DIR Diving Blog

Site 1 was Aktun Ho – the Puma Cave. We jumped in amongst snorkelers and holiday makers who were somewhat surprised to see people in drysuits and doubles.

First dive was upstream in to a very pretty cavern and cave – with huge rooms with tunnels you could have driven a car through. Thousands of pencil thin stalactites like straws came down from the roof, it was awe inspiring.

Second dive we went downstream to Little Brother. Here the tunnel twisted up and down dramatically, narrowed down so that the flow was noticeable for the first time this week. Thicker columns punctuated the cave so frequently in parts that it appeared like a cage.

We negotiated a T in the mainline, each dropping a cookie to mark the exit. A second T was beyond our certification so we would have to turn the dive at this point, but as it was I had problems with his ears so we thumbed it.

We set up kit on a second set of tanks and set off for another site – Chaac Mool.

Diving in Chac Mool is all about Haloclines where sea water and fresh water combine but form separate layers due to their relative densities. Here there are actually two, about 2.5 meters apart vertically. We swam along between the two separate levels, like swimming in a river – ripples below and above.

Chris pointed out a blind cave fish, white, sightless and seemingly alone.

Our last day was to be something special. Nohoch na Chich which translates as the Giant Bird House. It was a trek to the site in 40 degree heat with a twinset on your back clambering over rocks. Our first dive would be on Parker’s line (laid by Parker Turner, founder of the WKPP) we would then, after about 1000 feet turn left at a T on to Charlie’s line until we hit turn pressure.

This cave has to be seen to be believed – thousand upon thousand of the most delicate speliothems, white formations and huge rooms that go way beyond the reach of our lights. Tables like high altars, huge columns formed when the caves were dry long before the Mayan civilisation which celebrated the water within the cenotes as giving of life.

This dive lasts 56 minutes and some tetras which had followed us in to the cave stuck with us throughout – Chris joked that he hoped that they did their valve drills and were carrying safety spools.

We surfaced with huge post dive grins, and Chris said “Did you like it? Aw…you’ll hate the next dive then!” We recalculated thirds and dropped back down to the mainline this time. We came to Heavens Gate – two vast white columns, flanked by row upon row of bright white stalactites and finer columns. After the gate we went through Dreamland, where the decorations got even more delicate and numerous. Sure made a change after rooms called ‘The Wizard’s Den’ and ‘The Temple of Doom’ all week!

On and on we went, round every corner there was something new to marvel at. Eventually we came to Jaws – another aptly named formation

Finally, over 2000 feet in to the cave it was finally, sadly, time to turn. The nicest thing about cave diving though is you get to see it all again on the way out. Total run time this dive was 76 minutes.

Second site was Dos Ojos system although we accessed from Dos Palmas and went upstream toward Ojos as that site is usually very busy with snorklers. Fraser had found the two long swims we had that morning, which totalled over a mile, hard work and his knee hurt enough to say that he would sit out the dives – especially as there would be some flow this time.

The formations here were as numerous but this time were golden instead of white – minerals assist in the colouration. The upstream tunnel was tight and we were swimming against the flow which was harder than normal. Every kick in the repertoire was needed to get through without brushing against the fragile formations – they only form in dry caves so will never come back if broken by a careless kick.

Working our way upstream took it’s toll on our gas so all too soon it was time to turn – the journey back took half as long, like a drift dive but with more reason to stay in control!

We didn’t come up when we reached the reel but recalculated thirds underwater and agreed a 25 minute maximum swim downstream – this time with the flow so we would be working against it on our way back and had to take account of this in gas planning.

The formations here were even more weird and wonderful – vast ripples in the calcite floor where thousands of years ago wind had whistled through the passages before they became submerged. Flat formations like giant hands which had formed by deposits made on a mud or silt floor – which had then been washed away leaving the hard deposits hanging as if defying gravity.

I’ve read quite a few class write-ups in the past and always found them interesting so I thought I’d share my view of the course. The course was with Chris Le Maillot from DIR Mexico their website is here.

First up the setup in Mexico is excellent. We rented the apartment above Chris for the week which meant he’d knock on our door at 7.30am each day for us to set off. We’d rented a hire car so we followed Chris’s truck around in what became a daily routine. Tank filling station to collect 8 twinsets (5 mins down road), ice from petrol station (1 min from filling station) and zero gravity shop to pick up the kit (1 min from petrol station). We’d then drive about 10-15 minutes to one of the many Cenotes for diving. It really did make life pretty easy.

