Posted: 7/26/2022 1:07:08 PM EDT
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Starting this now so I don’t forget. Epic trip coming up - going to Playa del Carmen next week for my full cave diving class in the MX cenotes. Hate MX with a passion, but it really restricts my diving if I don’t get this done now for a variety of reasons. Class is $250/day, plus fills and cenote entrance fees (no more than $25/day). The amount of gear I have to take with me is insane. First time I’ve ever flown with gear. I usually drive. This class is aluminum 80s and a 5mm wetsuit. Water temp will be around 75. I’m used to steel tanks and a drysuit. I’ve dived with aluminums and my wetsuit the last couple of weekends locally. The cenotes we’ll hit are: jardin del eden, tajma ha, minitauro, mayan blue (now called Escondido), car wash (car wash is called car wash as the taxi drivers used to wash their cars there). Won’t have to shlep gear. Instructor and I are sharing the cost of a porter aka scuba sherpa. 250 pesos a day. About $12. Great video of a MX dive. I don’t think I’ll be diving this one.  Bird Cage Cave Dive! (The longest cave in the world!) |
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Quoted: Try to sneak in a day to get out to the Palancar while you're down there. I don’t ocean dive. Fly in Wed afternoon. We’re allowing 5 days for class. Need 8 dives. If we get it done in 4 days, the fifth will be for fun dives. The Tuesday will be a veg day. Maybe lay around the pool. |
| Just stayed at Cancun for almost 2 weeks last month with the family. Visited Cenotes Christalino, Samaal, Jardin del Eden, and Azul. They are amazing and I'm thinking about getting certified to be able to dive them next time I'm there. It's a fun place, check out Chichen Itza and Coba ruins as well for some history in the area. Cozumel is a must and the ferrys are cheap and fast to get there. Good luck driving in Mexico, it's fun and like playing Mario Cart without the turtle shells. |
| Love MX, go all the time will retire to Baja. Tajma HA stretch the limits of Cavern vs Cave diving. The haloclines can be insane at times, like turn the dive around, I can't see the diver in front of me. Should be a blast as one of the ultimate Cave Diving systems in the world. |
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Quoted:  I just pee when I have to. Quoted: Quoted: Is it true you pee in a wet suit to help keep you warm? I just pee when I have to. Last time I peed in an open body of water, I got a staph infection in my urethra. Made my bladder itch like a bastard for a couple weeks till I got meds to clear it up. I dont know what was worse. Having an itch I couldnt scratch, or getting my pecker rodded. |
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Quoted: Just stayed at Cancun for almost 2 weeks last month with the family. Visited Cenotes Christalino, Samaal, Jardin del Eden, and Azul. They are amazing and I'm thinking about getting certified to be able to dive them next time I'm there. It's a fun place, check out Chichen Itza and Coba ruins as well for some history in the area. Cozumel is a must and the ferrys are cheap and fast to get there. Good luck driving in Mexico, it's fun and like playing Mario Cart without the turtle shells. @SPNKM3 Do you mean open water certified or cavern/cave? I’m not driving at all. Have a private shuttle for just me from Cancun airport to my hotel in PDC. Cave instructor will ferry me around the rest of the time. That’s standard for cave instructors to pick up students for diving. I’m also a student of a good friend of hers, my WI instructor.. so I may be getting some special treatment. 
