, Alain and I practiced our survey on dry land.  I set up a circuit and we each set about surveying it solo using KLS.  I walked Alain through the process and we each took the data down.  Then we decided to attempt a tape survey with me as diver one (D1) and Alain as diver two (D2).  We decided that D1 would swim the end of the tape out and fix the guideline as he made progress.  When he reached the next survey station he would signal diver one with a BIG X.  While D1 swam away, D2 would take the depth.  Once D2 received the X, he would take the distance and the azimuth.  After completing the circuit, we switched position and tried it again.  We neglected to create any other signals.  I bet you can foresee what is going to happen. We were happy with our progress so we entered the water.

For Friday’s surveys, Alain was D1 and I was D2.  We planned to survey into the cave and we started at the beginning of the line.  The line at this location starts in 20ft of water and then drops down to 40ft and into halocline. It runs for about 300 feet at that depth and then rises out of the halocline.

Alain and I got the first 2 stations pretty easily.  Then we got into the halocline and I realized that light signals just were not going to work.  I couldn’t tell when he was giving me an X.  And I couldn’t signal to him that I needed to repeat the distance measurement.  Work really slowed down at this point, it was a real trial by fire.  Our communication protocol was short a couple of commands.

The first dive provided many excellent lessons.  I learned that we would need to develop a protocol for communicating through the tape.  I also learned that the process was going to be pretty slow and our SAC rates would be much higher as we settled into the new level of task loading.

On the first dive we collected about 500ft of survey.  It took us 54 minutes surveying and we only penetrated about 10 minutes into the cave.   At 54 minutes we both hit our thirds and had to call the dive.  Our gas consumption was through the roof while surveying.  I can tell you that I was stiff in the water and tense all over.  I could see how I was burning through the gas.  Plus, I was paying attention to surveying and not my breathing.  Luckily, surveying in adds conservatism to gas management.  I survey much slower then I swim, therefore if I use a third surveying in, I should use a 1/6 or less to swim out.

During our surface interval we worked on our protocols for communication.  We developed a system to communicate through the tape.  I also developed signals to ask him to repeat the tape measurement.

For the second dive we swam to the end of the first survey and started surveying.  At this point the cave got much smaller and the condition and placement of the line deteriorated.  The new signals worked out great.  We were a bit more efficient but covered less ground due to the conditions.  The second survey only netted about 300 feet of data.  I was still really stiff, but at least I was aware of it.

When I got home Friday night, I fired up Compass and put the data in.  The stick map started to come together.  I spent a couple of hours and learned how to put the stick map into Google Earth which was a real thrill.  The stick map super imposed on the satellite photos really pumped me up to go back and collect more data.  Overall it was an excellent day with a great dive buddy and friend.  We laughed a lot and got to improve our skills, you really can’t beat that for a Friday.

Erik emailed me tonight to announce the launch of his dive blog.  I thought I would pass that announcement on to you.  Check it out: http://www.thinkingdiver.com

It is good to be back in Mexico!  I went back to the states for a week and let me tell you, it was cold cold cold.  I was wearing a hat and a winter jacket; My friends thought I was crazy.  I have to admit, my blood has gotten very thin living in Paradise.  Unfortunately, I didn’t do any diving while I was in the states, however, I did bring back some gear which was sorely needed for us to continue our deep work.   The list of new gear includes new climbing pulleys from Petzl for the lift system, a bunch of caribeaners, tank bands, regulators, hose retainers, mouth pieces and some valves.  I am feeling well stocked now.  I also finished my back tattoo.

On Friday, I visited my friend Jay at Electric Lotus Tattoo in Boonton, New Jersey and sat for two hours.  This was the easiest sitting yet.  The first two sittings were absolute torture.   Both sittings I was in a terrible spiritual place and exhausted when I arrived.  This time, I was spiritually centered, well feed and relaxed.  I was ready. I only got out of the chair once, about 20 minutes in to look at the first new color in more then a year. From that point on, I just sat there, ate Good & Plenty candy and drank a Coke.  I am super stoked about the art and I am glad I kept my head in the game and finished it.  There were times when I was sure I wasn’t ever going to go back and finish it.

Now on to the DPV portion of the story. After many discussions with Steve Bogaerts and Patrick, I elected to purchase a Silent Submersion N19 DPV. In the end I selected it because it was near my price range, though very expensive, and it was a known quantity. Plus, I hadn’t seen the Tahoe DPV (Scooter) Benchmarks which placed the Cuda as the pack leader for a small technical scooter.  I am still happy with my purchase, although it hasn’t been in the water.  I will have to wait a week for my back to heal before I can get wet.  The suspense is killing me.

