Diving...sort of

We haven't dove in about a week...ailmets or equipment is to blame. But today we headed out to the Ranch to dive Cenote Muchachos in System Camillo. Yesterday we had physical issues so although we didn't dive, we ventured out to the Ranch to make sure they were open and do a bit of recon. Lucky for us there were some workers there and I spoke to them about diving tomorrow...which was today. No Problemo!

So we arrived at 9:15 am and had no problem getting in. Geared up with rebreathers, and scooters and began our very short dive. Guess what...equipment issue again. O-ring problem which was letting water into my rebreather, so we called the dive soon after we sorted everything out and were ready to hit the trigger. I asked John to check my rebreather...leak. Done. Headed out.

Out we went. Spoke to workers, we will be going in tomorrow early. Rebreather is fixed, gear is all set up and staying loaded in car for early departure.

Wish us luck as we only have less than a week and it seems we have hardly dove. No complaints here though, and there is a return trip scheduled for Jan when John starts his FM3 resident visa saga again.

Global Underwater Explorer Conference

The Global Underwater Explorers conference was last weekend in Mexico. We abandoned our room for the weekend to check into the Hotel Catalonia Tulum, where the conference was being held. We had never stayed in an "all-inclusive" before and I have to say, it wasn't that bad. Others had commented that the Catalonia is a smaller property than some of the others in the area and that may make a difference. Anyway, it was a nice change of scenery for a few days....

The conference had some informative and interesting presentations. A few of my favorites were: Cenotes in Maya Ideology by Dominique Rissolo; Researching Shipwrecks/Locating and Surveying using Sidescan and ROV's by Richard Lundgren: Guadalcanal by Liam Allen; Remote Sensing and GIS by Sam Meacham and Why Sidemount by Steve Bogaertes. There were others that were equally interesting but these were my favorites.

There was alot of social time during the weekend and that was fun too. As a side note, I won one of the silent auctions so I now have a really nice Silentplanet heated vest....yeahh for me! Can't wait to try it at the lake over the holidays with my dry gloves that I haven't had a chance to try yet either,

The conference ended on Sunday at Chikin Ha with a BBQ, and some workshops. I had never been to Chikin Ha cenote and I will have to go back to dive. Since I had signed up for some workshops, John and I decided not to dive. Also, the fact that we closed the Pub in Puerto the night before may have had something to do with that. In signing up for the line workshop, you might scratch your head...since I already run line. But I wanted a refresher, which turned out geat since I was the only one signed up and John and I got to spend about 30 minutes with Christophe Le Malliot asking him whatever we wanted. Chris is a GUE instructor and a avid cave exlporer. It was well worth it. The other workshop was an intro to survey conducted by Fred Devos, another GUE instructor and cave exlporer. He always does a great job and we learn something new from him everytime we talk. I just need to talk John into taking the 5 day class...or just take it on my own.

The workshop ended as we were about to lose daylight...and for the last 15 minutes of the class we were dodging bats and I am not kidding. They were flying around right through us. Fred finally agreed that the mosquitos would start coming out and we may get swarmed before we could get back to our cars....so the day ended. lots of folks were still diving, but we said our goodbye's and beat feet.

We headed back to Tulum and had a nice hamburgesa de res right in front of our room, which was nice because John and I were both really tired and just wanted to get some sleep.

Until tomorrow....here are some more pictures of Chickin Ha. There are more than 1 cenote in the Chickin Ha area, however, I don't remember which one is which....but they are all nice. And an altar at the back of one of the cenote areas.

BBQ, diving, and spiders...oh my

Not diving today so I thought I would update the blog. Last I posted we were headed to, a BBQ at Bil Philips house. The BBQ was lots of fun and the food was even better. Grilled chicken, grilled vegetables, and potatoes...mmmmmm. Bil is such a character and I really enjoy talking to him....picture someone who would use the term "cats" in reference to people and you get the idea of colorful scenic language. He told us about the Playa Del Carmen Jazz Festival he attended....I think next year I would like to come down early enough to attend! It sounded fantastic. We met alot of people and got re-aquainted with some we already knew.