The days were a mixture of land drills, diving and lectures. All the new skills e.g. lost line procedure, lost buddy etc were carried out on dry land before the dive to give us ample opportunity to get them straight in your head before you had to do them in the water. The lecture sessions were fascinating – Chris’s experience was obvious and he had a fantastic sense of humour.

Day 1 we have some lectures on pre-dive checks, gas planning, why 1/3’s is not always enough particularly in a two person team, why three’s work better in cave diving, types of line, reels, spools etc. Many of the topics had been mentioned before but the emphasis in cave training is different and promoted some very interesting discussion. We did some surface line laying at Cenote Pon De Rosa before hitting the water. All dives started with a full valve drill and s-drill usually in 2m of water (1m by the end of the week) which enforced perfect buoyancy. Chris then led the first dive as an example of what he wanted us to achieve. We made our way into the system and made our way through the cavern zone and through our first Halocline. (Haloclines can be amazingly beautiful and/or a pain in the arse by disrupting the vis). Next dive was similar format but this time it was our job to run the reel. We made our way in and were in the halocline when Frasers light failed so we thumbed the dive. Clare ran out of gas during our exit so exited on Fraser’s long hose. This was to be the way of our dives – nice dive on the way in, scenarios on the way out.

Day 2 and Chris up’s the pace, swim test at 8am followed by 5 dives at Pon De Rosa. One of Chris’s earlier comments stuck with me – he described the Tech diver as a dancer but a cave diver as a ballerina. This was becoming very apparent with the level of finesse he expected. Being Tech-1 we could do the drills but elements such as hose routing during an s-drill to promote streamlining become important so your exit isn’t slowed by any further entanglement issues. Scenarios today included 4 lights failing (all primaries and 1 backup), 3 primary light failures and OOG exit, 4 lights failing and OOG exit. We also do some open water dives in the Cenote following a line with masks off on your own and then again in touch contact with the team. While this was occurring Chris was clipping us to the line, pulling post failures, re-routing the course, adding extra markers etc.

By the end of the day’s diving and lectures it was 9pm odd and we were all pretty tired. I also found that I was really picking up a cautious attitude to cave diving. Another comment today “Time is gas and gas is time”, he described cave diving as punching up a big clock on your way in and that clock doesn’t stop ticking no matter what happens. If you take too long, you die – it’s that plain and simple. With some tales of cave divers dying from mistakes you aren’t left with any illusions.

Day 3 and we were at X’Tabay today and we did 4 nice dives. We reached the first really decorated area – a room called the Wizards den with some stunning formations. We had more complex scenarios today with simple and complex valve failures, light failures and OOG exits. Chris was pretty careful to stack the scenarios up for instance I had a left post failure followed by a primary light failure, the idea being you forget to do your flow check as you’re already moving on to deal with the next issue. The person who had the valve failure would then also be the person who ran out of gas, as they were already low due to their earlier valve failure. Chris also started asking for masks once we were back in open water J

We also did the lost diver drill today along with an interesting final dive as we had an OOG diver and all ran out of lights so completed a blind gas sharing exit. It actually wasn’t that bad – it took us twice as long to exit when blind but Chris was actually quite pleased as we’d not stopped and had really moved.

Day 4 and we’re at Carwash today, bit of a different Cenote as the first 3m of water are full of tannic muck and there was only about 1m vis. However once we hit 3m there was pretty much un-limited visibility with a smoky layer hovering above us. 3 dives today with lots more failures – bit of theme of manifold failures with Chris using the bubble-gun on the manifold for 5 minutes to simulate gas bleeding our while we were exiting followed by an OOG emergency after that and again more light failures.

Our final dive today included the lost line drill. All our lights are off and with my eyes shut I’m moved off the line and let go. You have to keep you eyes shut for the drill and it starts ok when I make a good solid primary tie. At this point it goes a little wrong for me as I tie off a secondary in the wrong direction. I start the star shaped search and I figure I’m moving about 4m searching for the line but apparently it was more like 1m! I totally forget to try and count the knots paid out on the safety spool and fail to cover any distance. I try 3 directions and make more of an effort to go further. I add a placement and set off but when I reel back I forget I’ve made a placement and think I’ve reached the secondary, I promptly set off in another direction and shortly after that find a line. Chuffed to bits I grab hold of it and secure the spool. At this point I get tapped on the head by Chris who manages to communicate several things to me – you’ve just died, you’re an idiot, now relax and try again. He’s turned his light on and I see I’ve just done a beautiful circle and found my own safety line. I reel it all back in cursing myself for being stupid. The lights are off and I start from the primary again. I do a better secondary and decided I need to go for some distance this time. I pick what I think is the right direction and set off. The cave can only be maybe 7m wide and I’m sure I’ve swum 10m and I’m feeling pretty stressed when I find a line. I secure my spool to it, drop my NDM and turn my light on and I’ve done it! Not a pleasant experience and a very powerful lesson in how disorientating a total silt out with a lost line would be. We all successfully find the line and mark the right way out. By the time we’ve all done this we’ve clocked up an 80 minute cave dive.