And now for a good way to waste some of your Employeer’s time, not that you aren’t right now.  David from Cancun turned me on to the Ejido Jacinto Pat Documentation web site this morning.  He wrote,

If want to see more photos and videos of Nicolai and Gang check this “old site”
http://www.divesitevideos.com/EJPP/
David

There are some interesting dive reports about Nahoch Na Chich and Dos Ojos check it out and let me know what you think!

I hope to get back to diving the first part of next week.    In the mean time, we have an article coming from Patrick about his DCS and another article about me not passing my multi-stage course.

Learning to lift an unconscious diver, confirming an alternate route to Jill’s Chamber and a DCS incident.

After a long brake it was time to go back.  This time we started different; with the success of the previous dives in mind we decided to go full scale this time. The main idea was to make the whole project as safe as possible. We quickly understood that being just the two of us would not cut it anymore. Analyzing scenarios including an unconscious diver, a growing number of tanks, and increasingly complex logistics led us to the fact that we would need more support, at least two more divers.

The search was difficult because we were looking for people who like to spend their days off carrying numerous tanks, being eaten by mosquito’s, spending hours out of the water just waiting to later jump in and shuttle tanks around. They also need to understand their role in the team and why we can’t have them fun dive or risk anything even remotely dangerous.  Plus, the idea of trusting your life with somebody else is quiet disturbing. With Hans continually supporting deeper and deeper we needed somebody to fill his spot and somebody out of the water. After many discussions, Hans and I finally called Alain Pocobelli and Etienne Rousseau.  After we explained the criteria for participation they were super stoked and happy to join…awesome.

We all met at Pro Tec for our first meeting.  We discussed protocols, procedures, and set some goals. Specifically, we developed an idea to build a system to lift an unconscious diver from the water up to the trucks, an emergency and evacuation plan, and the parameters for 5 progressive dives the last of which would be a push dive to the end of the line in the Next Generation Tunnel.  We also agreed to document our experiences, procedures and protocols in a manual.  The manual would be used to educate new team members, in the event of an emergency as well as guide our decisions.

The plan for the first day was to setup the unconscious diver system and dive to the Wakulla Room supported by Alain and Etienne. For the support divers, it would be their first opportunity to learn the descent lines and the start of the main line.  For Hans, it would be his first deep mixed gas cave dive.  I would use the opportunity to execute a practice bailout at 300ft while swimming a horizontal distance through the bypass; the primary objective was to confirm my numbers.

As with all complex plans it was bound to change. Constructing a system for lifting a 235lbs (106kilo) diver with equipment 20ft (6m) from the surface of the water and then swinging him on to a platform was more difficult then anticipated. We wanted the system to be simple enough that a single person could operate it in high stress conditions. With limited climbing gear and other resources it seemed almost impossible. Through trial and error it took us some 5 hours to construct and test a nearly working system.  I write, “Nearly” because it still required two people to operate.

After the enormous effort, Hans and I called our dive.  We were exhausted, stressed and it was late in the afternoon.   With the roles reversed, Hans and I played support and cleaned up while Alain and Etienne made a reconnaissance dive.

That evening, I left with a slight feeling of defeat.   It was the first time I went through the effort of blending, putting everything together, waking up early, paying the entrance fee and then not diving.

Three days later I was back at The Pit with a similar plan, this time with Hans and Chris.  Chris is a professional Cave Rescue Expert from Poland. He and I had been diving the week before and when I heard of his profession, I knew I had to get him out there and learn from him.  He quickly came up with 3 different lift systems. Unbelievable!  To our relief, he thought our system wasn’t bad at all; we were just missing one critical improvement that would facilitate single person operation and swinging the body onto the platform.

Unfortunately, rigging and testing took a lot of time and required considerable heavy lifting.  Just like the day before, we finished setting up late.  As I prepared for our dive, I contemplated calling the dive; however I wasn’t able to leave The Pit again without trying my suit inflation system, my new helmet and the bailout plan. Mistake #1.

It is funny how we can feel pressure where there is none. As we prepared for the dive we were feeling time pressure; therefore we decided to shorten the bottom time. Without my normal pre-dive meditation we hurried into the dive. I laid line and Hans staged his intermediate mix.

Cruising through the bacteria cloud at 190ft (57m) I was super happy to finally be back. At the T before the Bypass Hans and I split, he swam through the Bypass at 281ft (85m) and I took the deeper “Main Tunnel” at 305ft (93m). Surprisingly, it is quiet narrow and more difficult to pass.  Two minutes later we met at the second T where the lines join again; it was time to turn the dive and start the bailout drill.