As what usually happens when I attend dinner events involving drinks and divers, I found myself a new dive buddy for the following day. A girl from Poland had just completed her cave class and was looking for a buddy...John had to work on gear the next day so I was free to dive.....and John had to be our chauffer because she didn't have a car and I can't drive the truck. I took her to the Room of Tears as I thought she would enjoy the restrictions and it is a nice cave. We entered in Zacil-Ha (luke's hope) and had a really nice dive.

Two things worth mentioning...on our way to the dive site we had to stop at 7-11 for some water and ran Alex A from Tulum. As Marta, the gal from Poland, was exiting the truck...Alex asked, "Is that your daughter?" OMG! That is all I have to say about that.

And the other thing, on our dive we were heading out...Marta was in front and she came to the line going through a restriction. She looked at me and motioned "not sure how to get through there" so we switched positions and I told her to follow me. We had a laugh about it afterward. She told me I had no bones and I told her she was a good cave diver for day 1 post cave cert. She said she likes the small stuff now and I was glad she had a good dive and got to see some nice cave outside of class. I like the small cave too.

No diving today because I forgot that after a rebreather dive, I need a day off...too much congestion, but instead I went diving. So I had to take today off. Tomorrow we hope to go to Camillo on the rebreathers and retrieve our safety bottles. The gear is ready to go.

And here is a scorpion spider that was in our room....I took a picture. It was the 3rd one....two of them died.

Shake out Rebreather Dive

We decided not to go to Gran Cenote to sort out the new rebreather config with small tanks and went instead to Carwash Cenote. Wise choice as we had it to ourselves and tons of people were at Gran.

Here is a picture of the Cenote. Word in the jungle is that there is a 3ft (1 meter) croc living in the cenote. Some Cave 2 students saw it the other day on during their swim test...yikes. I was looking but did not find it...thankfully.

We put on our rebreathers and ran line to the main line...for our cave diving friends...the line is moved. It is about 100ft closer than it was before and is not hidden behind the outcropping rock. Rebreathers are a tool....I keep telling myself that. The good news is I didn't hate them today and was able to exhale easier to prevent chipmunk cheeks when going up a hill in the cave. It still takes a bunch of work because you have to make buoyancy adjustements all the time...and I mean all the time. You can't use your breathe and lungs to control it...you must use your wing (inflation device) and your drysuit.

Anyway, it was a nice 2 hour dive...we main lined it until it got to small and them jumped off to the Room of Tears again until it was time to turn and go home.

Here is some photos of us in our rebreather get up...we tried small tanks this time. John worked really hard to configure these bad boys and his efforts paid off. We are still hoping we will not need them for Camillo and can fit through the hole in that cave using the big tanks. Time will tell.

We are off to a BBQ in Tulum. We got invited but said we didn't want to crash the party, but Bil Philips insisted. Should be fun. The Czecks (who are exploring a ton of cave down here) will be there. Bil said, "come for burnt chicken" and we can't pass that up. Especially from Bil.

Shake Out Dive

Saturday we set out to do out first dive of the trip. That includes finding all the gear in the room, and checking it out to make sure there are no spiders in the regulators! As usual, we ran into some obstacles. The first was that the tanks we have are in Fernando's shop and he is in Mexico City...no problem we got those out...but they were not full. The guy who fills doesn't show up until 4pm so that option was out...luckily Zero Gravity has this really cool fill station that is now up an running, so the plan was to beat feet down there. We will also check with Xibalba to see if they fill on demand.

Our third hurdle was remembering where we keep the key that opens up the case with our primary lights in it...hard to dive without those. We go through this every time and last time we specifically came up with a solution which we would always remember....hahaaaa. We remembered but it took awhile. Finally gear was loaded and off we went to get fills and afternoon diving....lunch at Cas Cenote first, sans maragitas because we were diving..only Coca lights.

