LOGBOOK FOR THE MEXICO TRIP (Sept 8 - Sept 22, 2002).

Preliminaries. I was lucky to get a non-stop flight London Gatwick -> Cancun,
for 400 pounds return. They also carried the extra weight of my scuba gear for free, 
so I recommend JMC airlines. I had not been diving much since the Easter trip to
Mexico, and paid a penalty for this in various hassles with my equipment during 
the trip. I was out of practise. I was also quite tired what with one thing and 
another, so initially, until my buddy arrived, I mostly only dived one dive a 
day and goofed around the rest of the time.   



Dive 1 of trip. Monday. Cenote Calimba shakedown dive. Sidemount. 

 Good fun, usual equipment odds and sods. I was really trying the sidemount 
thing (knowing Geoff would want to do it) and hadn't got the lengths of the 
connectors quite right for fitting the tanks onto my `double waist belt' 
arrangement. My light battery needs soldering in [I buy a new lead acid battery 
each trip (200 pesos = $20) because I don't like to break the rules by carrying 
lead acid batteries on the plane, as is the practise of some... And a new 
battery is much more reliable than a rented one, and considerably cheaper]. Do 
that tonight. Calimba beautiful as ever. 

Dive 2. Tuesday a.m. Downstream Grand Cenote to the offshoot line NE of Snake 
Cenote. Sidemount.   

 This was a chance to go up a really muddy little sidemount tunnel in the 
downstream section at Sac Actun. I retrieved a much encrusted safety reel from 
my turnaround point - I might have gone to the very end of it but had absent 
mindedly gone into the narrow bit wearing 3 sidemount tanks instead of my 
intended 2 - I forgot to shed one at the junction at Snake cenote. I couldn't be
bothered to change this once in the tunnel, so turned when things got really 
tight - previous diver has been shedding bits of kit, so it's getting tight 
Charles, not a bad moment to turn, were my thoughts.   
 There was faint lettering on the old safety reel so I took it to Herve at the 
deRosas, and he tentatively identified it as belonging to Dan Lins, one of the 
original explorers of that part of Sac. It's too mucky to be of much use to 
anyone, but interesting - maybe I was the first diver up that muddy little 
tunnel since Dan did his last exploratory dive there. At least, the condition of
the reel - right next to the line where noone could possibly miss it in the 
confined space - argued that it was a while since anyone had been there..  
 But one thing that made this dive more memorable was an incident that never 
was. Before flying out I had equipped myself with a small Otter Box, large 
enough to hold car keys, money, credit cards, driving license and a small 
handheld GPS navigator for finding the exact position of exotic cenotes....  
 Looking at the Box, I had noted that the system for fastening it to ones dive 
belt was totally flimsy - good only until the first restriction if cavediving. 
So I had fastened it on with its official clip, plus a piece of nylon string as 
backup. It was sitting just inside my right hand tanks. And just as I had 
squeezed back past the narrowest bit of the sidemount restrictions NE of Snake, 
leaving it pretty black behind me, it hit me like a thunderclap - suppose the 
thing had got loose in all that crud? Like that reel had got loose when another 
diver went in there. I felt my dive belt all the way round to the clip next to 
my right tanks. The clip was there but the box was not attached to it. Nor could
I find it attached to the dive belt by its nylon string, I felt all the way 
along to the tanks. So there I'd be when I returned to Grand Cenote, penniless, 
no driving license, no car keys, 3 credit cards AWOL, etc. etc. It puts all this
"Not Life Threatening" bit into perspective. This situation was in no way a 
threat to my life, but I could think of several I've been in that might have 
been, which felt a good deal more comfortable than I did right now....  
 But when I got back to Grand Cenote, the puzzle solved itself; the Box had 
indeed come loose from its fitting; attached only by nylon string it had slid 
past the right hand tanks, and was happily attached towards the right hand side 
of my back. As I say, the incident never really was. Shows what a good bit of 
wriggling in the restrictions can do for you. But I never dived again with as 
many valuables in the Box, and thereafter it always lived on my left wrist, 
which was less comfortable but at least I could keep an eye on it.  

Dive 3. Tuesday p.m. Downstream Grand Cenote to 4 Doors Cenote #2. Sidemount. 

 I was going to do all the 4 doors and maybe more, but I was still experimenting
with gear - carrying 4 sidemounted tanks instead of 2 - and the connections 
which were just about generous enough for 2 tanks were far too short for 4, as I
found out when trying to remove 2 of them to get through the usually-easy 
Pickpocket restriction. I could not remove the tanks underwater. The connections
were simply too tight. I had to return to the cenote to do it. For that reason, 
and because it was my afternoon dive anyway, I decided to quit at that point. 
The restrictions get harder after the Pickpocket, as I well remembered from the 
last dives of the previous trip! TO BE CONTINUED.    


