Cavern Diving in Dos Ojos

I began this trip there were certain adventures that I had to do while I was traveling such as diving the Belize Barrier Reef and seeing some of the Mayan ruins throughout Central America.  Some adventures were decided NOT on my itinerary.  Cavern diving in cenotes was exactly one of these activities. I have seen the "Caves" portion of Plant Earth and other documentaries of divers passing through small underwater crevices, combined with minimal external light. I'm pretty sure several thriller/horror flicks have plots that include at least one of these elements. Doesn't that sound encouraging?

If there's thing I've learned while traveling it's that meeting new people leads to new adventures.  One of the most talked about activities at my hostel in Tulum was diving at Dos Ojos or the Pit.  I heard the stories of formations and an assortment of photographs.  I admit my curiosity was starting to peak but nothing rewatching the aforementioned BBC special wouldn't fix.

The next day I joined a group of two Canadians and an Australian for the afternoon.  Cenote diving was at the top of this groups' list of things to do.  I still wasn't keen on the idea of being surrounded by rocks but I was game for walking around the main avenue while they looked for SCUBA shop that would be willing to take them diving the next day. There were far more SCUBA shops offering cenote dives. I still think of cavern diving as a relatively new option to basic certified divers but looks like I'm behind my adrenaline seeking diving peers. While going over dive certification levels and dates of previous dives, two of the three potential divers opted to snorkel instead of dive.  My new friend Carrie had been the most gun-ho about diving in a cenote and was now the last man standing.  I saw all of this developing and began having a serious internal debate between wanting Carrie to not have to go diving on her own and not wanting to tempt a panic attack underwater and underground.  I finally pulled on my big shorts and told Carrie that I'd dive with her, plus it was starting to sound pretty cool.

We booked a two-dive trip to Dos Ojos for the following morning.

The next morning, four backpackers, a dive master, and a dog loaded into an old GMC pickup and headed for one of the most popular cenotes in the area, Dos Ojos. The cenote is named for the two giant sinkholes connected by a cavern that give the illusion of two eyes staring up from the underworld.  In reality it's part of one of the longest underwater cave systems in the world with dozens of sink holes and nearly 200 miles of passageways.

That white dotted line is our dive route

I have been incredibly spoiled on my diving adventures because I've never had to carry my gear very far.  Until I decided the go cavern diving.  Let me paint a picture for you,  a bright sunny day in the mid-80s (~30C), about 60% humidity, and a full length 5mm neoprene wetsuit. It was hot! Now you're going to carry all your gear down two flights to slight limestone steps.  I'm still surprised I didn't break my leg.  Some of the other operators brought your gear down for you but Carrie and I were not so lucky.  The nice thing about carrying the gear down is that the cool water was a welcome change.  Since there's little to no direct sunlight in the caverns the water stays pretty cool.  I was very happy to have a 5mm suit on by the end of the first dive.

When you first jump in the sinkhole, it's just like jumping into a themed resort swimming that could have been nicknamed "Pirate's Cove" or the like. Even the initial descent wasn't so bad.  When our dive master started off toward the base of the cavern wall and disappeared into the shadows, that's when I started to wonder what the heck I was doing?

Diving entrance at Ojo Este

The first few meters were like learning to dive all over again.  I had to remind myself to breathe and not hold my breath as we proceeded down the passage.  The sunlight disappears quickly but the limestone formations which appear in the light of your dive torch and distracts you from the encroaching darkness.  Four or five times over the course of the first dive, we would pass through a section of passage that opens to a cenote and daylight would flood into the turquoise water.  The silhouettes of the limestone columns were especially impressive in these areas.  Plus there was also the slim chance of getting a clear picture of the other worldly scenery.  Our first 45 minute dive had me spell bound, though mildly annoyed at how difficult it was to photograph the impressive stalactites and stalagmites.

Through the tunnel

I like to think I saw this shot in Planet Earth

The second round of diving started off a little cooler and much darker.  The formations were arguably more impressive than the first dive.  The spooky atmosphere of the spotlight lit crooked passages where you can't quite see what's beyond the bend or lurking below you that adds to the allure.  About midway through this dive we surfaced in la baticueva or batcave.  This cavern has a single shaft of light that serves as its entrance to the world above.  The ceiling is littered with tiny stalactites and it's namesake, bats.  I could have stayed there a while to poke around and take photographs.  I felt a little guilty holding up my companions so I settled for a few shots and we moved on to the rest of the dive.  Somewhere in the second half of the dive as we wove through formations and boulders, my secondary regulator came loose.  All of a sudden, there was a yank and I couldn't swim any further.  I'm trying to keep my panic to a minimum as I turned around fully expecting to see a frogmen resembling something from Scooby-doo.  It didn't help much when nobody was there because that meant that I was stuck on something.  A few adjustments and curse words later the line came free and I was back underway with a vivid reminder of why I was so hesitant to do this in the first place.