Our first dive was in Zacil (the back part of Carwash). They had a birthday fiesta going on but they caretaker said we could dive...so we provided a bit of the entertainment apparently. We choose to go to the Room of Tears and maybe to Dreamland which is really cool and tannic. As a first dive it is great because you have to work all the time and fine tune your buoyancy quickly....plus it is a really nice cave. We ended up not going to Dreamland, but took the T to the left, then another T to the right, then another T to the left until we hit the end of the line.

Mission accomplished, we are back in the caves!

On to rebreather shakedown dive tomorrow at Gran Cenote.

On a side note, each day we drive by Camillo and the gates are open....could be a good sign as Fernando said he could not get ahold of the owner.

Another side note; there are new owners to the hamburger stand in front of Fernando's. We chose to eat there last night. Burgers are really good grilled over charcoal and they grill vegetables and potatoes too. Quite a feast for very few pesos....and really tasty. The girl is from Spain and the guy is from Mexico, it is fun talking to people from other countries. Apparently Spain is in a bit of an ecomonic crisis as well.

Happy Sunday, we are going diving!!

Made it to Tulum

We arrived in Tulum late afternoon on Thanksgiving Day! Unloaded our cargo and headed over to Puerto Aventuras for a Turkey dinner and to meet up with some people we know. The 6:30 seating was full so we had to wait until 8pm....not so bad as it allowed time for a margarita or 2 at the Pub.


Fun time. Ran into some folks we knew (lamont and Jen) and had a nice Thanksgiving meal. I also learned (I kinda already knew), that the class I had signed up for was definately not going to go because there isn't enough students. Ran into the instructor at Cafe Ole and met him in person. Cool guy. Hopefully, I can arrange some one on one training while I am here...or more than one training.

We spent John's birthday sorting out the room nad had a nice lunch at the Mezzanine. Tomorrow we dive!

Across the border and into Mexico

We crossed the border at Brownesville into Mexico at 6am. No issues at all with immigration...we were bracing ourselves for the worst. Last April when we drove the truck out, we got in the wrong line and literally... just drove across the border without having anything stamped or turning anything in...who knew? Anyway, we were a bit worried about that. John learned a new rule about the FM3. Apparently, you can't stay out of Mexico for over 6 months...you must return within that timeframe. The officer was really nice about explaning the rule and also since there was no stamp to prove when we left...John got to keep his FM3. We know the rules now :)

This leg was long but uneventful. There was a particular song, "shakedown street" by the Grateful Dead that was ringing in my head after Tampico. Yep, we got shaken down by the policia. The funny part was, there was absolutely no pretense....we want money for drinks was what was said. John said "no" followed by "no ingles" and then they shifted over to me. I gave them a few pesos (ok...$100 pesos) we went on our way and I am sure the traffic behind us was greatful since the "road stop" disappeared after the contribution.

One last thing, if you ever get to Tuxpan, Mexico....the Holiday Inn is awesome. Tuxpan is a really neat place because it is right on the river and the Holiday Inn has great rooms, fast reliable internet, stunning views of the river and really cool lighting both inside and out. We used to stay at the Best Western here....Holiday is has that beat hands down.

On to Villahermosa tomorrow.... diggity diggity

The journey has begun

We made it to Ft Stockton, TX safe and sound. On to Brownsville tomorrow morning and if all goes well, we will be crossing into Mexico first thing Tuesday morning. Two days across Texas and three days through Mexico to our final destination, Tulum.

We were home less than 24 hours before we started this roadtrip, having just returned from Vegas where we attended the DEMA show (Trade show for SCUBA). That was a blast... seeing all the "scuba celebrities", friends, new equipment, and just overall fun. No rest for the weary!