Day 5 and we’re at Taj Mahal for 3 dives. By now our drills are more polished than before and Chris has us 12m apart for all S-drills in only 1m of water. Watching Clare and Fraser do a 12m swim, share gas and move off without moving up or down more than about 10cm was very cool! This was a really nice cave system with lots of very white limestone. More scenarios on the first dive – complex valve failures, OOG, and light failures. We end up doing another blind gas sharing exit and as we reach the cavern Chris starts taking masks. We deploy backup masks and he grabs them as well. By the end of the dive he has 6 backup lights and 5 masks and we reach the surface laughing. We then practise some unconscious diver towing and practise moving each other around. We reach the final dive of the course and Chris says as it’s our graduation dive and that if we do well he’ll not spring any failures on us. It’s an amazing dive, lots of formations, white walls, low bedding plains and big rock formations. We make our way up into a room called DCS dome and it’s full of green tannic water that sucks up the lights. We carry on and drop back down to 12m and turn the dive around 30 minutes in on gas and exit the cave. The exit is very odd as nothing happens – it’s also the first time all our primary lights are on for the exit and we have a cracking dive.

Overall the class was superb. Chris is a fantastic instructor and a great laugh. There are a few jokes of his that will haunt Fraser for an awfully long time – “Take your time Fraser, there’s no rush. We’re going cave diving”. I personally learnt a huge amount – not only the skills, dive planning but also the psychology of cave diving. The way you communicate underwater can show frustration, nerves or cool confidence. By showing calmness in a problem you can help keep the team calm. One of our big lessons was to take your time and relax – in the event of dramas a slow methodical response is better than the Benny Hill high speed approach . I’d thoroughly recommend the course; it’s definitely improved my diving and given me a whole new addiction to follow. Fraser’s classic comment comes to mind “Cave Diving – more bottom time, less vomiting”.

We did two dives with an instructor named Alex today as our warm dives for the first day of our Mexico trip. First dive was at Carwash, my first comment had to be “Wow”. I lost the power of speech as I was totally blown away by the clarity of water and the amazing cave formation.
Second dive was at Grand Cenote and this was what I had imagined a cave to look like – stunning white limestone with breathtaking views of the cave system. It was over all too soon! Next day though was Cave-1.

I’ve just taken delivery of my new Evolve wing from Halcyon. I tried one out and preferred how it helps you trim out so I have relegated my old Explorer to be a spare for the team. The Evolve seems to prevent the head tipping down issues that I occassionally struggle from with 2 deco bottles.

Evolve

Explorer

Both wings are the 40lbs version which is fine for twin 12’s and up to three stages.

This weekend was our first proper excursion with the DIR-UK team. As per usual they were booked on Graham’s boat Wey Cheiftan which is a very nice boat. Our first task on saturday was loading the boat which everyone pitches in to form a human chain to get the gear from the cars onto the quayside and then onto the boat. The team list was Andy K, John Grogan, Bob Cooper, Rich Walker, Andy Caroll, Mark Emery, John Kendall, Iain Smith, Owen Petchey, Clare, Fraser and myself. Iain and Owen were finishing their Tech-1 class.
Our first dive on saturday was to be the Iolanthe which was a ship sunk in 1918 by torpedo while carrying a cargo of railway trucks. The sea was somewhat lumpy on the way out and quite a few people were feeling a bit green. It was a relief for everyone to get in the water. Due to this we elected not to take the scooters. We made our way down the shot and found the wreck at about 40m. I reckoned we were somewhere near the middle of the wreck and Fraser led us off. We passed by several of the railway carriages and lots of pieces of broken up wreck. Fraser spotted a strange object on the bottom which Clare chose to recover. We were passed on a couple of occassions by the scooter team of Bob, And and Mark and I did spot another team of three at one point. Vis was about 5m so it was reasonably easy to pick our way forward to the bow. The bow is a bit more upright and we looked into what remained of the wreckage. As we came out of the shelter of the bow we caught the tide and realised it was now running a bit. We were pretty near minimum gas when Clare thumbed it and we started the ascent. Deco was fine – couple of interesting issues. Graham had asked for a bag per diver which meant we put all 3 up one line. This was reasonably ok but took a lot of tugging to ensure they all ran up to the surface. We finished the dive at 75 mins runtime.