I signaled Hans and bailed out. I chose a bailout gas with a deeper END than I normally use to make it more difficult and more realistic.  To add to the realism, we planned to exit the cave with haste to simulate the highest possible gas consumption due to stress or CO2 poisoning.  For precaution, Hans closely monitored me ready to donate a shallower END bailout gas or I could go back on the loop in the event the Inert Gas Narcosis was too strong.

The first three breathes brought on the strong narcotic effect and it became difficult to focus on my objectives. Complicating the situation was the fact that my weighting in saltwater was neutral with my wing totally deflated. So being off the loop with gas remaining in the counter lungs made buoyancy management more challenging.

Imagine me swimming at full speed while squeezing through the Bypass, switching the set point down to avoid O2 injection, opening the OPV and rolling to get as much gas out of the loop as possible and I was becoming positive, all under the effect of Inert Gas Narcosis…what a blast. I am happy I couldn’t see myself.

By the time I arrived at the turn at 213ft (65m) I had regained composure and everything went “pretty” smoothly from there.

The main goal of simulating a realistic bailout scenario at depth was absolutely accomplished, I learned A LOT.  The old saying: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast” confirmed itself once more, thanks Steve. I use this line like a thousand times per course, maybe I should listen to myself once in a while.

After the dive, we truncated our normal 2 hour break because it was getting dark. As I climbed out to hoist and load the tanks, I felt a slight pain in my left shoulder and right ankle; it subsided quickly.  However, it was definitely an indication we worked too hard before and during the dive and that we needed more conservatism.

As we loaded the truck, I got a phone call from Alain who had taken off the next day to join us at The Pit. Since support was available and we agreed to not do anymore push dives without support, we felt obliged to dive.  We agreed to dive the next day, mistake #2.

Again, it is funny how we feel pressure where there is none. We didn’t anticipate that our desire to increase safety by having more support onsite would pressure us into something we knew from the beginning was a bad idea?!?

After blending and prepping the rebreathers, I arrived home at about 2200h. I ate, hydrated and went to bed. The next day we started even earlier to hedge against time pressure. However, we left Playa late because we had to reassemble the CCRs, analyze gases and leak check everything in the pool. Once on site we reinstalled the evacuation system and instructed Alain on the improved version.

For a second day in a row, I was late into the water due to Hans calling his dive because of technical difficulties with his Meg and Alain bruising his leg when he slipped and trapped it between the platform and the rock wall.  Calling the dive crossed my mind, however everything was in place and I felt confident it was safe.  Once the dive started, I was slower then normal as I had to swim all my tanks and stage them.  Mistake #3.

My goal was to explore the other passage into Jill’s Chamber and see if it would be easier to navigate with a scooter then the horrible chimney I passed last time. I hoped to find the origin of the line that was paralleling the main line through Jill’s Chamber into the Next Generation Tunnel. To add conservatism, I selected the VPM B/E algorithm.  I wanted to accommodate for the back-to-back days of deep diving, the strenuous pre-dive work and as a response to the way I felt the day before.

I arrived at the end of Wakulla Room only a minute slower then planned, even though I had to stage all my tanks.  As I swam through the BMB, I started to get a little nervous again, anxious to see the size of the restriction.  Before the T, I crossed sides to get a peak up the restriction. Fortunately, it was a little bigger and did not ascend vertically like the chimney.  It’s slope was more manageable as it ascended to 328ft (100m), instead of 314ft (96m).  There it led to a canyon depicted cave, which headed towards Jill’s Chamber.

After a short distance there is another T. Well actually it is a Jump that is “T”ed into the main line. The main line ends about two body lengths after. So I took the T to the left and further ascended into an even narrower canyon, which further ascends towards Jill’s Chamber.

I was stoked because I was nearly 100% sure that I had found the origin of the paralleling line and passed the chimney. About 1 minute later I was in Jill’s chamber and it was confirmed. It is pretty hard for me to explain my emotions; I felt unbelievably awesome! I think it took me like 30sec to gain control over my euphoria. I was 20min into the dive and I had fulfilled my objectives; it was time to turn.

The way out was relaxed since I did not have to pass upside down through a tight restriction. My decompression obligation was substantial due to the more conservative VPM B/E algorithm. I stopped at every waypoint to keep track of exit times, picked up the tanks and did a couple of short deco stops in between the levels.  Forty-five minutes into the dive I could see the open water in the distance and my Time to Surface was about 160min.

At 131ft (40m) Alain greeted me, took my tanks and left me with one 80cf.  I swam around the huge dome to stay warm and to help the time pass a little bit faster. Even though I was warmer then past dives, I decided that this would be my last long dive at The Pit without a habitat.