Preparing to head back down to Tulum

We are busy getting ready for another trip down to Mexico, driving the truck back down. Last April we drove it back to the US as it needed some work. Truck is repaired and very soon to be Mexico ready. John already got the new sticker at the Mexican consulate....which is so awesome, I can't even tell you.

We are making a pact to have more pictures and less writing for our Fall 2010 trip blog. Sometimes though, diving, margaritas, friends and food get in the way of our "pacts".

We will also be attending the GUE (Global Underwater Explorers) conference during our stay. Also heading back to Camillo for more exploration and survey ....should be a great trip.

Keep checking for updates.

Rain Rain Go Away

It has been rainig for the last 2 days. Unfortunately the weather report doesn't say it will stop anytime soon. It was a torrential downpour yeaterday. But today has some sunny spots so far.

We were supposed to do our last dive in Camillo yesterday, to pick up our safety bottles that are still there, remove some jumps and check out the new lead. Good to go right......Nope! Once again our plans were foiled by the land owner. She changed the lock....we had the key, but she changed the lock....really? Long story but the short version is she didn't want us in anymore, and thought we were letting other people in and not telling her. We paid her for the 6 people we took in there one day, but she got confused because she or her son let other people in that day also. Confusing day for her equals no access for us...apparently. Fernando went over and spoke to her, gave her back the key and now we have to go in on Saturday.....not what we had hoped for, but at least we can get back in. Fernando told us we should not let people in without calling her first....since she speaks no English and really fast Spanish, I am not sure that would work out so well....but next time we will do that.

On Monday we went on an excursion with Danny and some other folks to Yax Chen. Yax Chen is a cenote and one of the entrances to the Ox Bel Ha cave system that the Zero Gravity guys and MCEP (Mexico Cave Exploration Project) are exploring. The cave system is really interesting and neat. There are so many centoes that you really only ever go 20 minutes through cave before you get to another one. The cave does not have the magnificant decorations that other caves in the area have, but it was still a neat dive. A great scooter cave for next time. We swam alot for a total dive time of about 2.5 hours...maybe 3...I have to check. One of the coolest parts was a section called the Milky Way. It was a Hydrogen Sulfide layer that looks like a witches cauldron brewing.....it creates a visual distrubabnce that is really cool. Plus if you look at some areas there are "milk ribbons" that are floating in the water. It was really specatular. We also saw a few tarpon in the cenotes. I would go back to this cenote again......with a scooter.

We have been attending the nightly seminars at Zero Gravity. They have been really great. There was one on video, one on the Ox Bel Ha exploration and last night was on some wrecks in Canada and some in Australia. The Australia presentation was done using Microsoft PowerPoint 2010....that had some great features. The Australian who presented works for Microsoft and said it will be available soon. He said if the presentation tanked he could wow us with the graphics and technology. It didn't tank....:)

Only a few days left until we start our drive back to the States.

And now for a few pictures

Some pictures:

John on the way to Zamas Restaurant.

Almost there! They still hold the #1 spot for strongest margaritas....we did another test.

Street in front of Fernado's house, where we stay. You can see the brick grill that used to be used to cook really good hamburgers. It now sits dormant....so sad.

John entering the "compound" with our laundry. This is a side door to get to the room we rent from Fernando.

Once inside the "compound". Our room is around the corner by the dive area.

Lunch at Casa Cenote after the Camillo kick dive. John is wearing one of his new mosquito repellant shirts...."repels mosquitos up to 70 washings". I love the pinatas.

Camillo kick dive.....yes it is true.

We dove Camillo today, but not an exploration dive. We actually, hold on to your hats.....did a kick dive without the rebreathers. Here is how it went down...there are a bunch of folks down here for the GUE Mexico Fun Event and we have the key to the Ranch and they wanted to dive Camillo. Plus one of the guys is doing some photo documentation of the cave system for us. The Global Underwaters Explorers Fun Event was an impromptu event set up by two GUE instructors with the help of Zero Gravity. There are about 30 people down here doing different diving and excursions. So there were 8 divers today heading off in different directions of the cave. it was nice to do a kick dive and poke my head into some holes when we usually just scooter on by to get to our destination.

