Cavezzz, It Shall Be – Part Six – Labna Ha-Ha and Back To The Animal Kingdom!

16 12 2013

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!


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Cavezzzz, It Shall Be – Part Five – A King’s Passage – Tux Required

14 12 2013

Friday, December 13th, 2013 ~

Today’s plans had been altered, a little. Steve, Sander, and I went to Pet Cemetery. We hadn’t been here before, and our project plans were changed, so this was an excellent alternative. We loaded up our gear, and were on our way!

On the road in, we saw a couple of little Grey Foxes, playing…

I think this is the best road into a cenote, that we have ever been on. We brought our gear down the steep staircase and apparently, to the wrong end of the dock. The line was closer to the stairs, than we thought! We realized our mistake, and moved the gear to where it was “supposed” to go.

Blurry pic, halfway down the stairs.

Steve, going back to get some of the gear! It was pretty slippery.

We had two stages each, and planned on dropping one along the way, for our second dive (all calculations were made, and we would make sure they were correct, at our re-entry point). We found the cavern line, and followed it until the jump to the main line. We made a second jump, and dropped our 2nd stage bottles (the ones for our second dive). We made a jump to the Blue Abyss line, and eventually reached the King Pong restriction. On the way in, I didn’t need to “Superman” my stage bottle, but did have to on the way back out. What a beautiful cave!!! As we made our way through the gorgeous passage, the bottom just fell right out from under us, and there was a massive, blue pit. The Blue Abyss! We descended to around 100′, hovered for a bit, then ascended back up and out. What an amazing place to see!

We made our way back to our first jump line, exchanged our stage bottles, and confirmed our calculations. We had planned on going to The Dark Side Of The Moon, but it appears that some of the lines were different than the ones on our maps. The jump we ended up taking, DID take us to some really cool cave, so we were not at all disappointed. We found a pretty gnarly restriction, too.

Bottom Time: 3 hours, 26 mins.
Max. Depth: 106′
Water Temp.: 77F

Steve’s video, from our most awesome dive. I think this is my new favourite cave…

Back to the shop, unloaded, to resort, tacos with Peter and Manu, then back over to The Pub, for the MCEP gathering!

Pics are a little dark…

We all dispersed, and a bunch of us headed back to the resort, where we figured that we would check out the “Adult” side – In the times that we had been here, we had never ventured over to the “other side!” There seemed to be less going on, but we stayed and had some fun chats!

Saturday, December 14th, 2013 ~

We missed breakfast this morning, since we were a little late in getting our butts in gear. We jumped out of bed, got our stuff together, and ran out the door. Sander had waited for Steve. *Phew* 🙂

I decided to donate my scooter to the boys for the day, so Steve, Sander, Jan M. were going to scooter in Tux Kapaxa. I figured I would tag along with Stretch and Forest, and show them where the bones were!

We had quite a convoy, heading over…

We parked, then headed down to have a look.

Forest (who shall be known as Bodyguard #1) was awesome, and carried my stage down! Thank you, BG#1!
Thanks to BG#2, for bringing it back up!

We each had a stage, and took a bit of a short cut to the bones, instead of swimming to the T.

As we swam out, the other fellas passed us. We waved, as they went by. Once we reached the bones, we stopped so that Forest could take some footage of them… Or, at least he tried. His camera picked that moment to decide that it was tired. D’oh!

We carried on for a little while, then made our way back. We did have a lot of fun!

Thank you BG#1 and BG#2! You guys are the bee’s knees! 😛

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 55 mins.
Max. Depth: 41′
Water Temp.: 77F

After our dive, I waited for the other fellas to finish, while Forest and Stretch went to check out the well… (we all had a look, after)…

Other entry…

Back to the shop, unload, then to the buffet, with Kathryn and Laurynn!

We then met with Becki, Dan, Forest, and Stretch for a couple of bevvies!

Thanks to Santiago – AKA Jr. Cruise – for making our yummy drinks! He showed us his mad skillz, too!

Back to the room, where it was movie time! It seems that there was a Batman movie on, that we hadn’t seen before! To the Bat Cave!


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