When I arrived at 40ft (12m) the dive had been going perfectly and I was very happy.  I swam around and moved my upper body a little bit to warm up and increase blood flow. Suddenly, I felt an unbelievably sharp pain in my left shoulder. At first I was shocked but I was hopeful because I still had almost 2 hours of deco ahead. The pain faded about 15 minutes later; however, I decided to extend all the remaining stops.

When I arrived at 20ft (6m) I extend my 65min stop to 75min. The pain was almost completely gone and I started to surface. At 10ft (3m) I added a stop even though the urge to surface after 4h almost drove me crazy. After 5 min I started a super slow final ascent. Almost immediately upon surfacing the pain in my shoulder returned at full intensity accompanied by pain in both ankles.

I stayed in the water on the loop breathing O2 for 20min contemplating what I should do.  Should I get out of the water or go back down?  Eventually, I decided against going back down because of my body temperature, general physical state and a 100%+ CNS clock.

As soon as I surfaced and didn’t come off the loop, Hans was nearby with an 80cf of O2.  When I decided to exit the water, he helped me strip my gear and I pulled myself up onto the wooden platform. I lay there breathing open circuit O2, hydrating and scanning my body for neurological symptoms. After 30min the intensity of the pain hadn’t changed. I decided it was time to evacuate. I climbed up to the trucks and sat down for a moment.   The pain disappeared and the general fatigue vanished.  Coming off the long period of high PO2 it seemed plausible, but I didn’t trust the situation since something felt strange.

As we left The Pit, I continued to scan myself for pain or neurological symptoms related to DCS. I felt great and honestly a bit relieved. The entire drive back I tried to figure out what happened.  I wanted an explanation for the weird sensations I had at 40ft (12m), on my final ascent and shortly after the dive. Why did I feel that way and what can I do different next time?  Arriving home I felt unchanged: no pain, no extreme fatigue, and no other symptoms. A long day had passed and I was happy to be home and ready for dinner and bed.

I am really happy about our progress and our understanding of the cave.  I am also happy that our team is growing and we are taking a more conservative approach to diving and the project’s logistics.  The project is remains very exciting and we are learning so much from each dive.

Looking back it is easy to identify many of the mistakes.  Many of you will ask why I made them? I can only answer that I am human, this is a learning experience and mistakes are inevitable.  Sometimes the cost for a mistake is small, sometimes it is huge.  Life it seems is a hard teacher, many times you get the test first and the lesson later. There was a time when I read articles like this and said: “Ha, I would never make mistakes like that.” But this was also a time when I didn’t do dives like this.

I want to thank Chris for his invaluable input on our rescue system, Alain and Etienne for supporting us and joining the team and Hans for letting me post on his blog.

Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, I suffered a DCS incident.  I am going to follow this story up with another about the DCS.

This is my story about the Pit and it is to be continued.

Edited By Hans

On our ride back from Mayan Blue, Alain and I were trying to figure out where to do our next cave dive.  Finally it struck me, call Alessandro and ask him if he wanted to dive ‘the cave past Chemuyil’.  Alain called and Alessandro accepted our invitation and told us the name, Tux Kubaxa.

For a couple of months I have been hearing about this amazing cave system out past Chemuyil.  It seemed mythical in description.  It was rumored that Robbie from Xibalba had never seen a more beautiful system.  Fortunately, almost no one had been to it and there was no hard information about it.

Monday rolled around and Alain and I headed south to meet Alessandro.  All three of us would be diving sidemount so we needed to pick up a truck load of tanks, 12 in all. I am never happy when I have to drive that many tanks around.  However, I figured it would be worth it.

We picked up Alessandro and headed out into the jungle.  The two lane road turned into a one lane road.  Eventually that one lane road turned into double track.  Then we passed a small village and the one lane turned into a rocky car wide path through the jungle.  The path was rough going and I dragged the bottom of the 4Runner a couple of times.

After 30 minutes of driving through the jungle and passing at least one promising Cenote we reached the end of the drivable road and a clearing.  The clearing was 50M from Three Stars Cenote.  Alessandro had dived there before and according to the maps it is connected to Tux Kubaxa.  The walk from the car to Tux Kubaxa took about 10 minutes over an uneven horse path.  Arriving at the Cenote we found a palapa and a deck.  I really got the sense of being isolated out there and I didn’t want to get injured.

The Cenote is a beautiful offset sink.  The bottom was sandy and the water was clear.  The main line stretched out into open water.  It is a wonderfully beautiful place in the jungle.  We had been blessed with a north wind for the last couple of days, which meant there were no mosquitoes.

None of us had previously dived this Cenote, however we had a stick map.  With great anticipation we planned a dive down the main line to another Cenote.  We didn’t have the scale on the stick map so we weren’t sure how long it would take.  We kitted up and started the dive.  We reached our destination after 40 minutes.  This Cenote was a big air dome with two person sized shafts.  One of the shafts had a rope ladder in it; the other just roots.  It is very similar to Nohoch Na Chich main entrance.

