Day 4
Day 4 was back at Car Wash - but this time we were to be able to go past the sign we had stopped at on Saturday.
A 7:30 start again, and land drills first for an hour. Then diving!
Dive 1 was led by Al and we penetrated about 150 meters into the upstream section of the cave - taking the pathfinder reel to its end. Fraser was unhappy with some of the tieoffs and called Al back a couple of times, the additional stress meant that gas limits were met early and the dive was called. We experienced the usual light and valve failures on the way out - no problems.
Chris spotted a small aligator sunning itself by the water, which certainly helped my speedy exit from the water!
Dive 2, the reel was already in place and we completed our longest penetration of the course so far, past the Chamber of Horrors and Luke’s Hope (another small cenote) and beyond to where the tunnel restricts.
On the way out, my manifold failed over a silt slope, just as my primary light went out. I shut down my right post and isolated, switching to my back up. Fraser swam in to check it out and we stabilised to ensure that we didn’t lose reference - but my manifold was unfixable and my right cylinder emptied completely.
We reordered and started out again. Al’s primary light failed and a few minutes later I ran out of gas. I went to Al and he donated. We stabilised and left the cave from about 150 meters - very smooth until we all lost our masks at the cave mouth - as fast as we deployed spare masks Chris stole them again until he had 5! I was the last to be able to see - through Fraser’s back up mask, so grabbed Al and Frase and guided them up.
Dive 3, I ran the reel, found the cave passage and tied off, as per instructions as we would do our lost line drill here. One by one we were taken away from the line and had to search for it. Al managed to find his own safety line which was both a surprise and disappointment to him but then found it, as did Fraser. I was to go last and Chris took me off the line in darkness and dropped me on the cave floor.
It was disconcerting but quite peaceful. I secured my spool on a rock and started my search. I soon found a handy secondary and feeling back was quite confident that I was running a true course.
After a couple of minutes I started to become concerned that I hadn’t reached the line or a cave wall so must be travelling perpendicular to the line. I was just about to retrace my steps when I found the line - I’m sure that Chris would have heard my exclamation of surprise! I threw my cookie on the line and switched my light back on. We exited the cave after what had been an 80 minute dive - most of which had been in darkness.
Back to Zero Gravity for lectures on emergency proceedures and navigation - and an 8pm finish - our earliest of the week.
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