Tomorrow we are doing an "excursion dive" with Danny and some other people to a cenote called Yaxchen....it is part of the Ox Bel Ha system (currently the longest system in Mexico). On Tuesday or Wed we will go back into Camillo when I get to check out the lead I saw and run the reel. I hope it goes a long ways!!!

The seminar we heard on Friday was an update on the WKPP (Woodville Karst Plains Project-they hold the world record for the longest/deepest cave dive) by Mark Messersmith. It was really interesting, the Powerpoint showed some numbers that are truly staggering. Each rebreather diver spends about $85,000 on gear, a big push dive costs about $10,000, the dive was 28 hours long, and there were a bunch more.....these guys are hard core. Mark talked about doing deco in Turner Sink where you can't even see your buddy because of the silt, so you put your computer right up to your face and tap your buddy on the arm when it is time to switch gas...this went on for hours. The result of these dives showed the Florida State Government how important the spring water is, how fast it travels, and the time they thought the sewage leach fields was taking to get there was actually much faster......they thought years and it turned out to be 32 hours. Guess what sewage treatment plant got moved after that discovery! Anyway, it was really interesting.

It was announced today that the 2010 GUE Conference will be in Mexico this year....I hope we can go!!!

Camillo survey updated ....new lead

We dove Camillo again on Wednesday. The plan was to place labelled markers on the lines we have surveyed so far and also survey the last bit of line we laid. While John was doing the survey, my job was to look for new leads. Dive went really well, my scooter still stuck on a few times and didn't go a few tmes, but the weighting was good and I could deal with the rest.



John completed a bit over 700ft of survey, labelled markers were put on all the lines (except 1), still don't know what kind of bones are back there....and I found a new possible lead. The good news is that the lead is "going in the right direction". We exited the cave at 4.5 hours.



One of the things I have been working on is the technique to carry my own scooter....yippee I finally got it thanks to some coaching from John. I can carry it down, but not back up yet....half the battle.


Here is a picture for proof.

We decided to go to Puerto Aventuras for dinner since we knew we wouldn't be diving the next day....at least that is what we thought before we ran into some people after dinner. Cafe Ole is still a fun place to have dinner; they have great pies and also sometimes live music. ...plus good margaritas. Tonight the owner's band was playing and during break this Frank Sinatra impersonator got up. I have to say, before he started singing I had my doubts. This guy was good. We finished dinner and took a walk around the dolphin pools, I mean jails...someone used that term and it has just stuck....dolphin jails.

We ran into some of our friends from the Pacific Northwest along with some other folks from Canada....and joined them for margaritas. Over the course of catching up, it turned out I was going diving with them in Gran Cenote the following day.

I did two dives in Gran Cenote while John got our gear ready and blended gas.

After one of our dives, we ran into Fred (another one of the owners from Zero Gravity) who let us know about an impromptu seminar on Mayan Archeology that night....heck yeah we will be there....7:30pm at ZG. Since we didn't leave the Gran Cenote until 5pm it was going to be a rush to have dinner and get there....but we up to it.

More on the seminar later.....

We didn't dive today, but are attending another Seminar at ZG tonight. Tomorrow we are going back into Camillo to check out the lead and pull the safety bottles back. After tomorrow we may be done with that section for this trip.

That's what has been happening down here this week....we did see two political marches in the streets of Tulum this week. One an actual people march and the other a taxi driver rally. ...the police came in for the Taxi driver one. I think they were just directing traffic and "watching" that things didn't get out of hand.