Dive 4. Wednesday. 4 Doors Cenote #2. 

 Once again I got no further, foiled this time by human frailty: I had a slight 
head cold and of course decided to dive anyway. But my right ear and sinuses 
were making it VERY clear what they would do to me if I pushed it any further 
than the same short distance I went yesterday.  
 Dosed myself with something Mexican containing pseudoephedrine. Got a friend to
read the Spanish label to me no less. Are you going soft, Read??  


Dive 5. First exploration at Cenote Pipsqueak.

 Now for something a little different - a small cenote that I found all by 
myself in the jungle. This was on a previous trip, and I was looking for the 
main entrance to Sistema Abejas, which was not then as obvious as it is now. But
now I returned to explore the baby cenote.  
 Entering the cenote I noted brackish water, white walls, and no lines. Laying 
one of my own I proceded for 200 feet or so until further progress was blocked 
by a distinctly unstable looking pile of boulders at the end of a room sized 
chamber. Since the boulders were poised directly above the small hole by which I
had entered the chamber, I decided that was enough exploring for one day and 
tied off.   
 Returning I explored in a different direction but that ended even sooner. Looks
like Cenote Pipsqueak doesn't go. Perhaps I'll return and give it one more try. 
 Max depth ca. 34'. Sidemount.


Dive 6. Fun and games at Mouler #1. 

 The dive plan for this dive was simple. Return to the downstream Sac Actun, do 
the same dive through the 4 doors cenotes as I did on the last dive of the last 
trip. But this time, carry 4 sidemounted tanks instead of 2, and go as far as 
possible beyond the 4 doors `restricted area'. I reckoned I'd get half way to 
Cenote Naval before having to turn, (half way is the Strangler Roots Connection,
about 4400' from Grand Cenote in mostly shallow water) possibly a little further
(there's a cenote called Lil's cenote some way further on, probably 
tantalisingly out of reach though.) I had the maps of the area photocopied onto 
(waterproof!) transparencies and rolled into a 7" long 1" diameter piece of 
plastic pipe that sits on my shoulder when sidemounting. This works well, though
a colour photocopier would save having to lay the maps on something light 
coloured in order to read them.  
 At first things went well. I had adjusted my clips so the extra cylinders were 
easy to fix and to remove, and I passed the Pickpocket restriction by removing 2
cylinders and passing them through, following through myself, and then clipping 
the tanks back on. But when I got to Mouler restriction #1 - the one that caused
most trouble last time I did the dive - things changed. I ripped a large hole in
the neck seal of my drysuit, on the sharp pointed ceiling in the middle of the 
restriction. A total drysuit flood followed quite quickly, thus revealing a 
general flaw in my sidemounting arrangements for this was my only form of 
buoyancy control, and it wasn't working very well because air pumped into the 
drysuit tended to exit quite rapidly through the neck seal. So I turned the 
dive, and made a fairly clumsy exit back through the system. Divested myself of 
some rather soggy pesos, which were not in the Otter Box because of my 
experience during dive 2. Tee ho.    

  

Dive 7. Further investigation of Cenote Pipsqueak. 

 On this dive I explored every other direction I could find at Cenote Pipsqueak,
including one little passage that went to another tiny cenote; but all closed 
down after a short while, so Pipsqueak really doesn't go. My drysuit had 
Aquaseal curing around its neck seal (securing a patch made from cycle inner 
tube, that very versatile addition to a sensible diver's kitbag). So I just dove
in a wetsuit, sidemounted, persuading my wing to provide alternative buoyancy 
control. Compared to backmounted tanks, the centre of buoyancy needs to be 
further down the body.  
 And so I left behind the white walls of Cenote Pipsqueak, my first little 
exploration. And I went to Cancun airport to meet Geoff Kelafant, my buddy for 
the next week, and to return my rental car.  

Dive 8. Cenote Hilario's Well. 

 My first impression of Geoff K. as buddy was that both of us were cagey, as 2 
solo divers each wondering if the other were about to wreck his carefully laid 
plans. Geoff had expounded to me the joys of the Hidden Worlds group of cenotes,
including the Mundo Escondido system that I had never been in; but for out first
dive together we decided to do Hilario's Well, which is the extreme downstream 
end of the Dos Ojos system. Entering the Hidden Worlds compound, we chatted with
Buddy Quattlebaum, who runs it and is one of cavediving's true eccentrics and 
enthusiasts - maybe like talks to like....  
 Geoff had been here before, but I had not. At the cave, we took the main 
upstream line and jumped off left. We were sidemounted, my drysuit back in 
acion, and we followed the jump line to a tee where the left branch had an exit 
arrow on it. Geoff accordingly pinned the line and we took the right branch. 
Turning presently we returned to the tee and Geoff wanted to follow the unknown 
left branch that was arrowed as an exit. Now Geoff knew the cave a bit, but I 
was doubtful about this as we had ben explicitly warned that the lines in there 
were a total mess.   
 And sure enough, a slight hassle resulted. The line led to air all right, but 
not to daylight. You see, around the Hilario's well entrance (which you enter by
going down a ladder) there is a large subterranean airspace, only a small part 
of which - at the Well itself - is dimly illuminated by the sunlight above. So
we had to find our way around this space, hindered rather than helped by a large
number of lines and power cables - Buddy has installed his own lighting system, 
consisting of long cables dangling in the water, then rising a foot or so above 
it to form connections that clearly aren't waterproof.   
 After 15 minutes of fumbling around, we (a) were back at the Well and (b) had 
not been electrocuted. But when a similar situation arose later at Nohoch, I did
insist on going back the way we'd come. Which cost us a few hundred feet, but 
kept Yours Truly a lot happier.  


