Cavezzzz, It Shall Be – Part Three – MCEP Project – Yax Chen/Ox Bel Ha

10 12 2013

Monday, December 9th, 2013 ~

Today was the beginning of the Mexico Cave Exploration Project (MCEP), at Yax Chen – Ox Bel Ha. Since the daylight only lasted until about 5pm, we needed to get an early start. Quick breakfast at 7am, and straight to the shop, for a 7:30am gear gathering, then load up!

Winding path to the water, at Yax Chen…

Steve and Sander were a team, using the RB80s and scooters. I was buddied up with Jan M., to do some sediment trap removal/replacement, using a stage and scooters. I had never done sediment traps, and although not hard, was really “cool” to be a part of. We also repaired a part of the line that had been broken, past the “L-Shaped” cenote. Thanks to Jan, for his expert line repairing demo. It’s been a while since I have done it.

Bottom Time: 2 hours, 4 mins.
Max. Depth: 42′
Water Temp.: 77F/78F
Vis.: A little murky, in the first two sections, but cleared up, as we went further into the cave.

I am very thankful that I did not see the crocs that were apparently in the water.  I have an issue with crocs, other than the plastic ones, on my feet.

Heleen and I!

Tim and I hung around to wait for Steve and Sander. They had a 4 1/2 hour run time.

As we packed up, it appeared that we had a flat tire. No doubt, from the jungle road at Fenom, yesterday. Thank goodness for the RB80 (my tanks had gone with the CINDAQ truck). 🙂

We weren’t sure if it was a puncture, or if bouncing through the jungle, just made it flat. We kept calm, and carried on…

We returned to the shop, unloaded, and headed back to the resort. Dinner and cocktails! We were also able to meet a superhero, by the name of “Super Rafael.” He was telling us about the magic show that they were putting on.

Of course, the video had to be dark, so that we didn’t give away Super Rafael’s true identity…

What a blast!

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013 ~

Breakfast, then to the shop… er… change the flat tire. Thanks to Forest and Stretch, who helped us to get to the spare tire out… which was flat. We hobbled to the gas station, put some air in the tire, and we were finally on our way. Thank goodness for zip ties, too. 😉 We finally made it to the shop, loaded up, and an extra thank you to Manu and Peter, who organized my gear and scooters! We were finally on our way.

Today, we were back at Yax Chen. Jan M. and I were going a little further than the previous day’s dive, and had a few more stations to remove/replace sediment traps. We had developed a routine in doing them, so we were able to do it in less time. We also wouldn’t have line to repair (we didn’t think we would).

Steve and Sander were on RBs again, too. There were fewer of us at Yax Chen today, since there were other team members performing other tasks, in other systems.

We could really feel the flow at our sediment traps. It wasn’t bad, but more than in the beginning sections of the cave. We could easily hold our positions while working, with a couple of fin kicks. It was definitely not St. Lawrence River or Florida cave flow, but it was noticeable.

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 46 mins.
Max. Depth: 38′
Water Temp.: 77F/78F
Vis.: Same as previous day. Clearer, the further back we went.

We loaded up all of the gear, then hung around to help out Steve and Sander to bring their gear back, and finish loading the CINDAQ truck. From there, we went to Tulum, where we got our tire repaired.  We gave the fellow extra, since he was so good, fast, and incredibly affordable!

Thanks to Constança, for being a great Shore Manager!

Steve and Sander, after their dive.

Once at the shop, we unloaded, and while Steve and Sander were cleaning their RBs, I went with Jo, to The Pub! There were about 20 of us, and Steve came by when he was finished at the shop.

Back at the resort, Steve, myself, Manu, Peter, Stretch, and Forest went over to watch the famous Fire Show! I remembered it from last year, and it was awesome!

We looked at Peter’s photos, then to sleep!


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A Different Route

20 11 2013

Saturday, November 9th, 2013 ~ 

For today’s dive, we were getting in at St. Lawrence Park, then drifting and scootering to Centeen Park.