Cenote Found...but no exit yet

Me walking down trail to Cenote with rebreather

We dove Sistema Camillo on Friday...the dive was successful but not without some obstacles. Our gear was loaded in the truck the night before, we made it to the Ranch the next morning at the record time of 8:30....that's AM. We had the key so no worries....right? It is always something, as we drove up to the gate there was a white truck sans driver blocking our entrance. John got out of the truck and opened the gate....until the point the gate opened, the guys on the other side were ignoring us. I walked in to talk to them...after introductions the man told me "we have a problem", in Spanish. I didn't catch if the truck was broken down or it just wasn't his to move....either way we did have a problem. He ended up getting inside while John and I pushed it up hill and through the gate out of our way, so we could pass. At one point, it was just me pushing the truck and the man inside started laughing...which made me start in too.

Once that was out of the way, another road block. Are you friggin' kidding me! The structure that used to be the chicken coop is now apparently a palapa for painting automobiles. There was a newly painted gold surburban with newspaper covering the windows and lights in the road now. No problem, another guy finally moved it enough for us to pass. Home free and off to the cenote!

The dive ended up being 4.5 hours long. We made it to the new portion of the cave and also found the elusive cenote...unfortunately it appears to be a breakdown area and we could not see an exit ...or leaves or fish that might indicate an opening. We did run a bunch of new line that intersected with some of our old line....in two places. At first we thought we had made a connection because the line we ran across had a old yellow arrow that we did not recognize...unfortunately it ended up being one that Fernando had put down without our knowledge so it threw us off....DRAT!!! And that was not the word that actually went through my mind when we figured it out. Defiantely not what John exclaimed when he figured it out....I heard him underwater...hahaaa. At 2.5 hours, I turned the dive. The rebreather started tasting funny and the head games started...so I wanted out...plus I had 2 spools to reel up since John had re-layed primary line.

The area we are in now should be renamed "The Bone Room", because of all the bones that are on the ground. Tomorrow when we go in to survey the line we layed, I will make an effort to try to identify if the bones are man or beast...probably beast. We originally named the line "Dance Hall" because of the large flat clay surface, too much trouble to re-label it...so it stays Dance Hall...where you can dance your bones out.

On the way out, John and I didn't do a good job of communicating. I thought he was having trouble so I wanted him to go first. He would have none of that. I kept instisting until I got the finger....yeah, that finger. Fine, I'll lead out...and the horse you rode in on...MR! What I didn't know was this.....the scooter was sticking on 90% of the time. Let me go back....John re-built my scooter and changed the batteries. That changed the weighting drastically....my scooter was a freakin' cork...terrible to dive. In fact, I was about to call the dive when John said, give it to me....I'll drive it. I happily turned it over....if I didn't the dive would have been over...it was that much a PIA to drive. So he was driving my scooter, and the darn thing was sticking on. He wanted me in front because if it silted the place out, we would rather have it behind us than in front of us. Of course, I didn't know about the sticking on business until the end of the dive. We have now come up with a "scooter sticking on" signal since it seems to be a regular occurance.

We exited the cave at around 4.5 hours and despite the obstacles the dive was enjoyable. We have plans to go back tomorrow to survey, drop some marked arrows (with the line names), and give one last check that there is no exit....oh yeah, and look at the bones.

Hope everyone had a nice Easter. Our Easter brunch consisted of Texas BBQ and margaritas while looking at the ocean from Casa Cenote.

Can't wait to see what the Ranch will throw at us tomorrow! I'll get busy with taking picture to post.

.

View from table at Casa Cenote on Easter.

Restaurant Review: Elemental -thumbs up

Tonight we walked down the street about 1 block and had dinner at a restaurant called Elemental. We have had breakfast and one lunch there...both really good, but never dinner. They are known for their fresh vegetables and fruits....but little did we know we have a new winner for best mango margarita....OMG, and they are big! And these one's count...the one's at Lol Ha do not....according to John. John had a version of a sushi roll and I had a rice noodle curry with vegetables. The sushi roll was rolled in a tortilla instead of rice, sounds weird but it was really good. I tried it. The curry was awesome...plus the owners are really nice. We ate at the Italian place next door last night and while they have good bolognese sauce for the spaghetti...the lasagna was just ok. And the owners always seem grumpy....all of them.



