Cenote Cave Diving - A Fully Narrated Cave Dive

Hey there, this is Merida Cave Diver and for this video I wanted to do something a little different. I get a lot of people asking me all kinds of questions, so if you've ever wondered about cave diving, if you're curious about becoming a cave diver, or even just what it's all about, then this video is for you. Okay my partner Fernando has given the signal and we will start our descent. As we kick off the dive, I'll explain some things that we do, things that we consider, and as always if you have any thoughts, questions, or comments, just leave them below and I'll do my best to answer them. If you find this video interesting, feel free to press like and subscribe. I do want to highlight that there are many different styles and nuances to cave diving. The views and opinions in this video are my own. I'm not telling you how to dive, I'm not suggesting the way that I do it is the right way, and I'm in no way teaching or instructing. Each dive is different and there are a huge number of factors that go into each dive. I'm simply sharing for the purposes of observation. Today's dive is in an incredible cenote named Yalutzil. It's early in the day, the water is clear, and you can see my dive partner Fernando bringing out a primary reel. As we descend, the first thing you're going to see us do is make a primary tie. In all cave diving scenarios this is essential. Main cave lines are generally not in plain sight and prevent untrained people from entering a cave. The purpose of this tie off is that it serves as a diver's connection between open water and the main cave entrance. You might be wondering why we need this. Surely you can see light when you're at the mouth of a cave right? Well not in all cases. Today's dive is going to be a great example of a more complex opening, but you always have to have a plan for loss of visibility. The primary tie serves two purposes. One is a connection to the way out, but the second purpose leads us to a place where we can surface by going straight up. A few meters away we've hit our next mark. This will serve two purposes and you can see that Fernando is making a second tie. As you watch you're going to see Fernando and I remove an air tank and place them into what we call staging. Because we both know this cenote very well, our maximum depth is going to be 55 meters or roughly 180 feet. Because of the depth we're going to need to go through a process called deco or decompression. At a very high level as you're diving your body brings on and stores nitrogen especially at depth. As you come back to the surface you need to carefully regulate the amount of time you spend to allow your body to off gas this nitrogen. When we first started the dive you may have noticed that Fernando was carrying four tanks. The two attached to his side are regular air or 21% oxygen and then there were two attached to the back. One was 50% oxygen and one was 100% oxygen. Right now we're staging the 100% oxygen bottles and you'll notice that I wrapped the cave line around the clip twice. This is to prevent the bottles from sliding up and down the cave line. As we make our way to the next tie off point we're going to be stopping at around 20 meters or 66 feet. This is where we're going to be dropping our second tank. You might be wondering why we aren't even in the cavia. If you're a recreational diver you might be thinking that we're starting off kind of deep. One of the most interesting things about Merida and the Yucatan Peninsula is the depth of where the caves begin versus somewhere like Playa, Cancun or Tulum. Cave entrances around here typically begin at around 40 meters or 130 feet while on the coast they can start much shallower. To compensate for the added depth it's highly recommended that in addition to your cave courses you also go through the tech program and it's not uncommon for us to go up past 60 meters or 200 feet. We're almost at the first challenging part of this dive and I want to take a moment to touch on communication. From time to time you're going to notice that Fernando or I talk to each other or move our lights in a circular fashion. Communication is really important in cave diving and this is one of the ways we can signal to our partner that Before we drop into the restriction you'll notice that Fernando and I make sure everyone is okay and then we go into the restriction. One of the great things about this particular restriction is that you can see how tight it is. One of the things you can't see is that it's not straight. To get past it you have to immediately shoot down through the hole and then curve your body and flex to the right. Coming out is the reverse and it should be easier but it's not exactly what you think. As you can imagine because it's a tight fit and with many of the restrictions it's very common for visibility to get distorted. This is just a minor example but it underscores how important it is to know where you are and to have your bearings at all times. If you're wondering the primary line is up to my right and I know that Fernando is going to be in front of me as soon as I turn. As I mentioned earlier cave lines may not be near the mouth of the cave. In this case we still have not made it to our primary cave marker and we're still trying to follow the primary line. Up ahead you can