Clare’s spidge

Sunday dawns and we’re off to dive the Empress of India which is a long trip out. We get to site and meet Wave Cheiftan who shots the wreck. We decided to take the scooters today (although I had to borrow Iain’s as mine was out of action).
Me

Clare

Fraser

Unfortunately we descend through 6m of blue water into a layer of green water full of snot! This makes the scootering down the shot quite problematic. We reached the bottom of the shot and struggled with the communication. The vis was so bad I couldn’t see Clare’s signal from position 1 as she was number 3 and Fraser was even struggling. Clare thumbed the dive and we started up. It then got worse as right near the end of the ascent I saw Iain’s scooter bubble and let water in we got back on the boat and we’re shortly followed by Mark Emery and John Kendall who also having been on scooters thumbed it.
Overall it was a good weekend although the scooters on the 2nd day were a pain in the backside, I’d have happily swum the wreck but scootering was out of the question. Still looking forward to the next one now!

Another quarry today this time with both Clare and Fraser. Having spent all of April in the ocean we wanted to do some skills work before Mexico.

First dive and I tried Clare’s Halcyon Evolve wing rather than my customary Explorer 40. We started off with no stages and did a valve drill and s-drill. We then gathered up 3 stages a piece (Frase only had 2) and start off to the right side of the quarry. I simulated a valve failure of Fraser’s right post which he dealt with. Clare ties off a line and we lose most of the stages. We then set off with me running a line. I’d gone a fair way when some slack was developing. Clare stopped to fashion a tie off and Fraser didn’t spot the lack of light signal and we travelled a further 3m forward before Frase hit me for an OOG. I deployed the bottom stage reg I was breathing and switched to the necklaced backup. Clare at this point realing she is on the edge of vis pulls an OOG to show we are too far away. Realising I had few options I spit out the backup and yank hard pulling it out of the bungee necklace and hand it to Clare. She is able to breathe from it albeit suprised at the lack of length. I then start looking for regs and I manage to get the clipped off long hose in my mouth having considering breathing off the inflator! We reset the drill and I have to sort out two donated regs. Not planned but a good exercise. We reel in the line and head back to the entry point. Clare has a primary light failure and I also then have one – in both cases we re-order the team. As we reach the entry point I bag off (3rd time with the new bag in 2 days). Clare also sends up a yellow bag. Overall a 75 minute dive and we certainly got some good practise in.

Second dive and it’s more of the same although this time I only take two stages and I’m back to the Explorer wing. Fraser also brings his scooter. We s-drill and valve drill and set off to the right to run some line. This time I drop all stages and follow Clare running the line. Once we’ve a course layed out both myself and Clare run a lost line drill with our eyes shut. Funniest moment on Clares were her dragging a load of carpet and prodding some foam from a car seat. I apparently delivered as many laughs by towing my tie off point after me. As I reel back in having missed the line I find the tie off point had been dragged into the main line. We wind in and Fraser tows us back for a way and we make out way up the slope and out. 78 minute dive and very funny!

Cracking day out and at 153 minutes in water time we gained some valuable tune up time before cave-1. I also spoke to Rich Walker on the way home and bought an Evolve wing! I have to say it was more stable in the water and allowed better adjustment of trim, I was actually head up at one point which was a new experience for me.

Clare needed to pick up her repaired drysuit from hydrotech so we did a couple of dives today at Stoney Cove. Objective was to work on stage bottle handling and a bit of line laying. First dive I used a bottom stage of 32% and carried a 50 and a 100. We did a valve drill and s-drill without the stages then clipped them all on and set off for the Stangarth on a long route past the helicopter. Vis was a bit murky but still 5m odd. We arrived at the Stangarth tug and ran a line inside. Once inside we clipped of the deco stages and carried on with just the bottom stagfes. We ran line in and out of it and then turned the dive. As we came to exit the engine room we picked up all the stages and removed the line. Clare was feeling a bit cold at this point so thumbs were issued and I bagged off for our ascent. Overall dive was an hour long.

Second dive and again valve drill & s-drill and then we ran line along the 6m ledge. We took turns – one ran the line, the other wore all 6 stage bottles! Six really is quite tricky and I had a lot of lateral motion tilting to the left  but it was manageable. We went past some divers and they must have thought we were nuts! The water temperature has really warmed up now and with it being 10 degrees we managed a 68 minute dive.

Definitely a good learning experience and a couple of long dives.