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Car wash is simple. Worth a trip to Chichen Itza right before and then cool off with a car wash dive. Say hello to the baby croc that hangs out on the east edge. ETA- Dos Ojos is cool with a tight spot in between. One I never did was the one that pushes you out a tube into the ocean. I would have to look up the name of that one. There are so many down there that can be good dive spots. |
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Quoted: Car wash is simple. Worth a trip to Chichen Itza right before and then cool off with a car wash dive. Say hello to the baby croc that hangs out on the east edge. ETA- Dos Ojos is cool with a tight spot in between. One I never did was the one that pushes you out a tube into the ocean. I would have to look up the name of that one. There are so many down there that can be good dive spots. My knees are not up to any touring. Plus full cave class is all day and pretty damn intense. Dives will be 90-120 minutes EACH and there’s two a day. |
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Quoted: I'm not a fan of diving in general but diving in cenotes interests me from an archeological perspective. They have pulled some very interesting artifacts out of those over the years. This! How they got stuff that deep into them with zero technology is amazing to me |
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Quoted: I’ve dived down there. Absolutely fantastic. Just be careful to be the custodian of your own skills. There aren’t really any rules down there and many dive companies will let you do whatever the hell you want. Enjoy! https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/161250/FE45DC0E-BA2A-4E2C-9E6C-976F0385104E-2466274.jpg Open water divers and someone taking a full cave class under an instructor are two totally different things. I’m properly equipped - two tanks, three lights (one primary, two backups), reels, spools, cookies, and arrows. |
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Tajma Ha is a cool one, make sure to check it out. There's an "Easter egg" back in there, I won't spoil it for you. https://www.divecenotesmexico.com/taj-maha Chac Mool is a good one as well.... https://www.prodiveinternational.com/diving/mexico/cenotes/ |
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Quoted: How'd your buoyancy trim for aluminum vs steel, dry vs wet work out? It was fine. Needed 16lbs of lead with new 5mm and AL80s. Same as I need with steels 85s and drysuit with heavy thermals. New wetsuits are damned buoyant. Damned pain in the ass having to mess with moving bottom leash from butt plate to sliding D ring on waist belt. Steels behave themselves and don’t need that BS. |
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Quoted:
Starting this now so I don’t forget. Epic trip coming up - going to Playa del Carmen next week for my full cave diving class in the MX cenotes. Hate MX with a passion, but it really restricts my diving if I don’t get this done now for a variety of reasons. Class is $250/day, plus fills and cenote entrance fees (no more than $25/day). The amount of gear I have to take with me is insane. First time I’ve ever flown with gear. I usually drive. This class is aluminum 80s and a 5mm wetsuit. Water temp will be around 75. I’m used to steel tanks and a drysuit. I’ve dived with aluminums and my wetsuit the last couple of weekends locally. The cenotes we’ll hit are: jardin del eden, tajma ha, minitauro, mayan blue (now called Escondido), car wash (car wash is called car wash as the taxi drivers used to wash their cars there). Won’t have to shlep gear. Instructor and I are sharing the cost of a porter aka scuba sherpa. 250 pesos a day. About $12. Great video of a MX dive. I don’t think I’ll be diving this one.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AQQk3y3Qg0 |
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Congrats, I know you will love it, even if you dislike South of the Border travel. Did my Cavern and Cave there in the late aughts. Taj was fantastic. We were just starting to transition from film to digital then...and no gopros. You can grab great images now with a cheap wide angle and decent light, while we were using custom $7-10,000 camera/housing setups. The course milestones will make for long days of very high stress concentration. Make it an absolute that you will have time to relax each day prior to sleep. Your writeups on diving remain one of the best elements in this forum. Rocco |
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Stay on top of your navigation while you’re there; gap your jumps and place your cookies. Slow down: Full cave is about everything coming together. Take an extra 30 seconds to tie in your spool, plan your dive and then dive your plan. You’re going to be tired. Running a circuit or a traverse is twice the amount of work. Don’t be surprised if you do 5-6000 foot penetrations; Have fun! I’m Jelly 
