How we spent our Thanksgiving

[BDub]

We spent an amazing week cave diving in Mexico Thanksgiving week.

Jeanna and I went down with our friends Nick and Jamie. Jeanna, Nick and I dived together while Jamie did her cave 1 class, and we had some gorgeous dives.

We did a really nice mix of dives we’d previously done, along with some new-to-us dives.

One of the epics was a dive to the Lithium, Much’s Maze and Bosch Chen sections of Gran Cenote. The Lithium section was originally explored by a good friend of mine, John Walker, and was definitely the highlight of the dive.

I like ornate caves, and while Gran delivers in that category, Lithium was overload. I can see how it got its name…very white cave, and the speleotherms looked burned, like they had melted, with light brown streaks running across liked they had been fused together. This was some of the most highly decorated cave I’ve seen and is definitely on the must-go-back-and-spend-more-time-there list for our next trip.

Much’s Maze was beautiful as well, and having done Bosch Chen from Calimba earlier in the trip, I was eager to see that again, as it was absolutely gorgeous. Just after the jump, you travel up a 20’ incline to some unreal cave….soda straw ceiling, and beautiful white, highly decorated passage.

The dive required 2 stages, and our bottom time was just over 3.5 hours. Needless to say, our heels were on fire by the end of the dive.

Jeanna got video. Unfortunately, we thought the camera had been set to HD, but we realized only after the dive that it was still in VGA. Still, I think the video came out well.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/32830458[/vimeo]

[nwbobber]

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

[spatman]

Great video! Sounds like you guys had a much better Thanksgiving than I did!

[Tom Nic]

Unbelievably beautiful... Words don't do it justice.

Those were also some tight passages! The precision diving necessary to navigate these places is obvious, and of course you guys do it perfectly.

Thanks for sharing...

[LCF]

Lithium is on the list for next trip.

For this one, Calimba was mind-blowing in and of itself (also on the list for next trip).

Sometimes I think you could spend a whole cave diving career in Grand Cenote and never get bored.

[Grateful Diver]

Jeanna's video work is stunning ... some of the angles she chose really highlighted the beauty or size of the surroundings.

Interesting to note how differently the stages trim when empty, versus at the beginning of the video, when they were full. This might be an advantage to sidemount, where they ride pretty much alongside (on top of) your main cylinders.

I couldn't help but notice how much the cave's been damaged ... if those pieces laying on the ground are the result of divers in the cave. If it's this beautiful now, I can only imagine how breathtaking it must've been to the early explorers ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[ljjames]

absolutely wonderful video!!! Thank you for sharing!!!!!!

[Jan K]

Unbelievably beautiful... Words don't do it justice.

Those were also some tight passages! The precision diving necessary to navigate these places is obvious, and of course you guys do it perfectly.

Thanks for sharing...

+1 WOW

[Joshua Smith]

Fantastic video- really nice work!

[LCF]

Watching it again, I'm amazed at how little the video conveys of how challenging some of those up and down sections are! I'm watching it and going, "Yeah, that's where I got stuck . . . " or remembering how it felt to have to go straight head-down in some places. Those lines test your diving!

Bob, when I first started diving the caves, I didn't recognize diver damage for what it was. It wasn't until I had the good fortune to dive White River when it had only just been opened, that I began to recognize all the hurt we do. It really sobered me, and made me even more determined to leave as little evidence of my passage as possible.

But the soda straws sometimes fall anyway . . .

[Edge]

Thanks for all of the nice comments, everyone - it isn't too difficult to get nice video with such beautiful surroundings!

[LCF]

No, Jeanna, you have to take more credit than that. I've watched a lot of very poorly lit, unstable cave diving video that consisted of looking at the diver in front's butt -- for a world class example, download the youtube video of the traverse from Orange Grove to Challenge (warning, it's 30 minutes long!) You get huge credit for stable photography, good lighting, and filming and editing that makes the video "move".