see a white line that is going off into the darkness and this is where we begin the real adventure. Fernando is going to tie our primary line to the primary cave line. To help with the challenge of navigation he's also going to attach what we call a dive cookie or a dive marker. In this case our primary line is orange and our dive marker just reinforces the way out. Now if you're watching closely you're noticing that there's actually two cave lines coming off this rock in addition to the primary line that we're installing. Now in this example it's pretty easy to see which line we need to follow to go out but in a scenario when all of the lines are white you always put your dive cookie on the line that is going to take you home. The first part of this dive begins with a passage where your buoyancy has to be incredibly good. If we go too low we're going to stir up the dirt and lose visibility. If we go too high we're going to get caught on the cave ceiling. As I move through this restriction my knees are bent at 90 degrees to keep my flippers away from the dirt as I move. I can literally feel the surface gently below me and my heels are touching the top of the cave. It's that tight. In front of me you can see Fernando doing the same thing. He's doing an excellent job but even with that you can still see the silt coming off the ground. At all times I'm aware of where the cave line is and at this point it's to my left. I'm also aware that my partner is in front of me. As we move into a bigger chamber we can adjust our buoyancy and rise up a bit. While we dive I'm also looking out for reference markers or things that stand out. In this case here's another marker on the cave line. I take note of it because as I'm exiting later I'm going to want to reinforce that I'm going in the right direction. Important to note that caves can be very confusing and as unique as the chambers, passages and intersections are they do have a tendency to all look the same. It's extremely easy to get lost and during this dive I'll show you examples of all of these things but you always need to know where your line is and what you're going to follow. From time to time you're going to notice that Fernando and I have discussions underwater. Communication is extremely important and this can take place through a variety of light movements and different hand signals. As we come up to this next stage Fernando who is currently serving as the dive leader is going to point out a direction change. We're coming to an intersection it's known as a T and you may have noticed that I've moved my orientation to the primary cave line and it's now to the right of me. When you come to a T in a cave it's literally an intersection and it's one line that splits into multiple directions. To navigate these direction changes we use our dive markers. The dive leader will show me the cookie he plans to use, he'll install it on the line and it will be installed on the line that we need to follow back to the exit. This is very important because as you return you're not going to have to guess which direction to go. In this case Fernando is using what's known as a REM marker and you can tell which way to go because he places the longest face of the marker towards the exit. You'll notice that it's also in line with an existing cave marker arrow so now we have two points of reference here that show us the way out. Once in place I circle my light to signify that I'm okay with the situation and that I notice at the beginning of the cave it was extremely dark. The rocks had more of a brown tint to them but as we move further in you're going to notice that the rock formations start to change to more of a white color. Every cave while similar has some very very unique rock formations that While it's not easy to tell it's almost like we're going through a perfect tunnel but we're actually descending to 55 meters or 180 feet. One of the other things that I pay attention to while I'm diving is the sound of the bubbles and I can tell how closely where my head is in relation to the ceiling based off of the pitch that the bubbles are making. At this point in the dive my partner says that we're at the end and we're going to turn around. From time to time you're going to see markers on the cave line and they all point towards the exit. As we head back Fernando signals that we're going to be taking some more jumps and what that means is that we'll move from the primary cave line to an alternate cave line. Okay so here we are back at the T intersection and you can see the orange marker and the arrow telling us which way to exit. What Fernando is doing here is asking me how much decompression time I have, how much air I have and we've both made checks in the appropriate calculations to follow the next path. In order to speed things up and make this video a little bit shorter I've edited the footage to put us back at the primary intersection. Fernando is removing his dive marker and signaling towards the exit. On the way in you may or may not remember that we passed a blue dive marker. That marker actually indicates that there's something nearby and for us it's going to be the jump to another cave line. As we make our way towards the second marker I want to take a moment and briefly talk about air management. Cave diving is a little different than recreational