Mexico trip[Labna-HA)

Exploration to Labna-Ha

Trip report day 1
Well, my flight got changed due to a storm in the gulf. I had to go to Dallas then Cancun. I arrived on time to find out that the other diver that I was meeting got delayed in Fort Lauderdale for the night and of course I forgot the name of the guys and the place we were going too. So after a few collect phone call’s, I walked back to the terminals exit and a guy in a Labna-Ha tee shirt approached me. He introduced himself as Sergio and asked me if I was one of the explores which caught me off guard because I have never been called that and I don’t feel that way. After we talked for a while another guy walks up and introduced himself as Pepe and we talked about the flight problem and then Pepe hands me a phone and says call Jason on this and hold on to it for the week I thought this was great. I have a line in case of problems. So after calling Jason and finding out he’s stuck in Fort Lauderdale we jumped into a truck and went to get a hotel then a bite to eat we got to the hotel and the room would take a little to get ready so off to get food a little place across the street had a great spaghetti and a few beers the talk went all over about the bitter fighting between the cave diving groups to land and jungle conservation and did I mention there accents were very strong and my Spanish, well I don’t have any Spanish but the points got across. So after a nap and shower I went out and looked around the town and beach area it is beautiful the beach sand is white and the ocean just as blue the shopping area is great with lots to see.

Exploration Day 2
I woke up about 7:00 am got caught up on some sleep which was nice. Went to same restaurant as last night for some breakfast I had a playa omelet (Ham & Cheese) it was very good. Went for a walk down the main street to work off the meal saw a lot of construction, new hotels and town houses going up. Went back to hotel to get packed up to meet Ministro at 9:00 am and he was on time and away we went to the camp which took us down the main highway to a dirt road and a long trip down it. The same road as Na Hooch Na Chi is on we just went further down it. We arrived at the camp and unloaded the gear and Sergio showed me around the camp which is a typical Mayan type construction in the jungle which is poles and thatched roofs - total native which was cool. The first dive was the shake down dive to get everything right in CarCol and it’s a great cenote the cavern area is large and very decorated through out after that we went down the main line up stream to the first jump to the right and swam about 200ft to the left to another jump to the left and swam for awhile to Pa Na cenota and popped up for a look. Pa Na will soon be the entrance for cave diving once the road to it is finished after a short break and talk we dropped back down and swam to main line and up stream some more to thirds on the way saw a couple of sets of bones laying on floor these were of animals as well as area in the floor and ceiling that were charred by fire long ago we turned the dive this was a 3 man team Sergio & Myself and the ideograph Carl Fritz This is a great cave and a great dive. The second dive was to reline and map the cavern area Jason and Sergio did the relining and I did the mapping we still have some left to do I ran low on Air and was getting late.

Exploration Day 3
Woke up got a great nights sleep in the hammocks first time for that, really comfortable had a bit to eat and we went for a ridge walk in the jungle man that was fun the morning dive was in Cara Col (Snail) to replace the line with gold line on the other side of the cavern Jason and Myself did this work and Carl did the filming we got it all replaced about 1800 ft of it the dive took 74min and we did a small dive which was about 40 min to another cenota. After lunch we had a course in repelling and climbing a crash course but it went good. We went to the cenote we had been to earlier in the morning Bah Lam Na (house of the tiger) Sergio was the first to repel down and I was the second and this was my first time repelling and it was about 30ft to the floor must say it was fun. The Mayans starting cutting down trees to make a ladder for the others and to get out they are fast little devils .Sergio and Myself starting looking around the dry cave area and its Hugh to say the least so we started walking one which turned out to be upstream and found three clear holes the dry cave is about ankle to knee deep in water in some spots its deeper and the sand sinks under your feet fast. We started to walk in the other direction and the cave just went farther and farther back we looked at some more opening about 5 and made it all the way back to end of the cave ware we found another small hole with clear water and this one had teeth in it. There were a full set of teeth from a meat eater of some sort. About 20 feet farther the cave pinched down to a crawl but you could feel the cool air coming in and Sergio went first and found the opening and crawled out to a cenota he called Bah Lam (Tiger) Sergio came back in and we turned and come out on the way out we ran into Jason, Carl & Pepe and showed them what we had found Carl videoed the find of teeth and some of the new cave finds. This walk took us about 4 to 5 hours and 90% of it was in the cave this cave is a great find and Hugh, After going back to camp and cleaning up and resting my sore feet did I say that after I repelled down I did this cave bare foot .We Went out for dinner in Talum at a great little restaurant in town the food was great afterward we stopped for supplies and headed back to camp to sleep.

