"The Pit" October 2009

[MedCop]

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.





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"





The road actually got worse...the "bad road" on the last leg leading to "The Pit"





We set up our gear and prepared to "enter the water" in the only approved method...we jumped!





Our gear was lowered down to us and we geared up in water and on the wooden platform.




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.



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.

[Attchoum]

now I understand... a friend call me few days ago to say: Hey Etienne, how was your dive in the pit?
I answer: I didn't dive the pit in the last month
He say: Yes, you did, I saw your revo

Now everything is clear

I agree whit you, the pit is probably the most amazing cenote in the area. The most amazing thing is that anyone can dive it and love it. Open water can dive the cavern zone if they are whit a guide and they gonna have the dive of the life. Intro to cave can dive the two cave line because there no restriction and no T. full cave can dive the same line but explore the 54 jumps in the areas or try to do a traverse from Dos Ojos. Sidemount diver can go into the hided line whitch is a side/no-mount. and finally, trimix divier have two very deep line.

I like guiding in the pit. (except when I need to cary a twin set) Unfortunatly the logistic is a little harder.

Im curious about your dive. When you say you toke the wrong line, did you meen that you took the cadeas passage down and take the T that lead to Bypass passage, and then back on main line to go down to Heineth passage? Or did you start on lins and walter line and then switch to cadeas line ???

Did you use our deco bell ???

anyway, it's good to see that it's not only me that is addicted to the pit.

Etienne

[MedCop]

....

Im curious about your dive. When you say you toke the wrong line, did you meen that you took the cadeas passage down and take the T that lead to Bypass passage, and then back on main line to go down to Heineth passage? Or did you start on lins and walter line and then switch to cadeas line ???

Did you use our deco bell ???

.....

In the mag / image you posted we took the line going down into the deep section on the right that pinches off then made our way over to the line going towards the Wakulla room. We didn't know what line we should actually take when we started the dive, and we guessed wrong, but it was great and we saw a ton of cave. We switched to what I believe is the cadeas line, came to a "Y or T" in the line one going to a shallower type restriction and we took the deeper line leading to the lower. Like I mentioned we turned before going into the Wakulla Room due to time.

We took a look inside the bell but didn't deco out of it.

BTW...I left a white Cookie (on purpose) on the line at the "Y or T - whatever you want to call it" it has my initials NS and says NATE on it.

[Attchoum]

BTW...I left a white Cookie (on purpose) on the line at the "Y or T - whatever you want to call it" it has my initials NS and says NATE on it.

I'm the shallow support of the team. I haven't dive that deep yet.
If I go there, I will write something on your cookie...

Etienne