[boydski]

Interesting to note how differently the stages trim when empty, versus at the beginning of the video, when they were full. This might be an advantage to sidemount, where they ride pretty much alongside (on top of) your main cylinders.

One of the "tricks" I learned this time is that when the Aluminum 80's hit 2000-2200 psi, they start to get buoyant. We move the clip from a D-ring behind your hip to one on the front of your hip. This helps keep the cylinders in line with your body and keeps you from hitting things with them. It worked the same way with stage bottles. When we pick up the dropped cylinders on our way out, we clip them off to a low profile D-ring well forward on the hip to keep the base of the tanks down.

I couldn't help but notice how much the cave's been damaged ... if those pieces laying on the ground are the result of divers in the cave. If it's this beautiful now, I can only imagine how breathtaking it must've been to the early explorers ...

It is very sad to see diver damage. As Lynne refers to above, often it's just the divers bubbles hitting the ceiling. Other times it's careless (or clueless) divers. When you get into new cave where there has not been any other divers, the percolation raining down from the ceiling (from your bubbles) causes white-out, zero visibility in seconds. That's why its best to stay close to the existing lines to keep our impact on the caves minimal.

[BDub]

Thanks, everyone.

Scott raises a good point. Once our stages start getting light, we move the tail clip to and from the left hip ring to the crotch D-ring, depending on the circumstance, to avoid contact with the cave.

Seeing the pieces laying on the ground was something that I remember very vividly seeing for the first time, and not something you become callous to. It provides a LOT of motivation to be extremely careful and not cause greater damage.

And Lynne, I agree. You could do a lifetime of dives in Gran and continually see something new and exciting!

[BDub]

On Boydski's recommendation, Jeanna and I spent a day Chan Hol while Nick was at Nohoch doing a photo shoot with Ela.

What a beautiful cave! We were both very pleasantly surprised. Highly ornate, white cave along with some pots and bones. Definitely on our list to do again. It's incredibly beautiful, and seems like endless passages to explore.

We T'd right, then took the 2nd jump right and went to the end of that line. We then came back to the T, recalculated gas, T'd left, T'd left, then took the 1st jump right.

Interesting thing during this dive. The landowners were having some work done in the "backyard" and had a crew of workers using a jackhammer. We obviously could hear the jackhammer underwater, but they must have working directly over the 2nd T, as it was so loud it was we could actually feel it reverberate in our chests.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/33787387[/vimeo]

[boydski]

We T'd right, then took the 2nd jump right and went to the end of that line.

Very cool video! You picked one of the lines that I have not done yet! It is called "Mr. Furry Balls" (I didn't name it and no, I am not making that up). Now that I've seen the video, I know how they came up with the name..

A couple of years ago when we were diving Fenomeno to White River, we saw them pile driving a pipe into the limestone near the entrance and could feel it in our bodies throughout the early part of the dive. Sadly, on our exit, not far from the entrace, we spotted the new pipe sticking down from the ceiling of the cave.

We did go have a talk with the land owner to make sure they were using it for a water supply and not for the baño!

[Nwbrewer]

Is your lighthead cable long enough?

Very cool video! Is Jeana using the 10watt video lights, or the 20 watt ones?

[BDub]

Very cool video! You picked one of the lines that I have not done yet! It is called "Mr. Furry Balls" (I didn't name it and no, I am not making that up). Now that I've seen the video, I know how they came up with the name..

You are correct, Scott. We did the Mr. Fuzzy Ball line indeed! Thanks again for the recommendation, that was a great dive!

Is your lighthead cable long enough?

Very cool video! Is Jeana using the 10watt video lights, or the 20 watt ones?

Donatable?

The tail e/o cord on my previous light was perfect. The tail on the new light is a tad lengthy. It could definitely use a trim, for sure.

I believe they're 50watt video lights? We have 4, but was way overkill in white cave, plus a lot to manage, so we ended up only using 2, and fabricated some very technical diffusers using only local, native Mayan materials.