2007 Mexico Cave Diving Trip

Just got back from 5 diving days in the cenotes (caves) in the Yucatan. The transportation headaches/snafus aside, it was a wonderful trip but I'm not sure if I'll be flying on any connection through Dallas/Fort Worth airport any time in the future. My flight was canceled on the way out and then heavily delayed on the return.

We stayed in Akumal this time, which was much better than staying in Playa Del Carmen, as it's much closer to cave country.

Friday:
Taj Mahal
Did two upstream dives, including one to the "Chinese Garden" which is a highly decorated room. We picked Taj because it was an easily accessible place to do a shake out dive and as luck would have it, my primary light ran out od batteries before we even left the surface. I borrowed the spare that Bil, our dive guide, had and off we went.

Both dives were approx 100 mins each.

Saturday:
Cenote Jailhouse

We first went to Tulum, paid our dive site fee and collected the key to the gate. We then drove to the property, unlocked the gate and setup at the dive site. Members of the family where out farming the property and greeted us with shouts and waves.

The cenote is dirty, it looks like a swamp that has stewed for quite a while. This isn't the sort of cenote that you would go snorkeling or even think had a cave opening. The cenote is called Jailhouse because the original explorer surfaced in the cenote and it was surrounded by barbed wire to keep the cows out.

The cave is deep for the area, you can hit 90 feet in some areas, this means that it has a halocline, as fresh water only goes to 50 feet or so in this area. The halocline, where the fresh and salt water meet, produces a visual disturbance and in the salt water section, the walls are bleached white.

The cave has bones of some large animals well inside of it, which indicates animals in the last ice age may have inhabited or perhaps become lost and died in the cave.

Sunday:
Dos Ojos
We picked up our doubles and headed on over to Dos Ojos for a day of diving. Our schedule is two cave dives a day with 90 min break for lunch and then back to the dive shop to refill and dry out our gear.

Monday:
Sak-atun

Tuesday:
Chan Hol
- Kilometer marker 216 on hwy 307, just south of Tulum. You pay at Xibalba dive shop and then show up at Rancho Loma Linda. The cenote is an offset sink, with a tight major restriction to get in. It's like putting on your dive gear and then crawling underneath the couch with the lights off. Once thru the small restriction, you find a floating cave line.

This is a large cave, and shows signs of human habitation. Since the last time this cave was dry was about 10,000 years ago, its like diving into a bit of history.

There is evidence of carcol and soot stained ceilings though out the cave and in a very special place, the remains of a human. It is unknown exactly the age of this partial skeleton but the last ice age ended 10000 years ago, so its at least that old. Here is the rub, modern theory doesn't support humans in this area of the world as yet. The human migration across the land bridge was more recent, so where did this person and the evidence of fires come from?

Anyway, our mission was the find, photography/video the skeleton and just check out the system. The Mexican anthropological dept has already visited and documented the skeleton but we were careful not to disturb or touch the remains in anyway.

On the way back there are some Mayan or early Spanish pots that somehow made it into the system.