Dive 8b. While still at the Well, we decided to see if we could identify a 
downstream line, which we sort of did but somehow got sidetracked back on to an 
upstream line when it arrived at a tee. So we failed to identify the main 
downstream line.  

Dive 9. After lunch we hit Cenote Tak Be Lum, (not sure of the spelling), the 
furthest cenote from the entrance at Buddy's, down a truly amazing track almost 
worthy of comparison with the one to Nohoch before they tidied it up. First 
gear, ride the clutch stuff the whole way, quite a distance.   
 The cenote has a huge "cavern line", which, Mexican style, only goes about 800 
feet from the daylight zone. We followed this because Buddy assured us that it 
explores most of the known extent of the cave, which hasn't been fully explored 
yet. During the dive the outer sheath of one of my regulator hoses exploded, 
causing a loud bang which we couldn't explain while in the water because 
everything seemed to be working (I had us ascend to the airspace to see what the
damage was). But when I got back to base all was clear, the slit in the sidewall
of the hose plain to see. Meanwhile we turned, and on the way back ran into an
ongoing construction project of Buddy's: he is building a huge tube out of 
see-through plastic so that people can crawl through it and view the cave 
part of the dive. He has a guy working hours on welding a steel frame for it. 
And there's a complicated arrangement with winches and lifting bags to get the 
sections into place. During this operation we met Chris, an employee of Buddy's 
who was to help us a lot with dive planning later.  I bought a new hose from 
Buddy's.   
 By the way Cenote Tak Be Lum is really rather special, with a lot of those 
specially shaped stalagmites that Buddy says actually form underwater. I find 
this hard to believe but certainly the shape is distinctive, also the white 
colouring is different from nearby Dos Ojos. He calls them something like 
"hooeys".   
 

Dive 10. Monday a.m. Mundo Escondido, downstream.


  The most memorable thing about this dive is getting in and out of the water. 
You guessed it, another ladder is involved; but at the top, this one ends about 
4 feet lower than where it ought to, so you need modest rock climbing skills to 
get in and out of the narrow chimney. Lowering your tanks to the water requires 
ropes and a pulley; we borrowed the ropes from Buddy, but I had a couple of 
pullies on me (I'd been bargain hunting in a chandlery back in the UK!) which 
were very effective. Later I came back solo and did the whole thing on my own; 
but I gave myself a 3:1 mechanical advantage rather than 2:1, quite luxurious 
when you're only hoisting one tank at a time (sidemounts are, I would say, 
almost compulsory in this system, because of the hassle of lowering backmounted 
doubles to the waterline and then putting them on in the water. Only seriously 
military chappies will have enough strength to climb in, climb out, ascend and 
descend while wearing them - and even then they might jam in the narrow 
chimney).  
  It is worth mentioning that I changed my drysuit inflator hose before this 
dive, because I had a spare in my kitbag and I thought the old one was getting 
too tatty.  
  Geoff had a particular sidemount tunnel that he wanted to investigate, and 
since I am still new to the joys of sidemounts I was very happy indeed to go 
along with this dive plan. We started into the downstream section and jumped off
right into the sidemount tunnel, which we followed until the line ended. Geoff 
was kind to me, putting me in front as I'd never seen the system before; I wish 
I could say he saw as much of the sidemount tunnel as I did, but of course he 
got some silt in his face. It's pretty in there.   
  Returning to the jump off point we both had plenty of air so we went 
further downstream to the big room that's - I don't know - maybe 1000' in. We 
followed the bail-out line from the end of the room off left to a tiny cenote in
the jungle. Then we toodled back to base.  
  When suiting up I had done small damage to the zipper of my drysuit (second of
3 incidents which resulted in it getting the Order of the Boot at the end of the
trip) resulting in a slow leak. When I ascended the chimney and came to the 
climb out at the top, this lead to (I'm afraid) some rather choice swearwords, 
because my drysuit feet were now weighed down with about 20 pounds of excess 
water per foot, and this made the little rock climbing bit at the top a lot more
difficult. But, I got there; and afterwards all was sweetness and light.  
  At least, all sweetness and light except that when I tried to do the second 
dive of the day, my drysuit inflator hose developed a major leak. Suffering, as 
my sidemount rig then did, from having no alternate buoyancy control, this led 
to me not doing the dive, so Geoff did upstream Mundo solo. Bet it was nice to 
see everything clearly!  
  So the "new" inflator hose had been hanging around in my kitbag too long and 
failed on its very first use. It is a European kind and no replacement was 
available in Mexico. So I ended up putting the old one back on - waiting for it 
to blow up any minute like the regulator hose the other day - but it never did. 
Only when back in the UK could I get, and fit, another replacement.  