The main line cave is very white, with no halocline and a max depth of 41ft.  We passed 8 marked jumps and 1 T.  All the jumps were in 29-30ft of water.  There was an abundance of decoration with some impressively large ones. The cave is breathtakingly beautiful and in pristine condition.

The dive is a good candidate for backmount and a scooter.  Hopefully you have access to a light weight scooter.  The return swim was uneventful, except for the fact that we were swimming into the current and it took us an extra 8 minutes to get back.  Living in Mexico, sometimes I forget what it is like to swim into molasses.

Satisfied with our first dive, we surfaced and recalculated thirds.  We wanted to quickly check the first marked jump.  Our idea was to do a short recon dive up the branch line and install a cookie for the traverse from Three Stars.  We dropped back down and made the jump.  Almost immediately we were met with a sidemount restriction. I was excited after more then an hour in power passage.  We squeezed through and then we were immediately met with two more nice restrictions.  One of which was a real belly dragger.    After 12 minutes we reached some reasonable sized cave and I called the dive.  We only had 400psi to penetrate with and I felt like we had gone far enough.  I was going to be last one out and the thought of being the third man through three nice silty restrictions made me wince.  Sometimes I am plagued with the idea that my dive buddy is going to cork me in.  When in all likely hood if I can fit through he can as well.  It seems everyone I dive with is smaller then me.  We exited with smiles on our face. It was a nice treat to end the day with.

We planned for two full dives, but it was 3:30 when we surfaced.  I told the team I was done and they could go for another if they like.  Everyone agreed it was late and we should get out of the jungle. No one liked the idea of breaking down and driving out in the dark.  I think we were all impressed with the cave.  The second short dive really sealed the deal for us.  If you are interested in diving Tux Kubaxa, I highly recommend you get a guide.  It is a long ways out into the jungle and access can be challenging.  If you drop me an email, I can hook you up with the right guide.

There is a lot of cave out there in the jungle and I look forward to going back.  The drive home was uneventful, except for the goat herding.  It is amazing the wildlife we find in the jungle.  I love living in Mexico!

I guess I should tell you a little about the cast of characters.  Alain Pocobelli is a friend and part of our deep diving team.  He is an instructor and is qualified to teach up to Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures.  Alain has joined us on 2 or 3 trips to The Pit and was essential in helping us rig our unconscious diver lift system.  Currently, Alain is working independently and for Yucatek Divers in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Alessandro Reato is also a friend and a dive instructor.  He is qualified to teach up to Intro to Cave Diving.  You can find his website cave diving and scuba instruction website, Il Filo di Arianna.

Learning to not waste gas setting the primary reel.

A couple of weeks ago, I did an awesome single stage dive down Tunnel A and out to the end of the line past Maya’s Two Cenote and Lost Cenote.  In the weeks leading up to the dive I was feeling flat and burned out.   Probably from doing too many dives that required too much preparation, work and stress.  That dive really turned things around and refreshed me.  The highlight of the dive was the blue water in Hostage Hall.   I don’t know; I just had a ton of fun.  When Alain and I decided to dive today, I knew just where to go, Mayan Blue.

It was Alain’s first trip to Mayan Blue and I had an excellent dive in mind.  Patrick had been bugging me to do the do the circuit that passes through The Tubes and then up through The Dead Zone.  I thought I would finally oblige him.  Luckily, on the aforementioned dive I had done about fifty percent of the circuit so I sort of knew what to look for to connect the loop.  I remembered a red arrow that said Sun Cenote on the line coming down from the Dead Zone.  That was my mental clue for knowing where to connect the lines.

It has rained for the last 35 consecutive days.  This has flooded some of the cenotes. When we arrived at Mayan Blue the water was 1ft over the deck and the water was tannic down to about 10ft (3m).  I really hate jumping into tannic water, I always feel like there is going to be a scary monster in the water that is going to reach up and bite me.  I am sure you know exactly what I am talking about.  I overcame my fear and we started the dive from The Dead Zone entrance.

I lead and Alain staged a bottle of 02.   I had been in that section before so finding the main line was pretty easy.    We estimated it would take us 7-8 minutes to get to our first way point, the sharp right hand turn where the tunnel turns south and drops down to 60ft (18m).  We reached it in 9 minutes.  We were close to schedule but I still wasn’t sure if we would make it to our objective, the jump to line leading to Maya’s Two Cenote.

