June 18th 2009
Cenote

Posted under Fun & Mexico & Photography

Found this cool image of a Mexican cenote:

cenotedzitnupmexico-1024x768

I would love to go diving there some day, or in any other cenote.

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March 19th 2008
Playa del Carmen, part 3 – Cenotes (cavern dives)

Posted under Holidays & Mexico

I have grown a huge like for caverns, the surfaces covered in sediment, the stangeness, the emptyness, and shear beuaty attracts me.

Previously I have had the opportunity to dive the Dos Ojos centote, but this day we set out to dive Kukulkan and Chac-Mool both cenotes in the Chac-Mool system. Again both dives were done as caverndives, and our guide made sure we had a good understanding of the nature and technicalities of cavern diving before we begang the dive.

Both caverns were sufficiently deep to have halocline (meeting of fresh and salt water). The halocline is similar to the termocline (meeting of warm and cold saltwater), but when the halocline layer gets mixed the visibility gets severly blured (much more than in termocline). At some point I wonered that it would be easy to become disorientated in the halocline if it was not possible to use the cavern line as a reference. The halocline is hovever also absolutly amazing; It was beuatiful to see the cloud of mixed water from the finn-kick of the diver in front me; The way the layers shone when not mixed and the funny experience of beeing able to turn your head so that half your mask was in the halocline and half was out was just some of the cool moments I had duing the dives.

Both caverns beuaty also related to the places where the light penetrated, the effects was beuatiful, from the laser light in Kukulkan to the leaves on the surface in the Chac-Mool. It was hard to concentrate both on taking it all in, do photos and make sure my boyancy was correct ;-)

Angelita

I had seen a video of divers entering the sulfid layer og Angelita, so diving this hole was top on my list of things to do while in Playa del Carmen. The dive was planed and we left early in order to be some of the first divers at the site. I was bobeling with excitement as we sat in the car being given a thoughrow instruction by the dive guide.

The dive itself fully indfriede my expectations. As we entered the still and blank surface and the wather gave way for our decent in the somewhat murky wathers (visibility app. 8m), we decended and at 20 m the visibility became better. The water smelled of the rootten leaves and wood. We stopped just above the sulfitlayer in the hole, and nothing I had envisoned could meassure up to what I saw; It was simply breathtaking. We formed a circle of divers above the sulfit layer, and as sky-divers fell we through the layer into the dark below. Back above the layer we played around and watched our guide jump from a treetrunk into the sulfit layer. In the end we slowly accented while swiming round. We came out and quickly decided, that it had been such a good dive, truely wonderful and amazing. Not a least because we where the first divers that day; The sulfitlayer was so clearly marked, and the visibility was better than on most days.

We went on toward Gran cenote. This one was quite special since it contained small stalemites/staleklites eveywhere. The swimthrougs were smaller and there wher plenty of dark areas around. In addition this cenote also had a nice halocline. This was surely a cavers I was glad to have dived, in addition to the beuaty the cavern also included some narower parts where you needed to focus a bit in order to swim throught without toutching.

More cenotes…

While in Playa del Carmed, I have done almost all the diving possible, and after a few days of rough sea (no sea-diving), I had done all the most often dived cenotes. The divecenter was hovever very accomodating and assured me that they would find something new for me to dive the next day. I was therefore both gratefull and happy when the diving was arranged so that we could dive the caverns Tajmahal and Chikin-HA

The Chikin-HA cenote was at an adventure site not far outside Playa del Carmen, here people could go and do snorkeling / biking / slide anlong a line and generally spend the day. None of this hovever interfered with the possibility for divers to get into the cenote.

Both divesites generally seemed to consist more of larger pices of rock, and have darker places than eg. Dos Ojos. But the light shows was also very amazing. In Chikin-HA we dived from one opening to an other, and in the second one the surface (since no-one snorkeled or entried the wather) was really amazing, it looked like ice flakes floating around. In addition there was a stone that looked like a triangel almost falling down.

The Tajmahal dive was done as a 8 around two openings the Tajmahal and the sugar bowl air dromes. We surfaced in the sugarbowl and enjoyed the beuaty of the lians drinking from the surface (not to mentioning the spiders, though not so beuatyfull).

On the way back we wathed the light like a lazer hiting the surface and breaking and I also saw small pieces of rainbow in the wather.

Crystal clear Cenote waterDivers in the CenoteCenotesCenotes

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March 14th 2008
Diving Playa Del Carmen part 1

Posted under Holidays & Mexico

This blog entry was written by a good friend of mine, Alice Jensen who has the pleasure of being in Mexico at the moment. (lucky girl)

Alice in combat gear :-)

Already in the car from the airport, it is clear what this area is all about, as a segregator large coloured figures of seashells and fish leads the way; I do not know weather to laugh or cry.I’m going to dive with “Yucantan divers”, and when I arrive at the dive centre the next morning, they are nice and helpful and we arrange that I come back to diver later that morning.I live next to the dive centre, hence I spend the next hours watching an open water course and a scuba review in the hotel swimming pool; quite entertaining.Jarolines and Shangri LaThe dives on the near by reefs starts in the dive centre where all the kit is collected and carried on transport bikes to the beach where the dive boat is anchored – the walk from the centre is app. 10 min, and even in our wetsuits and booties that constitutes no problem, though I hardly feel smart when I cross the high street.The reefs are nothing like anything I’ve seen before. They do not contain a lot of different colours, instead they sort of looks a lot like how I’ve always imagined Mexico; dusty and with the western-feel you might remember from the movie “Babel”. There however the comparison stops. From the beginning of the first dive I’m amazed with the amount and diversity of fish; They are all over and in amounts and sizes I have not experienced before. I see huge moray ells, Soldierfish, Squirrelfish, Grunts, flounder, triggerfish, cleanerfish and large shoals of different fish. We do two dives this day at Jarolines and Shangri La, since we are no deeper than 10 m the light an colours is still good, and we only need a short break between the two. On both dives we drift along an easy current making it comfortable to lie and watch the fish.Dos OjosI was very excided by the thought of cenotes. Since I’m no cave diver, the dives would be cavern dives (no more than 40 m, always with acces out etc.).The day started a bit on the down side, with us having to wait for the bus to take us to the Dos Ojos site, it was longsome, but it the end I think it became an advantage.Dos Ojos (app. 45 min. from Playa Del Carmen), is a cenotesystem a good quarter of an hour of the main road towards Tullum. The divesite it well developed with a small shop that sells oft drinks and snacks, an eco toilet, and benches where it is possible to place your gear. The way down to the main entrance is good with easy steps, and the cenote itself looks wonderful when you walk down towards it.We did two dives; Barbi-line and Bat cave. They where quite different but both very worthwhile and I hardly noticed, that the maximum depth was 10 m. The first dive was all about the light for me; diving around the small holes where light came into the water the reflections and colouring was a new world to me. The second dive was a lot darker, and midway we entered the bat cavern. Here it was possible to breath above the water, and in the ceiling you could see bats – really beautiful.When we came to the dive site, it was full of divers, and I feared that it would be horrible, but it turned out to be very nice; a lot of the other divers had there lunch when we did our 1. dive and also on the 2. dive there seemed to be even fever divers, a thing that was confirmed when we came out of the water and the majority of divers had left.Cenote entranceCrystal clear Cenote waterDivers in the CenoteChristmas tree wormA yellow coral

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