Dive 11. Tuesday a.m. Extended "River Run" dive in Sistema Dos Ojos. Probably 
the best dive of the trip. Buddies, Geoff and Chris.  

Cenote Bat Cave -> Cenote Green Room -> Cenote Mott Mott -> Cenote Dos Palmas ->
Cenote High Voltage -> Cenote Tapir's End -> [Cenote Monolitho] -> Cenote 
Chuck's Landing -> Cenote Garden of Eden -> Cenote Hilario's Well.    

somewhat over 10000 feet of good clean fun. 220 minutes.

In the above list, Cenote Monolitho is in brackets because we didn't quite go to
it, just to within 25 feet or so and jumped off towards Chuck's Landing and 
Garden of Eden; but Monolitho nonetheless entered into our (slightly dodgy) air 
supply calculations. We took doubles and a stage; during the long section 
between Monolitho and Chuck's Landing I went a couple of hundred PSI beyond 
thirds; but I wasn't about to turn back against the famous Dos Ojos tailwind - 
and you might say that the famous - nigh irresistible - tailwind was some sort 
of a guarantee that we were going in the right direction... downstream!!!  
  When we did this dive, Geoff and I discussed the possibility of pretending to 
have done it sight unseen, without any guide or setup dives for the huge (2 
mile) traverse. Since neither of us knew the key 2750 foot central section 
Monolitho -> Chuck's Landing, this somewhat kamikaze (but fallacious) account of
our activities would have been guaranteed to further "wind up" honest DIR divers
reading solocavediver.com and sticking pins in our effigies in that cute little 
voodoo ceremony of love and charity...    
  However I think I should stick to the complete truth which is as follows. From
the start at Buddy's and elsewhere, Geoff had displayed a superb talent for 
chatting up all the staff and getting lots of useful information out of them; 
and now one of them - Chris - volunteered to be our guide. He of course knew the
whole system, having done some of the recent exploration there, but be it 
recorded that he surely wasn't in it for the money. Going rate is $150 a throw 
remember - but when we asked him how much it cost, his initial answer was "you 
can give me $20 if you like...". With some difficulty, our good consciences were
partly saved by persuading him to accept $20 each from us plus a good meal last 
evening of our trip. At least it paid for his fuel costs. Thanks, Chris.  
  With Chris along, we were blessed with 2 vehicles so we could leave one at 
Hilario's Well and toodle up to the Bat Cave in the other. The dive was great, 
the three restrictions in the middle of the long Monolitho -> Chuck's Landing 
section were fun (they're not of course MAJOR restrictions - you can get through
nicely in doubles, though it does make it FUN for the diver who follows you in 
100% brown-out). And Cenote Garden of Eden, where we paused for a chat, is 
pretty enough that you can see how it got its name - though you wouldn't have 
needed Mozzie Rep in the real Garden of Eden I fancy....  
  You'll see from the list of cenotes that we used a side tunnel initially, not 
going via cenote Dos Ojos itself; we joined the main line Dos Ojos -> Dos Palmas
at that quite conspicuous junction on the side of a large hillock of rock about 
half way along. Even I, who knew the system least, knew which junction was meant
when Chris described it to us before we set off (the Dos Ojos -> Dos Palmas -> 
Dos Ojos traverse I had done once before, and I had seen that particular 
junction twice before because I turned at or near it the first time I did a solo
dive in the system).     
  As well as being a good dive in itself, this dive was a good example of Geoff 
and I collaborating. Both of us had done some (he had done all) of the 
traditional river run Dos Ojos -> Monolitho, and each of us had independently 
thought of doing a really LONG river run ending at Hilario's Well. We chatted, 
encouraged one another,  - and did it very nicely thank you.  


Dive 12. Tuesday p.m.. Chris's new passage at Garden of Eden. Buddy, Chris. 
  
