Waow!!! This is what comes to mind after a trip at Tux Kupaxa cenote.
After discussing the plan with David aka Aktun, we decided to go to this marvellous site located far out in the jungle, behind the village of Chemuyl.
Thanks to our new car we made it close to the cenote but still had a good 200 meters of ups and downs trail in the jungle. At first, we deicided to go to take a closer look at the site...Waow!!
There are two palapas left from the first exploratory groups, led by Gunnar Wagner from Aktun dive center and also Robbie Shmittner from Xibalba Dive Center . More recently a group from the Czech Speleological Society came to resurvey the cave system. (If any of you, readers, can translate the page on Tux Kupaxa, that would be great, thanks)
This cave hosts an enormous amont of prehistoric skeletons amongs wich, sleuth, mamoth and other giant tapir.
Back to our sunday 'enjoy cave diving' trip and its ups and downs!
Once back at the car, we start to unload and prepare our equipment. Lights are ok, reels ready but there is something wrong with my buddy. He does not feel too well, so we decide to bring stuff slowlly to the edge of the cenote and take our time. On the second trip back to the car, things are not getting better but at least we know whats going on; after drinking a canned fruit juice, symptoms started, so we thought it was it. We do another ttrip and decide to jump in to refresh and check on my buddy's status. Apparently the cold water of the cenote helped cool him down and relax.
Once back at the car, we load the twinsets and start a long and tortuous path to the cenote...OOooofff! Its hard work but according to David, its worth the effort!
As we almost had to call the day because of my buddy state, I now feel the surge to go diving, so is he! We jump in our suit and get strpped in our harness...
Murphy knocked at the door again! My regulators, reserviced and checked the day before at the feelling station are not working...AGAIN!!! I just can't believe it, but its real and happening in such a remote place. Well, better it happens at the surfce than into the cave!
Thanks to my buddy for carrying a stage and spare regulator, we can dive...
I know, I should have done the regulator check back at the truck and at least it would have saved us 4 or 5 trips extra to get all we needed to do the fix...
I'm learning, and we've agreed not to dive until all our problems were solved...Well my regs are on their second 'fail to deliver air' incident, Aqualung deluxe!!
Anyway, we are now doing a gear check and (re)locate the line to go in. As the pool is too small and not deep enough we had decided to do the s-drill once in the cavern zone.
Waow!!! This cave is nice from the very start of the line! It is a complete first time for me, and I must admit, I feel like a virgin on its first date!!
Very nicely decorated, lots of formations. I think of Nohoch as I'm passing the first set of arrows marking a set of jumps to the right...
After discussing the plan with David aka Aktun, we decided to go to this marvellous site located far out in the jungle, behind the village of Chemuyl.
Thanks to our new car we made it close to the cenote but still had a good 200 meters of ups and downs trail in the jungle. At first, we deicided to go to take a closer look at the site...Waow!!
There are two palapas left from the first exploratory groups, led by Gunnar Wagner from Aktun dive center and also Robbie Shmittner from Xibalba Dive Center . More recently a group from the Czech Speleological Society came to resurvey the cave system. (If any of you, readers, can translate the page on Tux Kupaxa, that would be great, thanks)
This cave hosts an enormous amont of prehistoric skeletons amongs wich, sleuth, mamoth and other giant tapir.
Back to our sunday 'enjoy cave diving' trip and its ups and downs!
Once back at the car, we start to unload and prepare our equipment. Lights are ok, reels ready but there is something wrong with my buddy. He does not feel too well, so we decide to bring stuff slowlly to the edge of the cenote and take our time. On the second trip back to the car, things are not getting better but at least we know whats going on; after drinking a canned fruit juice, symptoms started, so we thought it was it. We do another ttrip and decide to jump in to refresh and check on my buddy's status. Apparently the cold water of the cenote helped cool him down and relax.
Once back at the car, we load the twinsets and start a long and tortuous path to the cenote...OOooofff! Its hard work but according to David, its worth the effort!
As we almost had to call the day because of my buddy state, I now feel the surge to go diving, so is he! We jump in our suit and get strpped in our harness...
Murphy knocked at the door again! My regulators, reserviced and checked the day before at the feelling station are not working...AGAIN!!! I just can't believe it, but its real and happening in such a remote place. Well, better it happens at the surfce than into the cave!
Thanks to my buddy for carrying a stage and spare regulator, we can dive...
I know, I should have done the regulator check back at the truck and at least it would have saved us 4 or 5 trips extra to get all we needed to do the fix...
I'm learning, and we've agreed not to dive until all our problems were solved...Well my regs are on their second 'fail to deliver air' incident, Aqualung deluxe!!
Anyway, we are now doing a gear check and (re)locate the line to go in. As the pool is too small and not deep enough we had decided to do the s-drill once in the cavern zone.
Waow!!! This cave is nice from the very start of the line! It is a complete first time for me, and I must admit, I feel like a virgin on its first date!!
Very nicely decorated, lots of formations. I think of Nohoch as I'm passing the first set of arrows marking a set of jumps to the right...
Our plan is to dive to the 'T' and turn right to look for the giant sloth remains. Actually, this cave system is rich in archeo and paleonthologic treasures. On the other side of the 'T' one can find the remains of a Tapir and...so I heard, there would also be a fire pit with 'unfinished' meal 10.000 years old!
So as for a plan, it sounds good... but that's not counting with what happened before the dive...
My regulator failed to work again, I had checked it the night before and it worked and my buddy had a bad reaction to a canned fruit juice he had drunk minutes before we arrived at the site.
So you can imagine the delay it take to change the regulator around with the stage tank and leave enough time to David to recover.
We finally got in and had a great short dive. It was short because I had too many thing in my head (reg, buddy, gf) and we were running late..So I decided to turn the dive after 30'. We were minutes from the 'T' and David wondered why, I wanted to turn the dive.
Once back at the surface, I told my buddy why I did what I did and also the fact that I even forgot about our dive objective (giant sloth) reassured me in my decision to call the dive.
Once done, chilled a bit in the pool and packed our stuff, it was time to go through the jungle once again. Thanks to Jeep Cherokee. Although not 4x4, she did a good job.
Thats it folks, hop e you enjoy the read and looking forward to dive here again with a fresh set of regs and buddy!
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