I am going to digress for a minute, but I suffer from a terrible waste of gas when setting the guideline to open water.  For some reason, I always seem to burn 500psi out of one tank for that small task, even when the main line isn’t that far from open water.  Setting the reel drove my SAC through the roof and would blow out my estimates for the entire dive.  It was really frustrating!

For a brief moment I considered carrying a small stage just for setting the reel.  I know it is ridicules, but it was awful and embarrassing to waste that much gas at the beginning of the dive.  I knew it wouldn’t fix the problem only the symptom.  So, I decided to talk to Steve about it during dpv/stage class.  I explained to him what was happening and how frustrated I was.

He suggested that after prepping for the dive and getting all worked up entering the water I was a little stressed.  He asked me how I felt when I started most dives and I told him stressed and anxious.  His guess correlated nicely to my experience.  He suggested that after everything is ready to go, I take 5 minutes, float on the surface, and focus on relaxing and breathing.  Take some time and just chill out.

He also suggested that setting the reel added to my stress level and I was forgetting about my breathing.  The cumulative effect was why I was wasting so much gas.  I agreed with him.

With that knowledge I decided to put his recommendations into use today.  Once Alain and I were completely ready to dive, pre-dive checks and all were complete, we took five minutes and just floated there.  I took some time to meditate and relax each muscle group on each exhale.  It felt great.  The stress and anxiety of the coming dive melted away.  I cooled off a bit and started to breath with a nice rhythm.  I just felt so much better.  Thank you Steve!

Setting the reel went really smoothly and I used about 50% of the gas that I would have normally used for a run that long, I think about 250PSI.  I made my breathing the first priority, buoyancy with the BC next and setting the reel number three.  I was really satisfied with the change.  Everything just came together.

The swim down from the turn is really beautiful!  There is big cave, small cave, restrictions, and silt.  It is perfect cave for sidemount.  I can only think of two places I needed to turn 90degrees to fit through a restriction, the rest of them would have been tight in backmount.  When we reached the first potential connection point, it was 19 minutes.  We found a green arrow and a pretty big jump. I swam across and put a cookie on the end of that line and returned.  I was pretty sure we weren’t in the right place yet.  The arrow on our line was pointing wrong direction and it was the wrong color.  Unfortunately, those two indicators can’t be trusted here.  Lines and arrows change in Mexico ALL the time.  I wrote some notes on my survey slate and we continued.

We passed a couple of more arrows and a change in direction.  None of those were candidates because they were jumps in the wrong direction.  Were having a fabulous dive!  We finally came to two red arrows that said Sun Cenote.  I looked right and the jump was about 2ft.  I felt like we were in the right place and the time reflected it at 36minutes.  I signaled Alain and asked if he wanted to make the jump.  He said yes and told me he has about 200psi to burn between his tanks.  I signaled him I had about the same amount of gas and I just wanted to go a little ways, he affirmed, I installed a small spool and we crossed.  We swam a couple of minutes and I started to recognize the cave, I felt confident.  At 40 minutes it was time to turn the dive and I placed my cookie.  We agreed to use 900psi and we hit the mark about the same time.  I was stoked knowing that we had jumped onto the correct line.  We exited leaving our markers and reel in place.  The exit only took 31 minutes, Alain picked up the pace after accusing me of being slow.  We used even less gas on the exit.

During the 2 hour surface interval we tried to figure out where on the map we made the connecting jump.  We never really did.  Either the distances are wrong or I am just confused.  Alain and I decided we were going to try and complete the circuit.  We agreed that when we reached my cookie, we needed to have 2000psi left.  This added 200PSI of conservatism.

We entered the water and we repeated the relaxation routine.  It was awesome, I felt great.  We put the primary reel in A Tunnel wasting little gas and made the first marked jump to the left.  We passed Maya’s Two Cenote at about 10 minutes and dropped down into The Tubes.  The dive was going great.  In fact, this dive was better then my first dive to the tubes.  The first time I was in very limited visibility the entire time. Don’t accuse me, I found it that way.  This time visibility was great and now that I could see the floor, I was amazed how bad the floor in The Tubes is damaged.  It looks like there was a bar room brawl down there!  People, please be more considerate and practice some cave conservation.  If it is too small and you can’t stay off the floor, stay the fuck out.  This is equally true of Minotauro.  It is going to take centuries or more to repair your damage.  There is plenty of cave that doesn’t require you to be that close to the mud.

We made it to the T at Lost Cenotes in about 25 minutes.  I wasn’t sure how much further it was to the marker.  The first time I came this route I had checked all the jumps and really wasted a lot of time.  I was surprised when we hit my cookie at about 30 minutes.  I had used 600psi out of each tank, so we had plenty of gas.  Alain and I did all the appropriate confirmations and decided to finish the circuit.  We gave each other a high five.  I have to admit that it is comforting to come up on your own gear and confirm you are going the right way.  We finished the circuit at 60 minutes and with 1500psi remaining in each tank.