  Geoff was prevented from making this dive by his ears playing up. This was the
third diving day of his trip; you'll remember I had the self same problem on the
third diving day of mine.  
  I was keenly aware of the favour Chris was doing by showing me HIS passage - 
the one he had just explored, one for which there's as yet no line arrow off the
relevant bit of the main line. And indeed, the almost virgin passageway was very
distinctive, the cave floor consisting of mud that was absolutely smooth - no 
fin had ever dragged in it, no reel had ever been dangled in it - a totally 
different appearance from what you get on the main line. I was acutely aware 
that I didn't want MY fin to be the first to drag.  
  In some parts the passage had very pretty decorations, in others it was plain 
phreatic tube - but all the more obvious that hordes of divers had not yet been 
down there. After 1200 feet or so it narrows down and is both restricted and 
very pretty. I turned after a little of this because I was near to thirds and 
didn't want to trash the place in my doubles. Chris said that was very nearly 
the end of the line anyway. I'll do it with sidemounts some time (But Chris does
it backmounted.... Yes, but he's younger and slimmer than I, and besides, he 
found it!).  


Dive 13. Wednesday a.m. The Calimba. Buddy, Geoff.

  This is the only unenjoyable dive I've had in the Calimba. Here's how it 
happened. Geoff and I planned to more or less repeat my earlier solo dive to 
Cenote Pabilanny and back. But this plan did not work, due to 2 errors of 
judgement on the part of Yours Truly.   
  First, I decided that we would do it sidemount because it would make good 
practice and perhaps be kinder to the cave with 2 of us in there and all. this 
may have been a mistake because I'm still not as used to sidemount as backmount,
and Pabilanny is a long way.   
  But what was certainly a mistake was as follows: in the UK I dive steel tanks 
which are negative even when empty. Here in Mexico, the Alu tanks are positive 
when empty, and when sidemounted in the same confifguration I use in the UK they
tip until they're close to vertical, when they become positive around half way 
through the dive. My attitude to this was not to worry about it, but Geoff had 
been giving me some hassle and extolling the virtues of putting a Tank Weight on
each alu cylinder to even things up. And my mistake - my very obvious mistake in
retrospect - was to go along with this. It meant that I was diving a changed 
gear configuration on what was already a long, ambitious dive. And as we all 
know, gear changes usually don't work perfectly the first time, and this was no 
exception. The extra weight (a) made me too heavy and (b) was all in the wrong 
place. I would have acute back pain if I adopted that config. on a regular basis
I assure you; as it was I was down in the mud, wondering why it took every ounce
of buoyancy I had to change it, fins dragging because the weight was too far 
back, you name it it was wrong. Air consumption sky high,   
I ran out of thirds mercifully before we got very far. Otherwise I think I'd 
have done my back an injury, the extra weight supported from the waistbelt 
instead of the chest area (where I put the weights when sidemounting normally) 
was killing me.  
  End of dive. End of day's diving for me, I was furious with myself for messing
up my dive and Geoff's so I left him to do the next dive solo while I got my 
emotions under control.   
  A bad dive in the Calimba!!! Shock horror.... Last time I ever dive any kind 
of tank weight, unless its centre of mass is over my chest area. And there 
should never have been a first dive where I agreed to an ambitious dive plan 
with an unfamiliar gear configuration. Most annoying, all the more so because it
was really bad decision making on my part.  


Dive 14. Thursday a.m. Cenote Nohoch Nah Chich. Up the alternative line to the 
"Heaven's gate" formation and on to Cenote Dinner Hole. Buddy, Geoff.  

 Since I was there last, the road to Nohoch has been improved to the extent that
donkeys are no longer necessary, you can get a vehicle down there. It is still 
one of the pricier cavedives of the trip at $20 a go, but well worth it [however
Chris later showed us a way in to one of the lesser cenotes that costs 50 pesos 
= $5. You'd have to go a little upstream from it to get to the pretty bit 
though] En route to Cenote Dinner Hole Geoff found a slit in the ceiling which 
sure enough led to a so-called airbell containing a gas which might indeed 
possibly be confused with air. However, after a few breaths it became clear that
the main constituent was carbon dioxide, so we got out of there without even 
finishing our conversation, in my case at least hyperventilating for 3 or 4 
breaths off my reg. as I went back down.  
 Cenote Dinner Hole itself is a Tarzan hole (enter by climbing down a rope) 
which has real, genuine air in it with free oxygen included. It's marked by a 
peculiar sequence of plastic coffee mugs on the line; due maybe to someone's 
idea of a joke, the nearest one to the hole is marked "300", the next nearest 
"200" and the furthest "100". 100 feet from the 100 marker there is nothing 
whatsoever. Make sense of that if you can!  
 A very lovely dive. Nice to be able to get 2 sets of doubles in there instead 
of the one that was all the donkeys would handle in the old days, and so go a 
little further; but even then you're just doing a couple of percent of this huge
system.  

Dive 15. Thursday p.m. Parker's Line, Charlie's line and Alberto's Line at 
Cenote Nohoch Nah Chich. Buddy, Geoff.  

