Two days in Mexico with Jason Renoux
Hey guys, I decided to write up a little memoire of my honeymoon while it was fresh on my mind. I wrote it as a blog/forum post, and figured I'd post the Cave Diving section on here.
After getting in on Saturday, Chelsea and I decided to do an OW dive on the reef on Sunday. Partially to check our gear out, partially to just get a dive in. It was my latest attempt at getting an AL80 into proper SM trim. I dove around with very little luck in getting the tank sexy.
Monday morning we met Jason Renoux at 9:00AM in the hotel lobby. We loaded our dive gear up, went to grab tanks, and after a brief conversation were on our way to Chac Mool. The conversation consisted of me reminding him that I had no preference on where we dove, as it would be very different from JB regardless of where we went. I wanted him to take me somewhere he was confident that I would be okay and to take me somewhere he truly enjoyed. Jason was much more patient than he had to be. I wasn't sufficiently prepared for diving SM with AL80s. Boy, he was. He helped me get all of my stuff squared away and was very patient. We discussed the benefits of my rig (SMS100) vs a smaller rig (Stealth), and we discussed steel vs alu tanks. We discussed lollipop SPGs vs along the tank, and moving the tanks vs weighting the tanks. We did one dive at the Kukulkan entrance. At the surface, he did a spectacular pre-dive brief. My wife was not comfortable in overhead, not comfortable in the dark, and not comfortable in low vis. He made it exceptionally clear that she was able to call the dive at any time, and that as long as she maintained decent discipline, she'd be fine. After the first dive, her nerves went away and it was clear she was overly worried. My tanks looked okay, but not great. The second dive was on the same set of tanks, so we arranged the ability to accomodate for light alu tanks (my enemy). The beginning of the dive, the tanks were too low....but after a brief adjustment, they came around and started looking good. It was the first time my SM alu tanks truly looked good, and I have video to prove it! Anyway, the second dive started with another great, detailed pre-dive briefing. He made sure Chelsea was comfortable, and we proceded into the cavern at the Pequeno Hermano (Little Brother) entrance of the Chac Mool system. Chelsea did great. This dive was much darker than Kukulkan, and had some spots that were tighter than Kukulkan....not tight, but not as huge as the first dive. The second dive was prettier, and more of what I expected. Chelsea's air consumption was such that we were able to do the "contingency" and follow another cavern line around, completing a wonderful dive. All-in-all, I felt great. The only problem I had was that my canister light broke just before the dive and I was therefore stuck using my backup for the dive. It was just a cavern dive, so I was very comfortable with it. I left feeling good about my skills as a diver, but I wasn't enthralled by Mexico like I had come to expect. The forums and Joe Downing (a good buddy) had both set me up for a major disappointment. Well, Tuesday is a day of training...even if the cave isn't spectacular.
Tuesday started off the same way as Monday. Jason Renoux pulled up to the hotel's lobby promptly at 9:00AM, my gear was packed, and we headed off to pick up tanks. He was nice enough to swing by a couple places so I could pick up some supplies I hadn't yet had a chance to grab. We then swung by Zero Gravity so I could rent a canister light (test tube broke on Monday :smt013, they didn't have a replacement) before heading off to Minotauro. He said he wouldn't take me to anything gnarly/small because he was unsure of my abilities as a diver, but that I would love Minotauro. He said that even though he dove Minotauro fairly often while training students, he really liked it on a selfish level. He also said he felt it gave a good mix of big cave and some tighter places without being overly aggressive. He pulled out a whiteboard, drew a rough map of Minotauro, and gave a fantastic briefing and we planned to set up a circuit on dive 1 and complete it on dive 2. We discussed procedures such as permanent arrows, lights-out procedures, and a few etiquette points. At the surface, we discussed estimated times to major landmarks (he was right to within 2 minutes of every landmark) and that I would be dive leader and I would run the jump spool. We decided this as reel work is my biggest weekness, and I'm least comfortable up front...so I wanted pointers. Also, he said the Halocline in a couple sections was incredible, so I made note of them on my slate and we then proceeded to start the dive. We did an S-drill in both directions in the shallows before proceeding into the cave. As he predicted, we hit the jump in 18 minutes where I ran the spool over to the other line. The halocline was just as spectacular as I had been told. He described it as feeling like you were flying above water as the halocline layer mixed and swirled beneath you. Boy, was he right! It was spectacular. There were decorations everywhere, tight points, wide points, the haloclines were all incredible. Jason challenged me to keep track of the number of times I touched the cave. That got disheartening, quickly. My tanks both sagged a little low (my own fault, I'm fixing that now) causing a lot of the issues on the way in. I got frustrated once, to the point of needing to stop to collect my thoughts. I wasn't in danger of panicking, I was just in danger of being too mad at myself for lack of skill. I continued on with the dive and began enjoying it more after that. The tanks became lighter, so they were less in the way. I turned the dive just shy of thirds at 45min, dropped a cookie, and we exited. My exit was much smoother than my entrance. Watching Jason's fins stir up the halocline was incredible as a fluid dynamicist, as I got to see the vortices shed off of his fin tips. There was a section about 30ft long where the main line ran exactly at the top of the halocline, looking like it was floating on the surface of the "water" beneath me. At 81min, we were at the surface. We continued talking about protocols, preferences, and my skills and what I needed to work on. He said my biggest thing was to signal slightly more. In 81 minutes, I asked for an "OK" twice. Dive 2 in Minotauro went the same way, but I was much less frustrated and I was much more successful in terms of not contacting the cave. We reached the jump line in 15min, which Jason said would happen due to increase familiarity with the cave, and continued to find my cookie at ~20min. I had almost completed the circuit on AL80's on thirds. With my trusty HP100's or cave-filled LP85's I could've easily done it! Anyway, we followed the line out and got to a point we had agreed upon as a contingency. Since we had made it so far around the circuit, he had a "surprise" for me if gas allowed. It did, so he jumped to another line. His primary light was green, so no alarms went off in my head about seeing a green glow in the background until I realized his light was pointed at me, and there was light behind him. We had found another entrance! Well, not found...but he took me to the "Escalera" entrance of the Minotauro system. It was absolutely spectacular. We went back under, got back on the main line and headed for the exit. He took it upon himself to show me what his lights-out procedure was (I was taught differently)...so he killed the lights before proceeding to show me what he meant. We swam about 5 minutes before he turned the lights on. I was impressed by how calm I had remained in those circumstances, as I wasn't fully expecting it the way I would have expected it in one of the courses. We exited in ~65 minutes. This was the Cenote experience I had been hoping for. It was truly spectacular! I was sold 100%. I'm planning a trip back to the Riviera Maya next July, and I want to dive the Florida caves every weekend until then, just so I can be prepared for the trip.
Jason Renoux was a great guy. He was very relaxed when it wasn't important to be strict, but was absolutely down to business when it was time to dive. He was clearly very knowledgeable, and was clearly a very competent diver and instructor. He was patient, helpful, and really made it an enjoyable experience. I can't recommend him enough. I'm hoping to dive with him again in July....we'll see if the Director of Finances allows it :D.