We did a short stop and swam over to A Tunnel.  We dropped down and went to pick up our gear.  I had placed a cookie at the T in Maya’s Two and didn’t want to leave it.  When we reached the end of the clean up we were at 94 minutes and I had 10 minutes of deco on my Suunto D6, Alain had no deco on his computer.   He did a safety stop plus two minutes and surfaced. When he got to the deck there was a 5ft black and white snake sunning itself.  Alain was trapped in the water.

When my computer finally cleared it was 109 minutes.  I love deco minutes on dive computers, talk about bending space time.  I swam to the wrong end of the cenote while decoing, so I had to surface swim back.  By the time I arrived the scary monster had slithered into the water and disappeared.  We celebrated the dive, cleaned up and headed to Tulum for some chicken at Pollo Bronco.  It was another excellent day with a great friend and dive buddy.

This is a fantastic circuit, but it takes all day to setup, complete and clean up.  If you want to dive it, I recommend getting some Nitrox 32.  That would keep you squarely in the NDL limits.  Also, care has to be taken if you are diving in backmount or with a stage.  There are some tight areas that can easily be damaged.  Lastly, a big percentage of this dive is in the halocline, so be considerate of your dive buddies.  I would really limit the team size to two.

I wanted to give you a quick update on current events.  First, I didn’t pass my multi-stage course last week.  I completely blundered the last dive.  I was diving sidemount with two stages and a scooter.  Each tank had a different starting pressure and I was exhausted.  I was in over my head and it really showed.  Steve told me to go and practice and come back for one more day.  I am writing a detailed article, however, we have been working on our Pit Project and I just haven’t had the time or the energy to complete it.  It should be a good laugh for you.

Now about our Pit Project, Patrick and I have started to assemble a deep diving team.  We recruited two divers for intermediate and surface support, Etienne Rousseau and Alain Pocobelli.  We had our first team meeting on Saturday night.  Patrick and I laid out our plans, the rules/expectations, and roles.  They both agreed.  So now we have the makings of a team.

On Sunday, the four of us went to The Pit.  The first task was to setup and test a method to lift an unconscious diver from the water.  We spent six hours rigging and testing.  I was lifted twice and Alain once.  It was a painful experience and we learned a lot.  By the time we got through rigging, Patrick and I called our dive.  Alain and Etienne went for a dive to 155ft to check out the site and find the start of the main deep line.  Both were diving air and were seriously narked.  It was kind of funny.  After finding the line they returned on schedule.  We cleaned up and left a little disappointed but overall satisfied.  We really wanted to make our dives.  However, the day was a success; now we know how to lift someone.

Today, Patrick, Chris and I went back to The Pit.  Chris is a Polish cave rescue expert.  He came out to help us rig our diver lift system.  His advice was invaluable!  We were about 80% there with our system.  Chris landed us a home run.  It isn’t perfect, but it is better.  We need to collect additional climbing gear to perfect the system.

When we were done, Patrick and I staged our tanks on the down line and we left for my first dive into the Wakulla Room.  We had two objectives for the dive:

1. It was my deepest dive and I wanted to reach Wakulla and check all my swim times.  At this level I need to know how much time it will take to transit and how much gas to plan for.  What I discovered is that I am slower then Patrick, no surprise there.  We planned 7 minutes to the turn at 220ft and 7 minutes swimming in at 280ft.  It took me 9 minutes to reach the turn and I will need another 5 or 10 minutes in the Wakulla Room to traverse it.
2. Patrick and I both agreed we should bailout from the Wakulla Room to confirm gas consumption and for practice.  Today was his chance.  We were just a couple of minutes from the By-Pass and Patrick gave me the bailout sign.  He switched over to open circuit and started to exit.  This experiment confirmed our estimates for his gas consumption and provided some good lessons for the both of us.  Two hundred eighty feet is really deep.  And in a cave, it is deeper.  As a side note, I bailed to my BOV a couple of times and watched the SPG.  It dropped with each breadth, wild!  19cuft tanks are pretty small.

Tomorrow, we are going to The Pit with Alain and it will be my turn to bailout.  I am looking forward to the exercise!  I think it is going to be a lot of fun and educational.   Patrick’s objective is to check the alternate restriction into Jill’s Chamber.  We are looking for an easier route for passing a scooter through.

Again, there is no need to fear.  When we are done with this series of dives, we will write detailed articles and share what we learned!

