#tulumcavedive

June 15, 2016

Cenote Doggi

To find this Cenote completely ignore the directions in Steve Gerrard’s book, The Centotes of the…

Instead, drive south on 307 to Muyil. At the entrance to the ruins reset your odometer and proceed slowly for .7 to .8 km. Turn right onto a limestone road that borders a rancho on the left (road parallels the fence line) and follow it past a left fork. Continue for perhaps ¼ mile where you will come to a 90 degree turn to the left. There is a gated rancho directly on the right. The wooden gate is painted brown and locked.

Follow the road left for another 100 yards and the Cenote is at the end of the road gated and sealed off by a chain link fence. You have paid 200 pesos and obtained the key from ProTec. There is a large Palapa left of the trail that leads to the hole. Pool is down and right with line starting on the back right side above the water line.

We were warned about break-ins so we were careful not to bring any valuables with us. We left the car open, with the glove box open, and did not experience any problems.

Doggi is amazingly beautiful. The dives are highly complex in a smallish setting where the diver will be crossing over the line often in spaces where it is difficult to turn and communicate with your partner. The cave is fresh so you will be following knotted line with jumps that are very close to the main line and T’s that are acute so you could jump without knowing it if you are careless. Carry a lot of cookies and mind your navigation.

Dive 1: We followed the main line through a labyrinth of stalactite studded rooms. You will come to the first T in about 8 min. T right and continue to a second T (acute)–the continuous line does right–so we T’d right. We continued until 46 minutes before we turned.

Dive 2: We jumped left at the first T and followed this line until it ended at about 30 minutes.

June 14, 2016

The beta on Xulo: a really cool cave.

Travel south from Tulum on 307. Pass through Muyil. On the latter half of the big turn to the right, slow down. Look for the mannequin stuck on a broom handle (painful). Turn right and follow road into the Cenote. Park next to the building on left. There is a bit of shade if you park close to the building. Watch out for the medium sized, red fur dog because he pisses on your gear, tires, tanks, etc. 200 pesos to be paid on site.

The Dives: After the first 50 feet or so you bounce from 30 feet to 4-6 feet under a bell and then back down to 30 feet.

Main line: Medium to big rooms that eventually goes smallish at 70-75 feet of depth. Fun, but just ok.

Awesome dive #1: Take the first Double arrow jump to the right. Smallish, bedding plane, stalactite pass-throughs back to main line. Reverse or continue right on main line to the Double arrow Caterpillar Jump. Jump left to amazingly good, smallish bedding plane, stalactite pass-throughs to a T. T right ends at a restriction that only Mauro has been through–maybe I should say has slithered through.

T left for more awesomeness.

Awesome dive #2: Pass the first two DOUBLE arrow jumps and go directly to the DOUBLE arrow Caterpillar Jump. Jump left. Go to the T (40 min approx). T left and continue to thirds. Your gas may be good enough to reach the Caterpillar connection, or not. If not, the dive is stageable meaning that there are safe places to leave your tanks without damaging the cave. Smallish low bedding planes, some breakdown, bits of sideways, stalactite pass-throughs, etc.

Chan Hol: The saga to find this hidden gem.

Our story starts with simple directions. Kim Davidsson (owner ProTec) had recommended Chan Hol, and rightly so–it’s a beautiful cave. So we did what any sensible person would do, we read Steve Gerrard’s guide book. We noted that there are two sets of directions in his book: One set tells the reader to turn right after the second big bend in the road 7 km south of Tulum. Firstly, the second big curve is almost 12 km from town not anywhere near 7 km south of Tulum.

In the second description the directions say 11 km south of Tulum “after the big bend.” Well, there are two big bends between Tulum and the Cenote, Chan Hol.

On day one, we actually drove to the correct Cenote. There is a sign: I can’t pull a picture of the sign in to my blog so Google image Loma Linda, Del Los Mucuyes.

We drove up to the house and asked if we were in the right place: Cenote Chan Hol. The individual working a table saw said no. When I asked him (Donde esta, Chan Hol?) where we could find Chan Hol he shrugged. So we left and motored toward Tulum stopping in all the driveways that we could find between Rancho Loma Linda and Tulum. At this point we gave up and spent the day at Caterpillar.

The next morning we obtained a new set of directions from another diver. He said, “Drive south of Tulum 10 or 12 kms until you come to a big tree right on the side of the road.” Ironically we counted three big trees on the right side of the road and got to visit some cool driveways before ending up at the sign described above, again. We drove into the rancho and parked. I walked up to a different person than the man we’d seen the day before and politely asked if he could direct us to Chan Hol since we were certain we were in the wrong place.

He raised his eyebrows with a questioning look in his eyes and waved, he said, “This Chan Hol.”

“Donde esta,?” I asked, looking around.

He pointed across his lawn to a wooden table.

And that’s when I saw the faint trail leading over to a white wall, bending left and down into the darkness: Chan Hol.

Needless to say the dives were magnificent. Large, white passages with amazing formations. Huge rooms. Really cool and worth the two days of navigation.

June 6, 2016 Small Cave

Diving small cave is perhaps the most dangerous form of cave diving there is. This is because small cave pushes the diver to her physical and technical limits. Your profile and equipment must be streamlined so as to fit in spaces that may require removing one tank in order to maneuver through the passage. The diver must be physically fit in order to maintain the body positions and workload required to navigate tight passages. Lastly, a cool mind is definitely an asset when pinned between bedding planes or locked in a twisted hole submerged deep within a cenote .

Zsolt and I like to dive small cave. This is one of the reasons that we are here in the Yucatan–the Yucatan is an utter Mecca of small cave caves.

Which brings me to today: On our second dive in Caterpillar, on the downstream side, we made a left turn onto a side-route. The cave became small as we swam between a bedding plane that eventually forced us to flatten our bodies, extend our fins, and lower our heads to avoid scraping our helmets on the ceiling.

The bedding plane eventually gave way to a narrow corridor that could only be navigated by swimming sideways–we must have looked like the orcs of Moria scurrying along the wall–until the hallway compressed us into a narrow restriction that made a ninety degree turn. We navigated the hole by twisting upward in a corkscrew to ultimately slither into a new corridor.

From the corridor we pulled ourselves along the floor using nubbins and edges through another section of bedding planes until we reached 1/3 of our gas supply which was about 42 minutes into the dive. Here we reversed the process and returned to the safety of the surface.

Overall it was an 83 minute dive and the best of the trip so far.