On our recent trip to Mexico to cave dive we had the privilege of diving "The Pit" part of Sistema Dos Ojos. Our team consisted of Mike Ryan, Peter Sotis, Ryan Sagmeister, and myself Nathan Spray. Mike and I were diving our Optima's while Ryan was diving a Meg, and Peter a rEvo.
We stayed at Villa De Rosa http://www.cenotes.com/ and really enjoyed the lodging. The staff went out of the way to make our stay pleasant. The rooms were very nice, clean, and the beach was beautiful. I will be staying with them again on our next cave trip to Mexico.
We loaded down the 4x4 truck with our gear and bailout bottles, and the van held our rebreathers.
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A short trip from Village De Rosa we arrived at the entrance to Sistema Dos Ojos. Just past the highway entrance was the "good road" leading to "The Pit"
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The road actually got worse...the "bad road" on the last leg leading to "The Pit"
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We set up our gear and prepared to "enter the water" in the only approved method...we jumped!
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Our gear was lowered down to us and we geared up in water and on the wooden platform.
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We had originally planned to drop down the line and head toward the Wakulla Room. However, we ended up taking the wrong line and ended up in the false lead. This killed a little of our bottom time, but we did find the correct line and turned at the restrictions leading into the Wakulla Room. Taking the line to the false lead was actually very nice in itself. It allowed us to explore more of the system that I am sure most don't see or normally go into. The dive was amazing to say the least!
It is hard to put into words the beauty of this cave. When out lights hit the restrictions at the approx 300ft depth the rock appeared to glow as if lit by a huge black light...it was breathtaking! The size of the cavern and cave is breath taking as well and leaves one feeling like a small spec when looking into the large rooms. I was like a kid in a candy factory..eyes wide open, jaw relaxed in amazement, drooling at the possibilities of exploration and seeing wonders of nature that are hard to describe with words.
We would have loved to stay for hours, but a long deco obligation awaited. Our deco was actually very easy and didn't feel like deco at all....the cavern area is HUGE and having a very nice area to swim around and explore made deco a blast. Ryan and I spent a good amount of time exploring the shallow sections of cave that lead off the cavern at the approx 40ft mark and killed a ton of deco doing so. Out total run time was 169minutes and I had a max depth of 311ft.
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I will post more pictures and other trip reports from the others caves we dove. Special thanks to Peter at http://addhelium.com/ for taking care of the details and setting up the entire Mexico trip and to Villa De Rosa http://www.cenotes.com/ for taking care of us and providing a really great and relaxing place to stay.
Our other dives were very nice, but nothing compared to diving "The Pit." It was a very special dive and very glad I got to share the dive with a great bunch of friends.