We ordered a margarita and the owner responded with...."may I make a suggestion". If the owner says that... you better darn well listen. He suggested we try one of their fruity margaritas....mango was what we chose tonight...and it was fabulous...along with the meal. New favorite restaurant, and I have many!



Normally we would not have a drink before a big dive day (a new rule)...however, tomorrow is not one of those. John spent all day rebuilding my scooter. Remember I mentioned in the last post my scooter was sticking on. What I didn't mention was that at the end of the dive it was a total dog on the way out and I was thinking it would grind to a halt any second. John tested the whole thing and pulled it all apart. He finally got to the root of the problem, and it is partially put together but has to be vacuum tested overnight....so no diving tomorrow. Plus the rebreathers aren't loaded....and the mango margarita side tracked the progress.



Good thing I sent my resume off to some folks today as we may be needing to look into those new Zuexo scooters....which would require more work to finance.



But I am sure we will come up with a plan B for tomorrow.....

Camillo Dive...finally

We made it back from Cozumel. We had to do some logistic changes. The Cozumel Ferry website said there was an 8am ferry back to Playa, as sometimes happens in Mexico, there was no 8am ferry...just a 9am one. That put our friends Kim and Shirley crunched for time if they were to make their flight. So we adjusted...you always have to have a plan B and not just in Mexico... and we took a bus back to Tulum while they took one to the airport.

The remainder of Tuesday we spend preparing for our dive in the next day in Sistema Camillo (the cave we are exploring).

Wednesday, we headed off to the Ranch bright and early. We found the gate already open and back in the Cenote there was already a truck there....a Zero Gravity truck. Danny, the cave explorer and one of the owners of Zero Gravity was already there. We talked briefly and started getting ready for our dive.

The first dive of any trip always comes with some apprehension, even though this was not the first dive of the trip, it was the first rebreather dive of the trip. The dive went well and even though we didn't get to where we wanted to go, we had a good solid set up dive. Not bad considering, my scooter stuck on 2 times. One was really bad in that I had to aim it at the cave wall so I could get it to stop. I didn't want to break the cable on the trigger so John came over to move the magnet. I have had them stick on before, but not like this...high speed it was!! And my new favorite saying was appropriate....Mr Toad's wide ride through the halocline. We also ran a helium drive through the rebreathers to see if it would ease the work of breathing...I think it did but the gas consumption wasn't what we were expecting.

Friday we go back in with more breathing gas, and the plan is to find the darn elusive cenote. On a side note, I saw a bunch of petrified shells I hadn't noticed before in the limestone way back in the cave...that was cool. Danny said he will also be there...oh good...more performance anxiety for me. I may have used up the breathing gas last time while I was putting in the jumps to the Black Forest line ...kept picturing Danny critiquing my line...oy! We left the jumps in, so I shouldn't have that problem on Friday...only have to worry about rebreather buoyancy and getting the switchblock tangled in the line. LOL.

Hopefully tomorrow we will have news of the elusive cenote...or a plan B.

License to chill....and I believe I will

Dock where boats pick us up to go diving and Beach club where we sat a few days ago and enjoyed a cocktail. Dock needs some quick repairs after today's wind and the Beach Club had water everywhere.....suffice it to say, no diving on Cozumel today.

The line from a Jimmy Buffet song sums it up pretty well...here is what has been going on since I last wrote.

John was supposed to pick up the key to the Ranch on Thursday and we were going to do a big dive. The key wasn't ready, so the Senora told us to come back manana...not too surprising. No diving in Camillo that day. Instead, Kim and I went for a dive at Dos Palmas. Nice cave, way more flow than expected...going in we were kicking our legs off and coming out it was like Mr Toad's wild ride...not exactly but you get the idea. That was Thursday.

