Tulum, Mx: The Pit (shallow) and Dos Palmas (08-SEP-2012 & 09-SEP-2012)

I flew into Cancun and used USA Transfers (I almost always do) to and from Tulum. It was $145 round trip and they now accept PayPal and credit cards to pre-pay. As always, I had a flawless experience.
I arrive in Tulum at Cave Heaven and as promised, Adam and Gracie were waiting for me to let me in and show me to my quarters, where to store my gear, etc. I had to do a couple of final work calls before calling it quits for the week but then wrapped up. The room is very nicely done and comes with refrigerator, fan, A/C with remote, TV, and 2 beds. It's right inside their facility. The storage locker is private for my gear, also inside the facility.

Saturday, 08-SEP-2012
I roll out of bed to join Adam at iTour for a coffee and some emails. The folks @ iTour are a trip. We make our way to The Pit (after discussions) and I pay the $150,00 MXN entrance fee. The Pit entrance is reached via the Dos Ojos entrance, very close to Cave Heaven (more or less 4-5 miles). Adam leads the dive and I call about 200 psi before thirds (no flow and about a 45 minute swim back without flow!). The beautiful upstream dive was chock full of decorations and interesting cave. We stayed mainline just because. We discussed the various options and I made this choice for various reasons. It was crystal clear Mexico cave and highly enjoyable. The downstream was also quite well decorated and had some twists and turns. I forget which dive but we did a beautiful jump, saw some animal bones, and headed back to shower then go grab some dinner. Unfortunately my Hollis 16W (LM) light crapped out on dive 2 after about a total of 3 hours burn time. I switch to my DRIS 1000 lumen backup and it took us out.
We ate at the Italian place 100 meters away. The owner (Tony?) was very accomodating to my choices and served a great meal. The 2 old men then called it a great relaxing day 1.

Dive 1, Upstream The Pit:
Max Depth: 47'
Avg Depth: 33'
Run time: 97 minutes
Bottles: AL80s, sidemount config
Breathing gas: 32% EANx
Deco: ha ha, nope

Sunday, 09-SEP-2012
I roll out of bed to join Adam at iTour for a coffee and some emails again. The folks @ iTour are still a trip. We discussed again trying to hit a site I haven't been (did my full cave with Cave Heaven and have done several guided trips with them). They're actually building a database to keep such records - a nice thing to have.
We make our way to Dos Ojos again to enter the Dos Palmas area. I pay the $50,00 MXN entrance fee. What a deal! Clean, new bathrooms, easy entrance, and a friendly bunch of folks make this a bargain. The dives made it a better bargain. They have a monkey on a chain which didn't make me very happy but it probably is good for most tourists.
Adam again leads the dive. This time we're fighting Telford-ish flow. Huh??? Yup, it was there. I even got a little tired at one point. The upstream dive was much roomier cave as we headed towards the main Dos Ojos entrance. I called at 51 minutes knowing we were both approaching thirds and it was time to turn around and enjoy the ride out. I really enjoyed the downstream part of the dive. It was much smaller cave with more decorations and tighter passage. There was nothing tight, just tighter than upstream. Our plan was to call @ 45' due to us essentially diving with the flow on penetration. We did a jump that took us against the flow and after 11 minutes from hitting the arrow, we saw gold line so we turned and picked up our jump and continued on into the cave. We reached another cenote (High Voltage) and surfaced. Stunning. Really pretty place. Ok, time to go. We fight the flow on the way out and see some crystal clear cave just like we saw on the way in. My primary light failed again, this time after only about 2.5 hours of total burn time. The DRIS light again took us out. After the dive I made my way to the men's room and upon leaving, walking down the stairs, my feet slipped out from under me and I landed horizontal on my back on the stairs. I saw serious stars and it took me almost a full 2 minutes to get up. I'm in a lot of pain now. Point of telling you this? BE CAREFUL on those stairs. A special thanks to Adam for helping with gear, etc, after that.
USA Transfers was great. Adam provided yet another great experience. My trip to MC after was fine (oh those seats :( )....

Dive 2, Downstream The Pit:
Max Depth: 49'
Avg Depth: 36'
Run time: 85 minutes
Bottles: AL80s, sidemount config
Breathing gas: 32% EANx
Deco: ha ha, nope

References
http://www.usa-transfers.com/
http://www.caveheaven.com/
I could get used to living this way.

Hey Steve. Nice write up. We've been talking about doing a short trip to Mexico, and the transfers info is helpful. We were trying to figure all of that out.

Steve, glad you enjoyed Dos Palmas! I never understand why nobody goes there . . . the entrance price is low, the amenities are very nice, and the cave is great in both directions, and good for a whole day of diving.

The Pit has the most spectacular cavern exit, right? Every time I reach the penetration reel, I always take the opporunity to stop and burn 100 psi just gazing up into that light! Almost makes me wish a had a rebreather ... almost :)

On the topic or airport transfers, you can get a taxi from the Cancun airport and you will pay less than half the amount you quote above.

Nice write up by the way. I am a huge fan of the Pit.

I love Google maps i always find the strangest things. Does anyone know what this picture is? It is about 15 KM south of Tulum on 307

Quote:

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Originally Posted by curtschu

I love Google maps i always find the strangest things. Does anyone know what this picture is? It is about 15 KM south of Tulum on 307

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It's a lagoon, can't remember the name of it now. Friends of mine have used it for deep diving courses, i don't think there's much cave there, but i could be wrong :)

I have always like Dos Palmas. There used to be two monkeys but notice last year they only had one. I haven't done many dives there since I have been full cave. There are so many jumps up stream that I would like to check out. Could probably spend a whole week there just checking out jumps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bherman

It's a lagoon, can't remember the name of it now. Friends of mine have used it for deep diving courses, i don't think there's much cave there, but i could be wrong :)

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There is three or four similar features south of Tulum on 307 I was thinking they might be tidal influenced on of the bigger ones looks like it has some type of building by it.

I remember doing dives upstream and downstream in Dos Palmas after my Intro class and definitely being surprised by the flow. I'd like to get back and see some of the side mount areas, such as these.

One of my first diving days after I finished my Full Cave class was joining my friend Jason Renoux at Dos Palmas. My goal was to take all the jumps. We started off upstream, and checked them out. Some circle back to the mainline; one ended up in what seemed like an endless bedding plane studded with small decorations, where the line zigged and zagged as though the people who explored it had no more idea where it was going than I had . . . after about 25 minutes of swimming in utterly perfect trim (because the space required it) and seeing no change in front of us, we turned the dive. Another lead went a few minutes to a fairly tight restriction between two speleothems . . . There's lots of fun to be had in Dos Palmas, and I haven't come anywhere near seeing all the side lines yet. In fact, were one to decide to explore every jump in the "tourist" caves in MX, one would be busy for a long, long time!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rongoodman

I remember doing dives upstream and downstream in Dos Palmas after my Intro class and definitely being surprised by the flow. I'd like to get back and see some of the side mount areas, such as these.

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Agree about Dos Palmas, and the other parts of Dos Ojos :)

But damn how i hate to watch idiots like the ones in the video, who thinks it's Ay OK to swim off the line in order to get better shots.
The lady scraped along the bottom umpteen times just in these few clips, can't help but wonder how much else was marked and how much was broken, because of their stupidity :(

Yeah -- what's the point in going to a sidemount configuration, if you are going to dangle a great big canister loosely underneath you like that? And with a light cord that's long enough to catch on everything, too. (I had that problem at first with my light, so I got the cord shortened, and it doesn't happen any more.)

I think the big blue battery canister is just for the video lighting--I've never seen her with it on other dives.