Mexico Day 4
I spend the morning on the beach to recharge my batteries – I’ll need them as this afternoon it’s time to go back to No Hoch J
No Hoch na Chich – this is truly the most beautiful place on earth and my first dive here earlier this year made every training dive I had ever done, every moment I had ever spent in the water, every pound I have spent on kit, worth it a thousand times over. No photograph can do this place justice, no description can ever replace going there. The one phrase I hear from divers who get to go is that it is a privilege to see something so beautiful and rare.
Today I get to pay the cave a tiny, tiny bit back for the pleasure it gives me. The Mexican Cave Diving safety committee which Danny from DIR Mexico is on, has decided that the gold line in the cave has to be replaced as it is encouraging divers to stray too far from the line thus damaging a greater section of cave. Fred has brought three reels, one full of new white line to put in the cave and two empty, to receive the gold line we take out. The work has already been started and for the first 1500 feet we just get to dive and marvel once again that nature can create something like this cave.
Eventually we get to the gold line and Fred starts to lay white line below the gold, matching it wrap for wrap. My job is to remove any line marker from the mainline and place it in an identical way on the new line below. We move along until gas limits are reached and it is time to return. It takes a few minutes to secure the new line and then Fred cuts the gold line which we have replaced – ready to connect it to the new line.
It is a funny feeling seeing a mainline cut in a cave. It sure springs back a long way.
Fred then takes out an empty reel and starts to wind in the gold line that is no longer needed. It has been a reasonably successful exercise – we fill a large reel with what we take out and hopefully it will help protect this delicate and rare environment for a bit longer.
We hit the second T which is the limit of my training so I turn the dive and we head out. Funny how no matter how hard you try to take it all in on the way in it always feels like you missed it all on the way out – the cave is different and the scenery is just as mind blowing again. We get back to the reel and look towards the cenote but there is nothing to see – it is dark outside as we have been underwater a whopping 2 hours 10 minutes. My husband who had come along to snorkel at the cenote is looking a bit worried as we surface, he never expected us to be that long although we were careful to say that we may be several hours.