The Batcave

Intricate stalactite formations

After spotting the final warning that we had reached the end of our line, it was time to leave the caves and lug our gear back up the stairs to the truck. When we got back Carrie thanked me for saying I'd do the dive too.  I guess we ended up encouraging each other to try something new. 

End of the line

Level Up in SCUBA

I got my open water scuba certification last year and thought I would be set for a while.  When I started planning this trip and Belize popped into the picture, I began to check out getting my advance open water certification. The AOW cert is made up of 5 adventure dives; deep and navigation dives are required and then you get to pick 3 dives.  In my opinion, the main perk of getting your advanced open water is being able to go to 100ft instead of 60ft.  But you also get to try different things with an instructor present.  I ended up picking peak performance buoyancy, fish identification, and night diving.  That worked out to two dives per days plus a night dive.  I had a chance to try out my new underwater housing for my canon S100 during 3 of my dives. I had done the test of holding it in the sink for 15 mins to see if there are any obvious leaks.  There's a huge difference between 5 inches and 20, 60, 100ft of water.  I was so so nervous the first time I took it to depth.

Peak buoyancy and navigation were up first.  These were the most work intensive dives because I had to demonstrate control of fine tuning my buoyancy and navigate using three different techniques.  After I completed my skills, we were able to dive around the shore off the dive shop.  During one of these dives I some my first eel and a flounder and soon felt let I was in an aquarium tank.  There were live coral heads around as well as sponges.  That was also my first encounter with current.  I don't know if I'm too streamlined or too much like a sail because the current could pick me and move me along easily.

That night I did my night dive.  There's a general rule about night diving - Don't bring any new equipment.  So of course I brought my camera and also had a torch to deal with for the first time.  I was tempted by the lure of octopus, barracuda, eels moving about, and bio-luminescent plankton.  After a few initial flailing moments in the darkness of the water, I settled into another world experience of only being able to see what was lite by my torch.  Highlight of the dive was spotting three different octopuses.

The next day brought a deep dive to 100ft and my fish ID course.  We took the boat through the rain to two different dive spots. The problem with being the least experienced diver is that I burned through air the quickest so I spent the most time bobbing in the boat which didn't do any favors for my stomach.  Highlights from these dives included sea turtles, glimpsing a shark over the edge of the sea wall, and a pair of giant groupers.  The current was very quick on both of these dives which required some pretty good buoyancy control and patience.  My battery nearly died on the second dive of the day.  I would have brought my second battery to change out but I was way too nervous about getting a tight seal and preventing the housing from fogging up to risk changing it.  I understand why some people prefer video while scuba diving.  The photography takes a really steady hand and dealing with a flash is much more difficult than I thought it would be.  Granted my first night dive probably wasn't the best time to start messing with it.

My AOW course was a fantastic experience.  My first day I worked with the head instructor and a newly certified instructor and the second day I was with the head instructor and while the dive master coordinated the rest of the people on the dive.  Throughout all of the dives the professionals were pointing out interesting wildlife.  The ridiculous rains the island was experiencing hurt visibility at many dive sites, but the dive master was able to recommend places that were not overcrowded and you could still see a good bit.

General tips:  My recommendation for finding a dive shop on vacation is to go with one that will give you enough information that you feel comfortable up front in combination with good reviews on TripAdvisor and Scubaboard.com.  I went with Blue Angels Dive Shop and Scuba School which is part of Blue Angels Dive Resort.  They are a little ways off the main plazas on San Miguel but I think it's worth the walk or taxi fare.  Everyone working there was polite and helpful.  My advanced course included instruction, materials, gear rental, PADI fees, and a t-shirt for $365 including tax.

Disclaimer: Blue Angels did not request a favorable review nor did they give me any discounts.  My opinions are my own.

SCUBA Julie, Part Two

Some of you will remember that I completed part one of my open water SCUBA certification back in February as part of an effort to start checking things off of my bucket list.  After six weeks of lessons , we still needed to actually go driving in something a bit bigger than a high school pool.  We're required to complete these four open water dives before we can get our certification cards.  For that reason alone, I found myself shivering on the shore of Lake George in the rain on the first weekend of July.  At 7am, fifteen of us were milling around trying to remember how to set up our gear, find a safe dry spot to stash some sweats, and dreading the initial shock of getting into the water.

Hearthstone Campground, Lake George

I had forgotten my weight belt.  I remembered every one of my lead weights but forgot the thick strip of nylon that allowed me to sink below surface and had to ask my instructor for a spare. At that point, I was really wondering if the whole SCUBA certification was worth it.  A couple hours later we took advantage of a break and the rain to suit up and start our first dive.  SCUBA gear is deceptively heavy. The weightlessness of neutral buoyancy is awesome but hauling everything necessary to maintain neutral buoyancy in the water column and live to tell the tell takes work.  After the waddle to the shoreline and balancing act to secure mask and fins, I was anxious to get on with the dive and feel less like an overweight penguin.  What I wasn’t ready for was the chill of 55°F water.  Instant chill.

