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

" I think she went to Merida for Easter"....noooo....YES!!!

When Fernando called the owner of the Ranch today to verify we could get in....there was no answer. So we loaded up and headed over to her house. Guess what....no one was there and all the cars were gone. We thought, maybe they are at the Ranch...(hahaaaaa) and promptly headed that direction. It was locked up and no one was around. In fact, it was locked up exactly as Fernando had left it on Monday. I was kinda joking but not really when I said..." I bet she went to Merida for Easter." Last year we caught her the day before she left and we paid her and then she handed over the key....that was so convenient.

We headed back to Fernando's, and as we got out of the truck Fernando said, " I think she went to Merida for Easter...she has family there". OMG. So we did not dive today and Fernando will be tasked with pulling out the jumps and taking the stages out of the cave. He said no problem, and since she probably won't be back until after Easter, I am assuming no one will be in the cave anytime soon. They may still be there for Butch and Lynn next week!!!

John and I started packing for our return and then took a break and headed for lunch at Casa Cenote....the packing went down hill from there....naps instead. The transfers to take us to the airport were all booked up, so we rented an Atos in Tulum and will drive it to the airport tomorrow. An Atos in Tulum is $13.50 a day....the charge for dropping it off in Cancun is quite a bit more. Still way cheaper than a taxi.

This time tomorrow we should be on the plane....hope the weather in nice in Phx.

The new leads will have to remain unexplored until next time. Our time has come to an end.

Karen and John

Success at the immigration Office!!!

Today was the day we were to pick up John's finalized FM3 visa. We received it and now John can leave the country. (Sorry Kim, we won't need your help smuggling him across the border...but thanks for the offer.) I was getting a bit nervous listening to all the other Americans and Canadians lamenting about how they keep showing up and there documents "aren't ready yet". Followed by the statement "come back tomorrow". There is hidden meaning in the phrase, "they aren't ready yet"...it translates to...."We can't locate it right now, so we need more time to look, and we don't want you waiting around while we pilfer the place trying to locate it". They have also changed the wait in line system. Before you got a colored badge with a number, but now the electonic number counter has been fixed so you just get a ticket and watch for your number on the screen....brilliant! Once called you go up to the desk, they take your paperwork and ask you to sit back down. If you are lucky, they go find your documents and call you up 10-15 minutes later and hand over the goods. This was how it went for John. The official actually handed him the FM3 document (it looks like a passport) and said..."bye, bye". That was it...we were done.....yipppeee eeee!

On the way out I was smiling ear to ear and the security guard asked me if we would be back tomorrow....I said, "No, es finito" and did the happy dance. Once he understood he did the dance with me and laughed. I thanked him very much...even though he didn't have anything to do with it...hahaaa. So we are headed home on Thursday, the 9th.....yipeeee again.

Yesterday, John and Fernando went diving in Camilo. I stayed back because of congestion. They looked for some new leads and found some really big cave. At max penetration Fernando had a high pressure hose blow (o-ring I think) so the dive was called. No worries, because John still had a full stage he was carrying for Fernando and Fernando had not even touched any of his back gas. That is the beauty of using stages and reserving back gas for emergencies. Anyway, they did find a promising lead, going in the right direction and John thought he saw organic material...which may mean a cenote close by.....I really hope so. They exited the cave around 4 hours with no additional drama.

While they were diving, I ran into Robbie at the Gelato shop. He asked if we made the connection yet....geez, no pressure there. I brought him up to date and said, no not yet...grumble grumble.

Tomorrow John and I will do one final dive in Camilo before we head home. John had left a cookie on the new lead since Fernado reeled up the line; John and I will check that out. Hopefully lay some line, survey it and bring out the last two stage bottles that are still in the cave. We will also pull all the jumps and possibly cut back the new line. All this depends on the state of my congestion, but I am confident I am divign tomorrow.

Tonight we are turning over the data to the QRSS.....we already sent it to the Cambrian Foundation who provided us all their data....thanks to them for that. And Dave for helping us get in touch with the right people. I had fun working on the mini project they asked us if we would do. We will turn that over tonight too.

Hopefully we will have one more exciting post regarding the cave before we get home. If not we will just have to bring everyone up to date in person....over dinner or drinks.

Buenos Tardes

Karen and John

Dove Camilo today...looking for new leads

Fernando was going to join us on a dive today but he had business to attend too. We wanted to make sure we could dive Camilo at least 3 more times before we come home on Thursday, so we went to the owner's house in town. She did not want to charge us for 3 more times, which was very cool. Fernando was the one doing the talking but I could pick up on some of it. Anyway, they would go open the Ranch for us in about an hour...it was 9:15. We arrived at the Ranch, and OMG....3 cars of divers were waiting at the gate. They were trying to get the guys who live in the old chicken coops to open up the gate.....but they don't have a key. Anyway, I talked to them (we had seen them before) and gave them the low down. Just about that time the owner's husband showed up to open the gate....he let us through, collected money from them...(why not, they were there) and we all proceeded to dive the cave.

We were already set up so we just geared up and went in before they did....never saw them again. The good news is we had a great dive, the bad news is we didn't find any running cave where we were looking. But now wwe know where there isn't running cave. The leads kept circling back to our own line....and not just once. It was starting to get comical.

After not diving the rebreathers in a bit over a week, they take some getting used to again. I thought mine wasn't working properly, but it was...it was just harder to breathe after diving open circuit. There was no drama at the breakdown today, we made it through fine. Quite an enjoyable dive. We exited the cave right at 4 hours.

When we were getting ready to leave, we saw the owner's car drive up near the cenote. I think they wanted to see if we were still there. I spoke to her and she wanted to make sure Fernado told us she was not charging us. I thanked her very much and told her we would be back on Monday. Fernando says he is diving with us then. I sure hope so, because we set up some stages for him. That will be our last exploration type dive in Camilo this trip. The other dive will be to hopefully survey new line and clean up all the stages that are still in the cave.

After the 5 hour dive, I was hesitant to get back on the rebreathers. Glad I did because it was a really nice dive and alot of fun. It was one of those times where everything went well.

Anyway, may not dive tomorrow...or we may dive open circuit at Grand....that is my plan, although I haven't let John in on it yet. I would really like to do Kolimba!

We finished the QRSS project we were working on....that was way more than I expected, but it is done. Now we have to just turn it in to them. I learned alot about the cave mapping software.

Happy Saturday, we are heading out to have some arrachera at Buenos Aires....mmmmm.

Karen and John