Friday we headed to Cozumel for a few days of ocean diving. John had never been there, and for our scuba friends...yes you read it right...John finally agreed to go to Cozumel. Before we left, we went to the Senora's house in an another attempt to pick up the key.....luck was with us and she handed t over. As a side note, as to why having the key is such a big deal.....she goes to Merida around Easter. No key, means possibly no access to dive the cave we are exploring. Key equals access whenever we want. We now hae the key for the duration of our stay.

Back to Cozumel, we did 4 dives....3 were awesome, 1 was ok. We saw 2 white marlin on our descent during the last dive....that was awesome!!

Today we were supposed to go diving but Mother Nature and the Wind, had other plans. Tomorrw we return to Tulum. Very relaxing jaunt over to the island....and I think John even had a good time. And for the record, the cruise ships don't dock in Coz on Sunday's.

Until next time.

Pet Cemetary and the Abyss

Yesterday , Butch, Lynn, Kim and I dove the Abyss . The Abyss is part of the Nohoch system even though the entrance by car is through the Dos Ojos system. Anyway, it was a great dive and here are some photos. Pet Cemetary is the name of the cenote and the Abyss is the name of the room that we travelled to.
















Lynn Heading down the hole.





















View looking up out of the hole.

Kim, Me and Lynn standing on platform down in the hole. Butch is taking the photo. The platform stands over a beutiful centote. We didn't dive from this spot. We started our dive at another entrance in the same area. The next photo are the steps down to the cenote.....I am glad we didn't bring scooters as I am sure I would have fell down the steps and ended up injured!






View from where we started our dive.


The goal was to get to the Abyss. Three jumps and 54 minutes later we were at the Abyss. The Abyss is a huge room that is very deep. It is like you entered into a huge sinkhole....you can't see the bottom. There is a halocline (salt water mixing with freshwater causing a visual distortion)present that distorts the view and makes it that much more spectaclular. Truly impressive!


Tomorrow we are supposed to do a big dive in Camillo, but first we have to pick up the key. That was the land owner relations John was working on. Maybe it will be a go and maybe it won't...only time will tell.

Made it to Tulum and other first day ramblings

We made it to Tulum yesterday, thanks to our friend Kim and the Atos (a small car) we didn't have to take the bus. We weren't sure our bags, us and Shirley would fit in the car....Kim was right, we all fit....amazing.

The Room was exactly as we had left it. So far no wolf spiders have shown their hairy little faces. We had our arrival dinner at Buenos Aires, the usual first night in town dinner spot. The magaritas are still wonderful.

John and I did not dive today as we wanted to get gear all set up and had some stuff to pick up at Zero Gravity (a dive shop in the area owned by some great cave explorers and educators). Kim, Butch and Lynn dove Cenote Del Mar by the the Tulum Beach. Sounded like fun; I will dive with them tomorrow. I heard about the dive over a "chayagra" drink at Don Cafeto's. Chaya is a green leafy plant kinda like spinach that is grown in the area. The "agra" part was a mystery but I found out it is a mixture of fruit juices...pineapple and lime and maybe some cucumber. It is awesome, today was my first time drinking it...thanks for the recommendation Lynn. Supposedly it is loaded with vitamins...and I could always use more of those.

We also learned that on Monday, Felipe Calderon (el Presidente de Mexico) himself was in the Tulum. He wa here to dedicate or survey the site of the new Tulum airport. From a selfish standpoint, I was hoping it wouldn't go in....more on that later.

Tomorrow I will be diving with Butch, Lynn and Kim to the Abyss. John has some land owner relations to tend to.

Resurrecting the blog...headed South

We are heading back to Mexico in a few days. More diving, more adventures, restaurant reviews, and maybe even more pictures...if I remember the camera. Flying down and driving the truck back...stay tuned Karen