  On this dive we investigated part of the cat's cradle of lines that surrounds 
the main line at Nohoch. We jumped off left from the main line onto Parker's, 
then left again at the lines-meet junction onto Charlie's line which dumps you 
on the main line about 2/3 of the way to Dinner Hole. Turning back along 
Charlie's Line we went the other direction (Alberto's line) at the lines-meet 
junction, which brings you out at the little cenote just upstream of the main 
one at Nohoch, but from a funny angle. I didn't recognise where we were so 
turned us all the way back via Alberto's and Parker's lines at this point; but I
don't think either of us objected to a few more hundred feet in this pretty cave
system. This huge, pretty cave system.


Dive 16. Friday a.m. Blown O-ring in Upstream Dos Ojos. Buddy, Geoff.

  One of the problems for which cave diving training attempts to prepare you is 
a sudden and major loss of air from ones doubles when backmounting. This can 
happen because of a faulty first stage regulator (especially when they ice up in
cool British waters), or a faulty second stage regulator, or as in the incident 
I'm about to describe, an extruded O-ring on an A-clamp attachment between the 
first stage regulator and the tanks.  
  WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN: The diver reaches like lightning for the centre 
valve that will isolate the two tanks of his doubles. Once this is done, he can 
only lose half of his remaining air supply, the half that's on the damaged side 
of his kit. At the same time, he signals his buddy with the fast flashing 
emergency signal; the buddy is always alert, always close at hand, and helps him
to deal with the situation by any and all means possible. If one can identify 
which side of his system the problem lies, it's worth while also switching off 
the relevant tank post because that will (unless the fault is at the neck seal 
of the tank itself) prevent any further losses at all, rather than just reducing
them to half.   
  WHAT I THOUGHT WOULD REALLY HAPPEN: As a frequent solo cavediver I generally 
assumed that even if I had a buddy, he would inevitably be round the next corner
when the incident happened, and so unable to (immediately) help. I expected to 
have to deal with it myself. I also had a deep seated conviction  
that there wouldn't be enough time to switch the centre valve off with much air 
left in the system. This conviction was reinforced when I saw a Poseidon 
regulator freeflow on a British openwater instructor who was wearing independent
doubles (her organisation demanded 100% independent redundancy of its 
instructors' dive gear). The whole thing was over in about 45 seconds, the tank 
empty before she'd had time to do much more than switch to her alternate air 
supply and shake the second stage in a vain attempt to get it to stop 
freeflowing. I swam up and was about 80% sure which post I needed to switch off 
for her, but did not attempt this because if I'd switched off the wrong one, she
would not have been happy about it. But the conviction was there before - I'd 
always been sceptical about getting the valves shut in time. And even if you do 
switch off the centre valve, you only end up with HALF the air you THEN have in 
the system. E.g., if you had 3000 to begin with and it happens at turnaround, 
when air starts bubbling you're at 2000. Say you're quick and get the valve shut
while just 4-500 PSI are bubbling away. You'll end the incident with 1500-1600 
in HALF of your doubles - the equivalent of 750-800 PSI or 1/4 of your original 
air supply, not enough to get out. No two ways about it, you'll have to borrow 
from your buddy to survive.    
 
