After some time waiting for repairs in the US, my sick scooter finally made it back with a ‘new’ motor. More about that later maybe, but for now I am just glad that I have two scooters again!
Following on from a shakedown/poke around dive at Taj and a lot of stress in my dayjob I felt ready to take a stage and my team of ponies ( I love the pony/scooter metaphor) and blast down from Cenote Chac Mool past The huge stalactite, Xix Ha Tunich, the Monster house (Cauac Na) and on past the impressive Cenote Mojarra.
This was my 4th recce dive in this area. I started coming down here just to blast away on the scooters and get the cobwebs out of my propellers after travelling for work, but every time I start poking around in this seldom visited part of the cave, I get to know and love it a little bit more.
As I started the dive, adjusting the reins of the newly returned scooter, I noticed a line tied into the open water and heading the way I intended to go. I am pretty sure I know where these cave divers will be heading to.
Chac Mool has the largest underwater flowstone in the world, Xix Ha Tunich, descending an impressive 42 feet and guarding a cave within a cave, the Monster House (Cauac Na). Its a popular dive, though few will take the gas or equipment to go past it. On a scooter its about 12 -15 minutes but swimming closer to 30. Wide open power passage I just blasted away until I found the other divers where I expected to find them, photographing Xix Ha Tunich. That was pretty cool. They had a decent amount of light, so I stopped for a minute or so to take in the unusual view. As I am usually solo and use a 10W hid, I dont usually get to see so much in the massive passages. This was a rare treat and I thoroughly enjoyed the moment.
Time to move on. I jump on the trigger and head down to end of the line at Mojarra. Just before I get to Mojarra I am suprised to see the visibility drop rapidly. There is a clear strata of dirty water. No diver has been here for a long time I am sure of it. It’s pretty certain to me that there was a recent collapse, the event that I fear most cave diving. I move forward through the dirty water and eventually arrive at Cenote Mojarra. I run a line around the debris cone and pick up the Mojarra downstrream line. 10 minutes or so later I tie up the ponies and stage at the minor silty restriction that has the look of an open mouth.
Its liberating to shed all the big equipment. Just two Al80′s balanced perfectly on my razor harness, I am able to drop quite a bit of gas from my 6 liter buoyancy bag (MSR water bag). I stretch out and slide forward on the propulsion of the first frog kick. Ahhh ! Nice
The dive from here consisted of lot of ups and downs and backwards and forwards as I tried to get a better ‘feel’ for the cave. I am very interested in this cave now but really need some survey data to make sense of it all. The cave is on two and sometimes three levels with tunnels crossing over and under each other and a spider web of lines. While Matts map is helpful, nothing can compare to a a few pages of survey data!
I check a lead into what seems to be an unlined organic passage and find one of Matt’s old green arrow marking the beginning of a line that has clearly be hidden. I follow it for a while feeling some flow, but decide its time to get back. I leave my jump arrow in place so I can find it when I come back. Nobody is coming back here anytime soon. I can be sure of that.
I am cold at the end of this dive. I need a better wetsuit.
Article posted by AlanF