Prepping for a dive

I was pleased that all of my required skills came back to me fairly quickly.  Every movement would let new cold water flow into my wetsuit so I didn’t want to move anymore than I had too.  There were a few interesting things about our two dives that day.  We saw the body of an airplane with the wings removed which had been sunk specifically for the divers.  There were a handful of fish and the thrill of staying underwater.  By the end of the second dive I was so chilled that I was mistaking fish eggs on water weeds for ice crystal coatings.

One of the hardest things about that day was waiting the necessary amount of time before I could take a hot shower.  Exposing yourself to hot water too quickly after diving can cause the residual nitrogen in your blood to be released too quickly causing the bends.  We were told that we could take “warm” showers but I didn’t trust myself to have that kind of control when I was that cold.  I bided my time by eating piping hot soup and watch shows about tropical coral reefs for several hours. Finally I was able to drain the hot water tank and raise my core temperature back to normal.

Duckies!

 Sunday morning came far too early and dreary.  As I made my way north to Lake George, my ears blocked due to some minute change in altitude.  When I arrived at our dive site they were still blocked.  Not good.  Until my ears cleared I couldn’t dive for fear of rupturing my eardrum or worse.  There were five other students who were nursing discomfort from the previous day too.  Three other students plus me were out of the water for at least the third dive,  I settled in to watch at least the first dive from land and quickly became bored.  There was a family of ducks that could keep my attention for a few minutes at a time.  Most of my time was spent watching everyone else’s bubbles raise to the surface.  Have I ever mentioned that patience isn’t my strong suite? I immediately went to work at getting my ear cleared.   

Navigating back to shore

 By the time my group came out of their open water dive three, I was pushing to try getting in the water and completing the course that day.  The top layer of water was slightly warmer thanks to the lack of rain that day.  My dive three was a quicker one to get me caught up with the rest of the group.  This time I wasn’t immediately frozen and found that I had an easier time controlling my buoyancy, making the dives much more enjoyable.  The fourth and final dive was trouble from the get-go.  As soon as we descended enough silt had been kicked up that it was impossible to see two inches in front of your face.  I couldn’t see my dive buddy and only saw the instructor when he suddenly appeared directly in front of my mask to test my mask removal skills.  I was so happy to move away from the cloud and then we started going deeper.  Deeper water always means colder temperatures.  It was interesting gliding along the bottom of a lake but the cold was getting to me.  At one point I realized that I was pulling my upper lip up to try to protect it from the cold and causing my mask to leak.  Not fun.  However, the knowledge that we were on our last dive made the frigid cold slightly more bearable. When we finally surfaced I was so relieved.  I had finished my PADI open water certification! Yes, stubbornness and impatience when it came to watch everyone else finish played a large role in it, but it was done!  I was also never so happy to be wearing sweatpants in June.

Certified Open Water Diver - only partially frozen

I think I’ll focus on warm water diving next.

SCUBA Julie, Part One

I'm going to put it out there. Like many of the swimmers I've met, I'm terrified of drowning.  We're talking recurring-nightmare-where-you-almost-die terrified. (Have psych people ever figured out why people have those?) I have no idea why so many people who are, in fact, GOOD swimmers are so scared of drowning but there you go.  Perhaps it is this underlying fear that made me so excited to learn SCUBA, literally breathing underwater.

SCUBA Julie

Through a series of very generous gifts from my family, I was able to sign up for a PADI Open Water course and tackle my first item on my adventure bucket list.  After completing this class I can dive anywhere in the world at a depth of up to 60ft as long as I have another certified diver with me.  I took my class with Seguin's SCUBA Center over six intense weeks.  5 hours of class, including 3 hours in the pool, after a full day's work is especially tiring.  That being said, I had a blast doing it.

Personal Gear

The class is made up of a combination of classroom and practical lessons.  Classroom lessons came with 60+ pages of reading a week and homework.  Each week there was a quiz at the end of class and a final exam at the end of the course.  There are a lot of warnings and 'what to do if this goes wrong' lessons but given that you're an airbreather underwater you're thankful to know it.  I will warn you that some of the explanations offered for changing pressure and how a compass works will make you cringe a little bit if you are familiar with these phenomena but it's not worth trying to correct anyone.  The part that I found most interesting was calculating how long you can safely stay at a give depth.

Class Photo

In the pool, every time we went under, I had to tell myself to keep breathing.  It's easier to breathe through a regulator underwater than above water which made it a little bit easier.  Surprisingly the most difficult part was the actual swimming in SCUBA gear.  You're caring a hefty amount of weight between the weight belt and the gear, and you want to be somewhere in the water column instead of the top or bottom.  The first week we were allowed in the deep end, I was either on the bottom of the pool or on the surface.  By the last week, I could show off a little bit more.

 

 All of my instructors and divemasters were knowledgeable with great sense of humor.  We learned every single skill in that book and practiced until we could do it right.  We had joked with each other and learned extra skills such as blowing bubble donuts.  We're not done yet though.  In June we complete part two by doing a weekend of open-water dives at Lake George.