 DIVING PLAN B: Since I often don't have a buddy this was somewhat alarming to 
me. So I devised a way around it. First, I would always dive with doubles and a 
stage (or "buddy bottle") of equal size tanks, which is what you get given in 
Mexico anyway. In Florida, where stage bottles tend to be smaller than the tanks
of your doubles, I had a workaround for solo diving that involved the doubles 
having their centre valves shut throughout the dive (and of course an extra 
pressure gauge). But even with a buddy bottle of equal size, I had a little 
extra refinement: on the outward leg of my journey I would dive the doubles down
to half, leaving the stage completely untouched until turnaround. At turnaround,
the doubles would be half full (enough to get out) and the stage would be  
full (also enough to get out). This system (which I called Plan B, as opposed to
Plan A which is to take a third of the air out of the doubles and a third out 
of the stage) is the only way of using a full third of your air for penetration,
yet having full, 100% independent redundancy between your doubles and your stage
throughout the dive. Do it this way and you've always got enough air in your 
doubles to get out, and you've always got enough in the stage to get out.   
  WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: I was diving Plan B with Geoff as my buddy, breathing 
off the doubles and not touching the stage. About 15-20 minutes into the dive we
had passed Cenote Dos Ojos West (having started originally in the Bat Cave), and
were in a wide open upstream passageway, sloping gently downhill.  
  In the first couple of days after we met, Geoff had been a very considerate 
buddy, never more than a few feet from me in case I had problems. But as time 
went on, he being a slightly faster swimmer than I, and seeing that I tended not
to have too many unnecessary problems, he began to get well ahead of me in 
passages that were - well - good fun for strong swimmers. I do NOT blame him for
this. When all's said and done we're both solo divers, and we both believe in 
self-sufficiency. And so it was that when my doubles started losing air with 
great violence, he was well ahead of me in the passage (I estimated about 150 
feet, but I was stressed at the time and he reckons the distance was a good deal
less, so let's call it 75). He was just out of sight, but when I lifted myself a
few feet higher I could see him. It was nonetheless perfectly clear I was going 
to have to handle the situation myself. Doubtful whether he could see my light 
signal. At any rate he didn't turn.   
  For the first few seconds I remember a sense of incredulity - a MAJOR DOUBLES
AIRLOSS?? But that only happens to important people, like Exley and Fulghum in 
Lanzarote!! It can't be happening to me!!! But it was, and my hand reached like 
lightning, not for my centre valve but for my buddy bottle. I had had it 
switched off because the second stage had a tiny niggling air leak. I switched 
it back on, reached very carefully along the whole length of its regulator hose 
and put the regulator into my mouth. Reached along again, very carefully, to 
make absolutely sure I was breathing off the stage, not my doubles any more. Now
you're bomb proof, Charles! Enough in that stage to get you out even from max 
penetration. From here, enough to get you out, Geoff out, and probably King Kong
out too, if the big chimp were a cavediver. Then, maybe 40 seconds in to the 
incident, I went for the centre valve. Not with any great confidence - the 
figure 45 seconds was burned into my memory - but intending to give it a try. My
hand scraped against the cave roof.  
  What was I doing near the cave roof??? At the time I couldn't figure it out. 
Now it's obvious, some of the vast outflow of bubbles from my left post were 
flowing under my wing, giving it quite a considerable extra lift. But then, I 
couldn't figure it out, maths professor or no. I grabbed my inflator hose and 
emptied the wing. Made a good job of it too, when I got back to base it was as 
flat and deflated as I've ever seen it. All to no avail, I remained stuck to the
ceiling. Irate at this, I twisted, lunged, kicked off the ceiling and headed for
the floor, grabbing hold of a largish rock with my left hand and going for the 
centre valve with my right. The twisting and lunging must have cleared some 
bubbles from under the wing, I remember being deliciously neutral buoyant for a 
few seconds. Gave the valve a twist. In giving it a twist I somehow let go of 
the rock with my left. Hey presto, I floated straight back up to the ceiling 
again.   
  Now soon after my initial signal to Geoff, my bubbles had dislodged a large 
cloud of silt from the ceiling, blocking him from my sight. Visibility at the 
ceiling was by now around the 18 inch mark. I decided to get back down to the 
floor, rather than fooling further with the valve in that muck (we were now 
about 90 seconds into the incident, and I was sure I was too late with the valve
anyway). This I did, and once back down there - maybe 2 minutes from the 
original freeflow - I heard the bubbles finally cease. I looked at my pressure 
gauge. For some reason it was reading 450-500 PSI, some air was somehow still 
trapped in there. That reading had to be wrong, I was thinking about giving the 
gauge a shake when Geoff returned.  
  Geoff had not seen my signal, nor heard the bubbles flowing from my reg, but 
after a while he had noticed that my light was no longer behind him; turning 
around, he had seen no sign of me except a huge cloud of filth descending from 
the ceiling. He now appeared from round the side of the worst of the silt, swam 
right up to me and made eye contact, and gave me the OK signal. I approved of 
the eye contact, because it's a good way of telling if a buddy is maybe 
panic-stricken, which from his point of view I might well have been. Better than
hand signals - Jesus said "the eye is the window of the soul". Two level, 
intelligent pairs of eyes exchanged glances as I returned Geoff's OK signal; 
then I gave him the Thumbs Up and we exited.   
  LESSONS LEARNED:  When I got back to base and examined my gear, I found the 
extruded O ring that was the cause of the problem.   
  Not all the pessimism in "WHAT I THOUGHT WOULD REALLY HAPPEN" was justified. 
There would have been time to switch off the centre valve if I had focussed on 
doing it, rather than getting myself off the ceiling. That was an example of 
suspicion creating what it suspects - I thought I wouldn't have enough time to 
switch off the valve, therefore I didn't try very hard, therefore I did not in 
fact get it switched off in time. But 2 minutes would have been plenty if I'd 
focussed on it from the start, after I'd got the stage reg safely in my mouth.  
  When Geoff and I talked it over afterwards I examined his features with 
discreet concentration perhaps equal to his own when examining mine at the "OK" 
signal earlier; and I decided it was not the moment to tell him that there was 
no air left in my doubles at the end of the incident. So when asked about this, 
I replied with perfect honesty that when the last bubble had leaked away, my SPG
read around 500 PSI. Apart from the obvious idea of practising dexterity in 
switching the centre valve off, another idea that Chris Le Maillot had back at 
the deRosas' was simply that this sort of thing makes the case for DIN fittings 
over A clamps - it's much harder for the O ring to cause trouble on a DIN 
fitting.  
  So, I shall practise the centre valve business (when I have one, i.e. in 
Mexico or Florida); I shall convert to DIN; but above all I shall continue to 
dive Plan B. Because with Plan B, once that stage reg is hooked up, you're bomb 
proof anyway. Take it from me, it's a nice feeling - in the middle of that great
big cloud of silt.    




