Chanb77's Weblog

Monday, October 27th – Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 ~

Steve and I had tied the knot on October 25th (yes, two days ago), and had decided to head down to Mexico for our honeymoon. What better way to celebrate, than a Cave 1 course? I won’t go in to all the wedding details, but I will post a picture of the cake. The lady that made this cake is one of the most creative and talented people I’ve ever met. We brought her pictures, colours, and a general idea, and she came up with the result…

Cake picture taken by Carmen Cheung…

We arrived at the Cancun airport at about 11:30 am, where we managed to get all of our luggage pretty quickly, then Steve got to press the “Magic Luggage Search” button, and we passed GO! We met Juan Luna, who brought us the 80 km to our condo. We met with Chris that evening, and arranged a cavern dive for Wednesday.

Juan Luna…

Walkway to the condo…

Tuesday, we rented a car, and confirmed plans for Wednesday. We couldn’t resist picking up T shirts from the dive shop either.

We met Alex at Zero Gravity on Wednesday morning, where we also met some fellow divers from Korea, taking a course with Fred. We went to the jungle fill station, picked up our tanks, and headed over to Dos Ojos. One word came to mind… “wow.” I’ve heard that caves are addictive, but seriously… what a friggin’ awesome couple of dives. Even in the cavern zone, we were amazed.

We headed out from Cenote 1, surfaced in the Bat Cave, then returned to Cenote 1. The Bat Cave lived up to its name, as we saw a few bats hanging from their roosts in the ceiling. We had a bit of lunch, then went back in. We would often cover our lights, let our eyes adjust to the darkness, and just take everything in around us. There was so much to see.

Dive 1 ~
Bottom Time ~ 44 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 25′
Water Temp. ~ 77 (the water temp. is always 77…)
Vis. ~ Endless ~ “Gin clear”

Dive 2
Bottom Time ~ 36 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 31′

Francois arrived on Wednesday evening.

Thursday, the three of us went over to the shop, to grab weights for Frankie, then to the jungle fill station for tanks, then headed to El Eden for some skills. What a nice place for a skills dive, in the basin.

Again, clear water, fish surrounding us, and just a nice place to be. We did S drills, valve drills, removed/replaced masks, wrote in wet notes, used spools, cookies, arrows, and practiced our finning techniques. It would be really easy to get used to doing skills in this place!

Dive 3
Bottom Time ~ 75 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 20′

Dive 4
Bottom Time ~ 35 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 20′

We dropped our tanks off to the fill station and headed for some grub.

Friday, we visited Tulum, to see some of the ruins, and Saturday, our other friends were to arrive. We picked up some weights for them as well.

It was also Halloween! We saw some great costumes at one place…

Saturday, we met with the entire gang, and went for dinner and cocktails!

Sunday, the whole group headed for another tour at Dos Ojos, with Aquanauts. Steve, Oren, and I went out with Carlos, and Francois, Jen, and Robert went out with Alessandra. Once again, absolutely amazing dives. There are many decorations to see in this cavern, and it was nice to recognize some of the features from our previous dives there.

Carlos, me, Steve…

A bit blurry, but Alessandra and Frankie…

Here are a few pics, taken by Oren L….

My butt…

Steve…

Dive 5
Bottom Time ~ 40 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 20′

Dive 6
Bottom Time ~ 35 mins.
Max. Depth 30′

What an excellent introduction to the caves in Mexico. We couldn’t wait for our course to start, the following day!

To be continued in Part 2…