DiversInc

Just back from 10 days at the Cenotes. As independent as I would like to believe I am, I do really enjoy the social nature of diving. Just being at the same Cenote with friends is good enough for me.

The plan was to revisit an area of Taj Ma Ha that I hadn't been to in 12-14 months. This time in sidemount with the idea of looking for sidemount sized passage. I went down stream on the white line. The white line runs from Cenote Taj Ma Ha to Cenote Scarada. The swim time for that traverse is about 30 minutes. The average depth is about 25 feet.

In any event, I swam to the double arrows and jumped to the right. This jump is just a minute or two short of Cenote Scarada. A minute or so after the jump, I came to another line arrow. I tied my reel in and started to poke around looking for the jump. My first attempt netted me a dead end with zero visibility that required me to navigate turned 90'. Once I backed out of that mess, I found the jump. It isn't really in a logical place compared to the arrow. The jump is beyond the arrow to the left. There isn't a straight shot from the arrow to the jump, I guess they want to hide the jump a little. The end of the line has a big red arrow and is hard to miss once you see it.

That line is the sidemount passage I was looking for. It could be done in backmount, but it would be a big mess. The cave is complete swiss cheese and there is a lot of really fine white silt and little bits of cave falling down everywhere. Just my percolation made a real mess of the first part of the passage. The passage continues to twist and turn and takes you up through a lot more swiss cheese. It was a lot of fun to dive. The line continued where I turned. Not sure if I am going to go back, it seems really unstable back there. All that swiss cheese rock just gives me the jitters.

I am grateful for the explorers that came before me, however, sometimes the line I find is in the weirdest/worst places. It is almost like they weren't thinking when they ran it. This line was particularly bad. I can't really imagine how they surveyed it.

One thing I always stress to trainees is 'line laying and placement'. We spend a lot of time discussing how and where to place the line, what type of tie-offs to use and why. The idea is that a well placed line will be enjoyable and efficient to survey as well swim. The more line you put in, the more you look at line, With experience you start to notice good line and poorly laid line. I saw some poorly laid line in Taj Ma Ha. It wasn't dangerous, but it wasn't the cleanest either.

After I turned the first part of the dive, I spent some time exploring the rest of the area. The line I originally jumped onto looped back to the same starting point.

The great thing about Taj, is I always find another section I haven't been too. It is amazing how much diving can be done at one site and still not see all of it.