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Quoted: We just returned from Cancun. Did a cenote dive. Just wore my swim suit and a rash guard. I was very comfortable. I think a wet suit would have been uncomfortable. That said, I normally do not wear a wet suit even when the rest of the family does. I’m going to be in the water for up to 2 hours. |
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Quoted: Hope you have an amazing and safe trip.. and get lots of cool pics  It’s a class. No photos except maybe last dive. I don’t haul a camera in a cave yet. I’ll ask instructor if she can take some at the end. Cave training is VERY intense. My cavern/intro class was like a firehose. |
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Quoted: Stay on top of your navigation while you’re there; gap your jumps and place your cookies. Slow down: Full cave is about everything coming together. Take an extra 30 seconds to tie in your spool, plan your dive and then dive your plan. You’re going to be tired. Running a circuit or a traverse is twice the amount of work. Don’t be surprised if you do 5-6000 foot penetrations; Have fun! I’m Jelly @jerrwhy01 I know I’m going to be beat. Going slow is the key! |
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Quoted: Congrats, I know you will love it, even if you dislike South of the Border travel. Did my Cavern and Cave there in the late aughts. Taj was fantastic. We were just starting to transition from film to digital then...and no gopros. You can grab great images now with a cheap wide angle and decent light, while we were using custom $7-10,000 camera/housing setups. The course milestones will make for long days of very high stress concentration. Make it an absolute that you will have time to relax each day prior to sleep. Your writeups on diving remain one of the best elements in this forum. Rocco @RockDiver Thank you! If the hotel has a decent bathtub, I’ll soak and read before bed. |
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I've dove two of the cenotes. AMAZING. Dos Ojos and an unremarkable one that I cant recall. The other one did have caiman in it and we did see one which was really cool. You can also do a night dive for caiman which I would recommend but didnt have time to do on my last trip. Its way up on my bucket list to go back and do some more cenotes, but below a GW shark dive. I'll get back there some day. Sadly, the outfit I booked through said they had GoPros so I didnt take mine. Guess what wasnt working when I showed up? FML. So no video. Wont make that mistake again.  Have fun! |
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The cenotes we’ll hit are: jardin del eden, tajma ha, minitauro, mayan blue (now called Escondido), car wash (car wash is called car wash as the taxi drivers used to wash their cars there). Won’t have to shlep gear. Instructor and I are sharing the cost of a porter aka scuba sherpa. 250 pesos a day. About $12. Yeah, you won't be hitting Nohoch Nah Chich in a class unless things have changed there. It's a beautiful system. I have fond memories of car wash, its just a hole until you submerge, if the duckweed is in season it looks nasty, but when you get under it. It looks cool. I did my training in Chac Mol, Taj Mahal, Naharon, Ponderosa, and car wash back in 1997. So.. be prepared to drink information from a fire hose so to speak. Be prepared for the for the best visibility you have probably ever seen. .FWIW the only time I didn't have to shlep gear was diving Nohoch Nah Chich during tropical storm mitch. As we used donkeys to get back into the jungle. I envy you  |
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Originally Posted By SeaDog951 :Yeah, you won't be hitting Nohoch Nah Chich in a class unless things have changed there. It's a beautiful system. I have fond memories of car wash, its just a hole until you submerge, if the duckweed is in season it looks nasty, but when you get under it. It looks cool.I did my training in Chac Mol, Taj Mahal, Naharon, Ponderosa, and car wash back in 1997. So.. be prepared to drink information from a fire hose so to speak. Be prepared for the for the best visibility you have probably ever seen. .FWIW the only time I didn't have to shlep gear was diving Nohoch Nah Chich during tropical storm mitch. As we used donkeys to get back into the jungle. I envy you I had awesome viz at Peacock and Ginnie in FL at Christmas. I got cavern/intro to cave two years ago at a former lead/zinc mine in SW WI. 50 degree water temp and maybe 20ft viz. Any viz is going to be better. |
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Quoted: I had awesome viz at Peacock and Ginnie in FL at Christmas. I got cavern/intro to cave two years ago at a former lead/zinc mine in SW WI. 50 degree water temp and maybe 20ft viz. Any viz is going to be better. You are probably going to see vis that will eat your light (meaning you would be able to see farther than you beam will reach and you wont be able to tell your light is ON unless its pointing at something). The water in there is super filtered by nature. Absolutely clear, or was. I don't know how much traffic the systems get now. It might spoil you. You going to cave diver Mecca. Have a blast |
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