Mexico Day 2
Day 2. Grand Cenote and Car Wash
Fred and I were joined by Steve from Seattle today – we would be diving as a three until Friday. We loaded up the truck and headed off to Grand Cenote.
I dived Grand Cenote’s cavern line last time I was here and it is a stunning white cavern which is highly decorated. As Fred and I had not dived with Steve before we took the opportunity to do full S drills and Valve drills before the first dive to get a measure of each other.
We did the cavern line first and then the main line. Avoiding the cavern line to get on to the mainline was the challenge here and Fred ran the reel for the team. Given that the cavern is highly decorated I expected the cave to be the same and was certainly not disappointed.
Car Wash
We left Grand Cenote and headed to Car Wash – one of my favourite caves in Mexico. The upstream line in Car Wash is 130 metres back from the entrance and tricky to find. Steve volunteered to run the reel and did well to find the line although the penalty of his hard work was that gas limits were reached soon after. Not the most satisfying dive and I made a note to ask to go back later in the week.
Al, Frase and I headed in on the downstream tunnel in Car Wash just the once last time and not for very far. This time Fred led us through quite a narrow passage and, running line all the time, down to a room at 27 metres, right at the end of the available line on the reel. This is known as the Room of the Ancients – so called as there are fire pits here where you can see the remains of fires which appear to have been laid by Mayans over 10,000 years ago before the caves flooded. It was quite something seeing wood which in places was charred round the edges, still intact and in place in hollowed out areas of rock surrounded by charcoal.
