Chanb77's Weblog

Sunday, December 15th, 2013 ~

Breakie with Becki, Dan, Stretch, and Forest (my BGs were leaving, today), then to the shop! I didn’t have any dive plans for today, since Steve and Sander were going to go on a scooter/RB dive, together. Since Heleen and the gang were going to head to Nohoch, Dan and I joined in with them! Steve and Sander had also decided on Nohoch, so we had quite the crew! We brought two sets of doubles each, so that we were just using back gas, for two dives.

There was a lot of gear to lower down.
Heleen must have taken this picture, since I’m in it… 🙂

Sander was on the receiving end…

Team work!

We wore our initial doubles down, instead of torturing the fellas.
Once it was all down…

It was an extremely hot day, so after getting our drysuits on, we jumped into the cenote, to cool off.

We finally got our gear on, and off we went. The purpose of today’s dive, was for Heleen to take some video footage, so we were on the main line for the entire dive.  We kept a nice and slow pace, with Dan in front, with a 100w LED, to light the way. Such an amazing and relaxing dive!

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 44 mins.
Max. Depth: 25′
Water Temp.: 77F

Heleen’s video!

We got out, switched our tanks over, and got ready for the second dive. The boys left to do a longer dive on the Parker Line, and Heleen and I got ready to do a shorter one (if we felt like doing a shorter one). Ahhh… such a beautiful and relaxing dive. I had forgotten how beautiful this line was (aren’t they all?). As we got close to the entry (and already in open water), we shut our lights off, and used the ambient light. We had a little fun in the basin, with a lot of laughter.

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 1 min.
Max. Depth: 19′
Water Temp.: 77F

Heleen, after our dives!

Me, taken by Heleen…

Erik, Heleen, and Jan K. …

Jan K. and Dan…

There was definitely no monkey business or shenaniganry going on, here…

The other fellas finally returned from their dive, and we were on our merry way!

Poor Dan had a bit of a leak (or 7) in his suit…

Back at the shop, Steve and I finally got to meet Panos, in the flesh, which was a nice surprise!

Then, to the resort! We had dinner with Becki and Dan, a drink with Laurynn and Kathryn, then back to our room, to tend with some gear. We tried to go to sleep early, but had a bit of an interesting phone call… I’ll just leave it at that…

Monday, December 16th, 2014 ~

Today, we headed back to Pet Cemetery. We had a few different teams: Steve and I; Sander, Heleen, Eric; Jan, Jan, Dan. Steve and I tried to go to the Dark Side Of The Moon again, but ended up in a different place. We made a couple of jumps, then left at an intersection, and came to some of the most beautiful cave that we have ever seen in our lives. We are thinking that this is what Ali may have been referring to as the “Spectacular” room, since that was such an extreme understatement! Steve just happened to have the camera with him, and he took some video. As stunning as it looks on video, it still does not do it the slightest bit of justice. Neither of us could stop saying, “Holy shit! Holy shit!” That’s how beautiful this passage was. Past the room, there was a little shelf that we could have squished under, but there were just so many fine decorations, and it appeared to pinch right down. I didn’t want to chance breaking anything, so I turned us around.

We picked up our stages, and made our way back to the Ihop line. We recalculated our gas, and followed it through some very different passage. There was a narrow’ish swim-through, into some really big, dark cave. It was huge! We jumped off into another little hole, which was really neat. It started to pinch right down into either no mount passage, or a spot where someone threw a spool through the tiny little hole. We turned back, and continued on the Ihop line, until we got to a spot that had a sharp slope upward. I opted not to go further, since one of my ears had been acting up a bit, and we still had a lot of diving left to do!

Along the cavern line, there was an air pocket, where we surfaced. That proved to be a less than smart idea for my ear. I just could not clear again, on the way back out. I stayed as high as I could, over the line, until we got back to the basin, still trying to clear that darn ear. Le sheesh. Ah, well… It was my new favourite dive, in my new favourite cave!

Bottom Time: 2 hours, 22 mins.
Max. Depth: 37′
Water Temp.: 77F

Dan, chillin’!

Becki joined us, today!

Steve – Are you STILL taking pictures??

Packing up…

…and a blurry selfie…

As usual, back to the shop, drop gear, to the resort, and we checked out Steve’s footage, on Becki’s laptop!

A peek of the footage, taken with my iPhone, in the lobby…

We had dinner with the gang, then back to the room for a movie!