Entry…

Gear at the entry…

We decided to go upstream a little bit, to the little wreck that we came across, a few years ago. Steve had rebuilt the motor in my Little Red Rocket, so we were testing it out, along with another one that he had rebuilt, that he was using. We had an extra one, for back up.

Very short video of the little wreck, from a previous dive *WARNING* VERY POOR QUALITY* 🙂

https://vimeo.com/32125823

We had a quick look, and then made our way south (thanks to Mike, for turning off my back-up light). We dropped into the channel, and back up to the other side, where we started to drift. There were a couple of spots where there wasn’t much current, so we hit the triggers for a bit.

We found a few new spots that we had not been to before, and there were some really neat rock formations. We have seen horse harnesses in the river, but not as many as I saw, today (they were to the right of me, so the others didn’t see the first few). There were three harnesses, all within about 50′ to 100′ from each other. Sadly, I’m sure that it did not end well for those horses (from the “olden days”). We also saw an air stack that appeared to be from a very large ship (freighter, perhaps). We also noticed that they may have tried to recover it.

There were a lot of really cool places along this route! A definite redo is in order!

It seemed that both of our rebuilt motor scooters were in most awesome form, and as we hit our turn time, we made our way a bit more shallow, until we reached the “Unknown Hull,” where we had a little look. It has been a while since we have been to this little one, too! Then, onward to the Gaskin! Mike had found a little leprechaun Halloween figurine, and after having some fun with it for a while (sticking it in Steve’s scooter strap), Steve passed it to me. As we got to the Gaskin, I placed it outside the wreck, for good keeping. He shall guard the wreck, now. At least, I hope he does. That poor wreck is falling apart.

We hit the triggers for home, did our deco stops, and as we were heading in, I noticed a very small gar pike. It may have been the same one that I saw a few weeks ago. He gave us a little show with his mouth. They are such neat looking fish!

Bottom Time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Max. Depth: 113′
Water Temp.: 50F
Vis.: Decent, but dark. No sunlight to light up our day!

Thanks to Chris, who gave us the Santi Panties Dance, in his undies that he won at the Invasion!

Yes… I did show him a few of the moves, but he had some good ones of his own, too!

Well, I couldn’t get a pic of the exit, but you may have seen some Centeen Park pics, in previous Bloggy Thing entries. By the time we retrieved the vehicles (we had one at Centeen), loaded them, and got changed, it was a bit dark.

With that, I leave you with a selfie, at the entry!


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Smells Like Centeen Spirit

14 10 2013

Sunday, October 13th, 2013 ~

We packed up, and made our way down to Brockville, for some scootering and drifting Goodness! We brought the gear to the water, geared up, and away we went, upstream.

Frankie, Eric V., Christian St-P., and Dave were heading out to the truck, too.

As we made our way up, the “Little Red Rocket” scooter seemed to be struggling, a little. At 15 minutes, it just didn’t seem to be running right. At 18 minutes, it really felt tired. So… I passed it to Cas, and Steve towed me into the channel. Since we were on a drift dive anyway, it wasn’t a big deal.

We drifted for about 40 minutes, and saw a bunch of different things. I found a cooking pot lid. It didn’t make a great frisbee, so I tried it on as a hat. Since it wasn’t great for either purpose, I placed it back down onto the periwinkle shells. We found a couple of pieces of broken china, some bottles, barrels attached to wooden planks (they looked like they had been there for a while), and we even saw a Gar Pike. I haven’t seen one of those in quite a while, so it was neat to see it. He even opened his mouth, and we saw his razor-sharp teeth!

As it was time for us to start making our way in, I tried my scooter again. It was trying, and I was at least able to make it back up, for most of the way. Then, it was just sleepy, so I passed it off to Cas again, and Steve towed me back up into the shallows. We hung out at 20′ for a few minutes, met up with Frankie and Eric, and went up and in.

Quite a fun dive! I tried out my new Santi 9mm hood today, and it was really warm! It felt like I had a heater on my head!

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 52 minutes
Max. Depth: 105′
Water Temp.: 62F

Cas, bringing up some gear!

Sofie, with the dolly, guarding the sthcooterthz!