Exploration Day 4
Well sleeping last night wasn’t as good as the night before a little hotter this time but it cooled off and was ok. Before we turned in the chief of the camp Don Paulo answered some questions about the Mayan people and culture which was very interesting. The morning dive was in Bah Lam Na in the north end of the tunnel Carl, Jason and Myself did 2 different opening the first looked promising tough enter but I got in first and laid the line through the opening had to flip sideways and then lay face down in a mound of silt and push through the room opened up to a large room with good decoration I ran the line to the north for a possible connection to Na Hooch Na Chi the room pinched down to a duck under I ran the line through on the ceiling to another room not as big but still a good one I saw to the back of the room in a smaller room to look for a opening but no such luck I turned the dive around to go check out another room I cut the line to tie it off while tying it off I noticed the vis going from good to white out then brown out I finished tying off the line and started my exit on the line the room was blitzed out went through the duck under the next room only to see the vis going quick I ran into Jason and called the dive the exit went good only bad part didn’t get to check out passage to the south put maybe next time this tunnel went for about 100ft. The second dive the opening had to be widened just to check it out once that was done I got in and went through the opening only to see stalagmites about 12 in from the floor which is covered white large scale of some kind, This was for as far as the eye can see no way around I exited and told the other the bad news. We decided to walk the cave some more to see if we could find some more openings that were going cave but no such luck. For lunch the Mayans brought it to us but I had to return to camp and fix my harness. When I returned to cenota Jason and Myself started to survey the dry cave passage going to Bah Lam which I wanted to go check out, this was the passage Sergio and I found the day before with the teeth in it. We surveyed just the one passage it came out to be about 1200ft to the small tunnel that leads to Bah Lam. After a tight crawl through the exit we were standing at the bottom of Bah Lam its amazing how these cenota are connected by both water and dry cave. We did a walk around the base and found another 2 opening big this time with clear water again. We decided to go the same way we came instead of trying to find a way through the hot jungle. When we meet back up with Sergio and Pepe they told us of two more hole they found in a dry cave we over looked in the front of the cave so Jason decided to take a look I was to tired so we all toted his gear through the cave to the dry part and back in it which was fun. When we started in to one part of the cave and as I was waiting for everybody my light lit up a painted cave structure it looked like a lions face so I showed it to everybody and as more lights got on it we could see the eye’s and the mouth they all agreed we also found what looked like a Mayan grave in the side of the cave the grave was flat rock stacked on top of each other with a couple of flat ones in front of the others to block the opening Carl took a second and filmed it. Jason and Sergio went to the hole and got suited up and dove they were gone about 10 min’s and resurfaced they said the cave was still going but the silt was getting bad possible from the other diving during the day the system was getting cloudy but the cave went for about 500ft. So we called it a day and went back to camp.

Exploration Day 5

Well sleeping proved to be a challenge last night with no wind and the temp up but there also were a lot of insects out last night for some reason, and at about 1:00 am I was awoken by Jason walking by on his way to the bathroom. As I looked around I noticed a spider bigger then my hand down by my feet crawling on the inside of the bug netting as my eyes focused in on it I could tell it was a tarantula well I think I did the faster and smoothest exit from a hammock in my life. Sergio got up and said take a picture no and I said no lets get it out and kill it. After that little bit of fun sleeping for me was even harder but if that wasn’t enough the monkeys started up in trees and the dog’s at the Na Hooch Na Chi ranch started barking which means only one thing El Tigra (Jaguar) is in the area after about 2 hours the wind picked up and it cooled off I finally got to sleep. I woke up early feeling tired and beat. Today we were going to check out the 2 leads, one at BahLam Na and one at Bahlam. Jason and Sergio went in to check out the first lead at BahLam Na the site was still cloudy from the day before so they decided not to go. We hiked over to BahLam and went in to take a look by this time I was going down hill fast. I started to suit up and tossed a light and my mask to Jason and said go take a look he went in and came back and said it was blocked off by stalagmites with a really low tunnel in one spot I thought about it and decided it wasn’t worth it at this time. Jason and Sergio went on to MoLam Na (Track of the Tiger) Sergio said this sink looked to be real promising I decided as painful as it was, not to join them and return to the camp. By the time I got back I decided my sleeping in the jungle days were over with for this trip and asked Pepe to take me to Playa Del Carman. So I could check in early to my room. The old iron stomach must of got a hole in it something wasn’t happy with me. We decided that we would all meet up in Playa Del Carman for dinner and to see how Jason and Sergio did in the Molba lam. On the way to the hotel Pepe mentioned that they had found Molba lam 2 years ago and never had time to go back and check it out I wish they had toke us there the first days and worked back to the others. Mo Lam Na is almost a mile from the camp and the others are in between the camp and Molba Lam this trip has turned out to be more of a dry caving trip then wet. Had dinner with the group Jason & Sergio laid 1381’of new line in Molba Lam and there’s lots more going cave to see they said and its very big in areas, Also the down stream section had two small Cenota’s one they name Cham Cecil (little light) and the other they named Chan Yolintkuba (Relief) tomorrow we are doing the line work in Cara Col replacing the old exploration line with gold line but as of right now I’m out, getting sicker.

Exploration Day6

After being woken up several times during the night I decided to not dive today and possible risk getting worst. I meet pep out front the hotel this morning for the ride back out to Labna Ha. Upon arriving I told Jason to go ahead and do the relining with out me there’s well over 2500 ft of gold line going in with about another 2000ft left to go the time was 120 min total bottom time. We packed up camp and went to the hotel and to get a bit to eat.

Final thoughts
In closing the trip was good a lot of work but that’s all part of finding new cave and Myself and Jason got to do a lot of other thing that we never had a chance to experience before now and some parts of it I could do with out. But this was a great adventure and a good time there are a lot of dry caves in this area and for any dry caver it would be a paradise next time the trip will be set up a little different, I’m either getting old or I just like a good bed to sleep in. During breakfast on the final day we talked a little about another exploration in December of 06 according to Sergio they are very busy with there regular work for the next 6 mouths. Like I said before it will be a little easier Jason and Myself both learned our limit and Both Sergio and Pep have or will have small children in there lives by the next time. This Trip also became a great Public Relations trip for the NACD and the NACD gained another business facility which is a great thing.