Chanb77's Weblog

Tuesday, February 13th, 2018 ~

After our rigamarole (yes, I used that word…), in trying to get to Cave Diving Goodness, we finally made it. This morning, Steve spent some time playing with his rack… ok, he was putting together his LP50 rack, then we threw some gear together, and went diving. I kept having that feeling that I was forgetting something, as you do, on your first day.

Steve’s pretty LP50 rack…

We decided on Minotauro, since it was getting on in the day, and it was close by. There were two other groups there: a GUE cave course, and a sidemount crew. Both teams were in the water, already.

Stairs, going down to the entry:

As we pulled into the entrance, the mujere let us know that we were to pay at the cenote, instead of at the house, like we always had. We kept driving down the path, and saw new park signs, as we went. Apart from the road taking a different direction than I remembered, all seemed the same… until we got to the parking. Half of the parking lot was roped off, and there were extra palapas, with life vests and snorkel gear. They also had a tree adventure place, which we did not investigate. The fellow taking our money said that the tree adventures were new, and the price for diving had gone up to 300 pesos. We signed in, paid the fellow, and that was about the same moment that I remembered what I had forgotten… the hose to connect my drysuit hose to my She-P. Well, this should be interesting.

Well, if there ever was a field fix for that, I have come up with another one. Apparently, electrical tape will hold the quick disconnect to the She-P, if you use a figure 8 pattern. You must also have both sides of the QD. It actually worked. Enough said.

Entry…

We were just using back gas, since it was our first day back. We did our gear checks, and away we went. We took the jump to the left, that takes you to the “underwater river,” which is awesome, if you’re diver #1. If you stay in the fresh water, you can really see the beautiful halocline, drawing a line above the salt water. Of course, there are a couple of spots that diver #1 cannot avoid going through it, and causing diver #2 to be blinded with gasoline water. At least I could pay back, on the way out. 😁

Our dive was nice and relaxing, although I did feel like I was breathing slightly heavier than normal, because… CAVEZZZZZZZZZZ! I was a little happy to be back, seeing pretty cavez.

Where the cave begins…

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 19 mins.

Max. Depth: 47′

Water Temp.: 77F

Avg. Depth: 24′

The walk back up…

Of course, we had to celebrate being back in the Mexico cavez, with a couple of Daquiris, at The Pub, where we had a great dinner and chat, with Ale and Peter! I can’t believe that we didn’t take a photo! I mean… other than the beverages! Cheers, until tomorrow’s adventure!