Cave 1 Mexico - intro day.
The journey was long, 20 hours door to door, and Al, Frase and I arrived fit for nothing, collapsing asleep at the apartment almost as soon as we got there - only to wake up with a combination of jetlag and excitement at 3:00am. Cave 1, in Mexico with Chris le Maillot, was the plan and finally we were here and ready to go.
Day 1 was to be kit familisation, as none of us had dived twin ali 80s in dry suits before and wanted to get comfortable and correctly weighted before the course. Alex, a NACD cave instructor, was our guide and we would go with him to two cenotes to dive in the cavern zone.
Dive 1 was to be ‘Car wash’ a cenote which got its name from the fact that Mexican taxi drivers used to wash their cars in the water there. We pulled in and could immediately see that we would be parked right next to the water. The lush tropical growth which surrounded it was humming with birds and butterflies, a large terrapin swam across the surface and whilst fish were evident in abundance there were no other divers - we had the place to ourselves. “Blimey,” said Al it’s better than Vobster!”
Wow!
This was to be Al’s first cavern dive. The difference between cavern and cave is that you can always see daylight in a cavern, although with good visibility and large cave entrances you can still go in a reasonable way. We would go about 150 ft into Car Wash.
Dropped in, did checks and descended. The surface water was warm but with bad viz caused by run off. But only a couple of meters down this cleared as the water temperature dropped and viz went up to about 30 meters.
S drills and valve drills complete we headed in as Alex ran the reel. The cave mouth was wide and easily navigated with no perceptible flow, a nice gentle start for us all. It is not a highly decorated cave but as I haven’t seen stalactites before I was suitably impressed. We came to a sign which said “Stop if you are not cave trained” Alex highlighted the sign but then swam past it. I signalled my intention not to follow and he came back…teasing us afterwards that we had passed his “little test”.
I assisted Alex with one or two extra placements but mainly just enjoyed the dive which, all too soon was over.
We exited into open water and relaxed at 5 meters, watching a pair of large terrapins - then surfaced and Al said “Wow!”
Did you like it? We asked.
“Wow!” said Al. This was about all he said for the rest of the day…
We threw the sets in the back of Alex’s van and got in the car in drysuits (thank God for air conditioning!) and headed to the next site.
Grand Cenote.
This was a more commercial site with swimmers and snorkelers - who appeared amused and intrigued by four sweaty divers turning up!
It was immediately apparent that this would be different. The mouth of the cenote is huge, with bats and birds nesting in the roof. The water appeared gin clear and we could see massive columns and highly decorated sections from the surface.
“Wow!” said Al.
We dropped in (like proper cave divers, fins in hand!) and found water so clear it really felt like flying. There is a permanent cavern line here, so no reel to run. We did s drills and then headed in - Fraser led and Alex took my camera.
I have never seen any natural thing as beautiful as this - and if I never get a better dive than this one, I’ll still count myself as fortunate as one can be. Imagine diving in a cathedral, one as decorative, delicate as you have ever seen - and it’s better than that.
As I watched Al swim between two columns, changing his kicks so as not to touch them, I knew all our training to this point had been worth it, as we could relax and enjoy it. He turned to me, flashed his light and signalled by spelling out letters…
W…
O…
W…
Sums it up really 
[…] Introduction […]