Dive 17. Sidelines at Cenote Garden of Eden. Friday, p.m. Buddy, Geoff.

  When the Calimba dive didn't work out and I felt it was my fault, I skipped 
the next dive to recover my cool. But my views on blown O-rings are more along 
the lines of "these things happen", so I was back in the water immediately after
lunch.   
  We entered at Garden of Eden, and explored some of the side passages there. 
Some quite silty passages got explored in several directions. At one point we 
were back on Chris's newly discovered line; one of the other offshoot lines ends
at it, and at that junction there is a fairly misleading line arrow indicating 
that the offshoot passage is the way out. But since Chris's line was installed, 
Chris's passage is MUCH the quickest way out from that junction. Anyone thinking
otherwise and heading off down the other passage might come to a sticky end.  
  That was the first time Geoff had seen Chris's passage - as team leader for 
that dive I had a little trouble locating it even though I knew basically where 
it was. There must be some more unexplored passageways in that area, it has a 
big feel to it.  
  This was also Geoff's last dive, he was due to fly out on Saturday. I have one
more day, because I only fly out on Sunday afternoon. But re plane flights, both
of us were a little worried about a hurricane that's toodling around in the Gulf
of Mexico - the sky was pretty black in the direction of Cancun this afternoon. 
I forget what its name was, it's the hurricane that caused extensive flooding in
Cuba, and a little bit in the northern Yucatan itself.   

Dive 18. Mundo Escondido, upstream. Saturday a.m. Solo. 

  Upstream Mundo Escondido was the dive I missed with Geoff due to the broken 
power inflator hose. Since many think it the prettiest dive in the Yucatan, I 
felt it was a good idea to do it now. Also, it would put a full stop to the 
pessimistic argument that an unsupported solo diver wouldn't be able to 
negotiate the entrance chimney.  
  Deploying my pullies to good effect I had no problem with that, though it 
takes slightly longer because you can't be simultaneously at the top and bottom 
of the chimney - the natural way of doing it with a buddy is of course one up, 
one down, with the "down" buddy wary of flying scuba tanks. I also used the 
thicker of my 2 flavours of synthetic guideline to do the lifting, since Buddy's
thick rope was being used by someone else.      
  Toodling along with 2 sidemounted cylinders, I enjoyed the great beauty of the
cave, though I am not quite inclined to give it the overall crown - that still, 
for me, goes to the Calimba, and also the area around Cenote Pabilanny which is 
similarly gorgeous.  
  Having got to thirds on my first cylinder, and about half way there on the 
second, what should I hear but (yet again) escaping air. Shutting off the 
offending cylinder I returned to the chimney and established that this time the 
fault was an extruded O ring on one of the low pressure hoses. Next time I'll 
fix that underwater, it's perfectly fixable. Fortunately I had seen the 
prettiest bit of the cave anyway, it was beginning to close down before I 
turned. A good dive.  

Dive 19. "No Name Leads" passage at Cenote Garden of Eden. Saturday p.m. Solo.
Sidemount.

  What with getting hurricane reports and saying a fond farewell to Geoff, I was
fairly late into the water for the previous dive, and this one didn't start 
until about half past three. Since Buddy likes everyone out by 5, I reckoned I 
should use no more than 25 minutes for penetration and accordingly took the very
first jump to the left upstream of the cenote, which as I afterwards found out 
goes to the area marked "Unnamed Leads" on the rather feeble map that they have 
of the system. It's the part of the Dos Ojos system that they think may connect 
with Mundo Escondido.  
  Now my dive plan was made in haste, I didn't know at the time where I was 
going, and I didn't expect all that much of the dive; so I was most surprised 
when I found myself in what I assume is the prettiest passage in the entire Dos 
Ojos system. It has some of the beauty of the Calimba, really petite and 
well decorated. It should always be done sidemounted though - Geoff and I differ
about whether you'd get through in backmount (I think yes, he thinks no) but 
we're unanimous that the beautiful decorations will be severely damaged if you 
try. I was very pleased with my last dive, and was sorry to have to turn after 
25 minutes. If I'd realised there was a passage that pretty, that close to the 
entrance, I'd have been in there sooner I assure you.  
  I finally drove out of "Buddyworld" at 4:50 so the timings were about right 
too. Back at base I found Geoff, whose flight back to Indianapolis had been 
cancelled because of the hurricane. In the end we both got out on Sunday.