Duo selfie…

Some of the group! Eric V., Dave, Frankie, Steve, Christian St-P…

I hope my Little Red Rocket is ok! Until the next dive!


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Ahh… Jodrey Goodness!

13 10 2013

Saturday, October 12th, 2013 ~

We gathered a few of the troops, and headed down to Caiger’s. Our charter was in the afternoon, so we brought some gear down to the docks, to wait for the morning folks to return. Once River Diver came in, we gave the other divers some time to unload, then we climbed aboard!

We did our usual stop at Boldt Castle, for customs clearance, then made our way over to the mooring tree. The usual branch had been broken, so we settled on another one. We couldn’t figure out why Frankie wasn’t grabbing it, until we noticed that it was just hanging there. 😛

We went through the usual routine… gear checks, pre-dive briefing, etc… then, off we went. Eric V. and Frankie teamed up, and Sofie and Cas joined Steve and I!

Our plan was to stay on the bow, so we got down the wall, and did a bit of a tour. We decided not to go in anywhere, since 4 people would have been a little much for a lot of the spaces. Steve brought the Go Pro, and got a little bit of footage, too.

We had a little bit of bumper car action, on deco. It was nice and relaxing, but since there were four of us, we did catch a little bit of the current, which just made us have to use a fin, here and there. I seem to recall that someone’s bottom timer bungee may have come into contact with my spring strap. My spring strap won. 😛

We also noticed the vacuum cleaner, that we had not seen in a really long time. It used to be near the stool (at 20′), but is now sitting a little bit downstream.

Once most of our deco was up, we scootered around to the bowl – where the boat was anchored, finished up, then made our slow ascent to the surface, where we did our 1 ATA deco stop – Or, chilled at the surface. There were a few smiles. 😀

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 16 mins.
Max. Depth: 187′
Water Temp.: 62F

I think Cas is fitting right in, as he has learned the “Moose Ears” signal!

The one and only… Frankie Boy!

Eric V. …

Rick had a bunch of Deco Cookies for us, too! No, I didn’t eat all of those cookies!

Group shot 1…

Group shot 2…

Once we returned to Caiger’s, we had to stay on the boat, until we cleared customs. We had visions of the sun going down, and us shivering in the dark, but… that didn’t happen. We were cleared in no time, and the unloading began! We were at a pretty far dock, thanks to the very low water levels. Once we had all of our stuff put away, it was Swiss Chalet for dinner, where we met up with even more friends.

Ahhhh… It doesn’t get much better than this… :o)


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To The Power House!

10 10 2013

October, 2013 ~

Ahhh…. an afternoon dive, out of Guindon Park. We unloaded our gear at the water, moved the van and car to a parking spot, and got ready to dive!

We did our gear checks, and away we went. We scootered south, down the “trench,” drifted for a bit, then south again, where we reached the Overflow Bridge. This meant that we had gone a bit too far, for the Power House. Steve had the Go Pro, so as he was tending to something else, I decided to make some funny faces for the camera (it was on a scooter mount).

We changed our direction, and made our way a little further west, and finally found it! w00t! We tied off our scooters, and went inside a large opening. We swam around, checked out a few different spots, and even came upon a very large eel. He didn’t really want to spend any time with us, so we left him alone.

We exited, removed our stage bottles (added them to our scooter bouquet), and went inside a smaller opening. This was a lot of fun, and we came out another hole, which was right below our gear.

Time to turn back! As we got to the shallows, we surfaced to confirm where we were, and we happened upon an absolutely gorgeous red sunset. We were right on track, so we descended again, and made our way through the weeds, back to the boat ramp. There was a boat coming in, so we went to the other side of the dock to exit.

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 58 mins.
Max. Depth: 77′
Water Temp.: 62F

It was a lot of fun, and great to show our visitors some of the sunken villages!

“This is how I roll…”

After our dive, we settled on Pizza Hut as our after-dive nourishment spot… and we noticed that they actually moved it. From there, Sofie and Cas had a date with the border folks, while Steve and I started on our way home, and unloaded gear! Until the next dive!


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