Finally a post that is relevant to diving!  One of my favorite blogs, Down Too Long, has been redesigned and relaunched.  Brandon, the author, is a mate on the Independence II, a Meg diver, photographer and execellent diver.  You should go and check out the redesigned blog.  The photos are excellent and he does enough diving to entertain those of us who long for a nice cave dive.

The new blog can be found at: http://downtoolong.com.

And while I am pimping other people’s sites, Patrick and I both found Nick Toussaint’s site, http://www.nick-toussaint.com, a worthwhile read.  Those guys are doing some big dives in some cold water.

Warning: This post is not about diving.

Recently, I got  a great comment from one of my readers in Washington.

“Respect your views, but you might also consider the value of a “no confidence” vote, which can be a no show at the polls. Imagine if less than 10% of the voters actually voted. Would the winner be able to claim authority? Claim a “mandate”? Or would the populace have demonstrated a complete lack of faith in the system said to be representative?

If the two party system gets much more staged and obscene than it is now, a no-vote may be the only useful action available to the American voter.” —Nephew of Uncle Sam

Thank you for sharing your ideas.  I think I understand your objective, which is to demonstrate your dissatisfaction with the leadership.  I agree that a no confidence vote would be affective at achieving that objective.  However, I have to disagree that abstaining achieves the same thing.

The first question that comes to mind is; are you unhappy with democracy or the parties and their candidates?  I think it is critical to accurately focus on what is broken.

The last couple of hundred years demonstrate that the democratic experiment seems to work.  We elect good leaders and bad ones.  Recently, we haven’t gotten very good ones.  Congress and the Executive Branch are beholden to a system that is out of balance.  The current system requires huge sums of money to get elected and in order to collect that money, the candidates need to pander, spend huge amounts of time fund raising and be flexible in their principles.  The electoral system is broken right now.

However, I believe it will heal itself.  Eventually, the pain for the voting public will become great enough that they will develop the courage to vote for candidates that actually protect their interests.  I think a lot of our trouble right now is that the voting public is generally disconnected, under-informed and unengaged.  Eventually they will engage.  The current economic crisis may be the catalyst we need.  Fortunately, every so often there are great upheavals in the system and it readjusts itself.  I think we are in the midst of one today.

Therefore, I believe to further disengage on a massive scale would be counter productive and eventually catastrophic.  If only 10% were to vote, you are correct that we would be left with a elected official without a clear mandate from the populous.   We would guarantee another four years of grid lock and trouble.

Or worse, only the most fanatical would vote and elect an extreme right or left candidate.  The elected official that wouldn’t represent the interests of the silent majority; he would represent the interests of the fanatical minority.

You could say that is what we have in office today, someone who represents only the interests of the biggest donors, and you might be right.  However, those donors don’t normally represent the extreme fringe; it isn’t in their interests to do so.

If you look at emerging democracies this is exactly how despots get elected.  The majority decides or is intimidated not to vote and the fanatical minority elects their candidate.  Before you know it, civil liberties are further eroded, terms limits are over turned and the democracy is crushed.

Our leaders need a mandate to lead.  Just squeaking in doesn’t provide it.  It creates more problems then it solves.  I suggest, rather than not vote, we should further engage and work to change the system.  There are a couple of options.

1. You can vote for a third party candidate who represents your interests.  If enough people do, we will get real change.
2. Talk about politics and how the country is governed with friends and strangers.  Engage in civil discourse and engage them in the system.  I think it is ridiculous that we say you shouldn’t talk about politics at parties.  Where should we talk about it?  A plurality of ideas is powerful and life changing.  If we engage on a basic level, we can engage at the voting booth and with our representatives.
3. Gather your news from multiple sources.  Read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, biographies and history texts.  Educate yourself and empower yourself to choose appropriate candidates.  Taking your news from one source, especially TV, is corrosive and doesn’t engage people in the system.  It is completely passive and wasteful.
4. Get involved in the system. Run for office, run for school board, and implement changes yourself.
5. Organize voter registration of your disgruntled friends and organize them around candidates that represent your interest.  Start local and go national.
6. Take advantage of the ability to make micro donations to candidates that represent you.  The internet provides a game changing approach to campaign finance.  If millions of voters give a little, they can overcome the limited the dominance  of big donors.  Donate to candidates that will change the political  discourse and raise issues that you believe in.

These are just a few of the things we can all do to engage and change things.  The most powerful force on earth is a well educated, informed, engaged citizenry.  Look to history for some prime examples: The Renaissance, French Revolution, American Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Civil Rights Movement and the recent Technology Revolution.  All of those radical upheavals were driven by engaged, educated citizens, not governments.

“The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.” —Lyndon B. Johnson, Washington D.C. 6th August 1965

Go out and start the process of change.  Decisions are made by those who show up. Thanks for writing and I look forward to your response.