Cenote Dive

Here's an account of a Mexcio cenote dive done by Richard Brown.
I like the part about the hydrogen sulfide:

tuesday, day one. peo, danny and i did nahoch na chic. wow! heard the stories, now i believe them! very beautiful. i'm glad i went to disneyland, the name of one of the rooms....had 3 dives there ~80 mins each.

day two. peo and i strike it out together on gran cenote. we do four dives, including setting up a gap, then next dive pushing further. great day and mucho fun!

day three. i had danny and went to the room of tears and the basement of carwash. stunning rooms and ~ 80 mins run time. the next dive we did was the sump side, room of ancients. during our exit we recalculated gas and found another line. this tunnel was explored in 94. i don't think to many have been there since, as danny found an exploration spool and double ender. this tunnel was amazingly tight and very restricted. (a restriction is a passage where only one diver can pass.) following danny in i learned some pretty good tricks. being totally inverted and twisting through was very challenging and fun! we made the turn in a small opening that was full of hydrogen sulfide. you could taste it through your regs. it made our dive blue lights shine red, and made the room translucent red. very stunning.

day four. danny steps up the challange. each dive he tests you to see what you can handle. these 2 dives were at taj ma ha (aka. taj mahal) dive one was a stage dive. after several T's and jump's we dropped stages. eventually we made it to a cenote where we climbed out and slithered through the mud and loose rocks to the far end of it. we found the line and continued on until our goal, the end of the line in a yet another beautiful room. we thumbed it and returned to the cenote. crossing it again, it was so slick danny fell. there was almost no way i could make it to him quickly, bubbles flowing and his head under water. after getting him up he commented he could just hear it "GUE cave instructor drowns falling in cenote!" we found the silted out line and continued our return after bubble checking danny. total run time for this dive was 3 hours 45 mins.

for dive 2 we went to visit the "chinese garden." once in the cave, it takes a good part of a reel (not a spool) to get from the mainline to the jump. the jump line then goes through a long restriction that happened to be in the halocline. (the halocline is where a layer of saltwater is, usually ~42 feet. it mixes with freshwater and reduces viz. but is really cool) the "chinese garden" is a huge room. chopsticks and warriors adorn the room. massive events, building and destructive have occurred here. we continue through the room to a sidemount restriction, where we had planned to call the dive. at the end of the day, danny shakes my hand and told me i just completed the restriction workshop course :)

day five. peo and i are now in the company of steve. he arrived thursday night. we did the famous "jump" into calavaras, aka temple of doom. we ran two dives there. both tunnels were similar, but had pointed differences. this cave looks as if a deep snow had just fallen there.

taking time with danny was a great experience for two main reasons. one, i learned more about the formations and how they were made. i learned how to spot things, including fossils. two, i got some great advice on how to squeeze through very tight convoluted restrictions.