diving because for us there is no up and out. Before we dive we calculate how much air we have in total. We break that amount up into thirds and we use one-third of our air to go in, one-third of our air to come out and and we're having a bit of a conversation. Basically we've ascended to a shallower depth and we've recalculated our thirds in relation to how much time we will need to spend in decompression. When you look across you might be wondering why would we bother to run a jump line from one cave line to another when they're so close together. It's planning for the unexpected. It's really important to realize that if there's ever a problem, let's say your lights go out or you lose visibility. These caves are extremely dark. It sounds dramatic but the price of failure is quite possibly death. It's not my intent here to scare you and I really don't want to be overly dramatic. Diving is very safe but accidents happen and things can go bad very quickly. More than likely the issue you're going to encounter is visibility but this underscores the importance of using navigational markers, jump lines etc. You only have a finite amount of the dive gets very exciting. You're going to experience what zero visibility is like. You're going to see how easily it can distort where you think you are and where you actually are. One of the most fascinating things about these caves in particular is that when you look at the bottom of the cave it looks like it's solid ground and as we pass over the top you see gentle clouds coming up from the surface. The truth though is that it's not solid. In fact it can be exceptionally deep and if you put your hand in it you can sink all the way up to your elbow in some cases. It's very misleading. It's a very fine dirt. There's literally no stability to it and it's almost like a puffy cloud. One of the things that I want to point out as we go through this passage is that it's becoming narrower and narrower. You're starting to see how the dirt gets disturbed and how my visibility is getting distorted. There's only two of us down here and what you're seeing is part of a normal dive. We've reached the end of this line and Fernando signals that we're going to turn around. Now normally when you're cave diving the first person in is going to be the last person out. However during our pre-dive discussion and because I'm filming we discussed that I was going to be the last diver in and the last diver out. What comes next though is an unexpected bonus. As I head back up you are seeing a really really good example of zero visibility. We're going back on the same cave line. It's to my left and you can't really see it and I can't really see it. It's very difficult to see exactly where I am and where I'm going. You should know that this doesn't happen on all dives and this isn't necessarily a normal cave diving scenario but at the same time I wanted to show you a variety of different situations. It's not uncommon to have visibility challenges and it's something that you should prepare for but there are also many huge caverns that one can dive through. I would not for example do this dive with someone who has just completed their cave certification. One of the joys of diving here in Mexico is that these formations can be incredibly challenging and incredibly beautiful. The video like many things doesn't really do it justice. On the flip side you might be experiencing some claustrophobia. A lot of my friends think I'm crazy. I wanted to put this video together to give you an accurate idea of what caving is like. You might notice that during the entire time my breathing stays go back to the primary cave line. Because we're so close and the visibility is clear I'm moving to the primary line. In a normal cave diving situation where you're not filming the diver call out in this video is everything we do is calm methodical and in some cases slow. When you're cave diving you never want to be panicked. You never want to be rushed and everything should be nice calm and logical. Just take your time. When everything is working right you have everything you need. If something goes wrong but you can breathe you still have everything you need. So take your time and sort out the situation. As we exit the cave we're going towards the primary cave line that My dive partner is signaling that he's okay and he's showing me the way out. At this point I'm going to move to the front of the line and I'm going to follow the cave line out. If you're wondering why I'm suddenly moving to the front it's because this is the very last line and without this line I would have no clue where to go if I lost visibility. You can see the restriction that I need to crawl through and you can see the light from the cenote. Just on the other side of this is going to be our first decompression tank. Coming through this opening was a little challenging and one of the fun things about cave diving is that it's like a mental puzzle. I can't see what's behind me and I can't see what I'm getting caught up on. So what I have to do here is gently push myself back into the hole, rotate a little bit and mentally line up my equipment so I can push through. I'd love to edit the video and show you that this last part where I just zoomed through with no issues but sometimes it's just not reality. Sometimes it takes a couple tries to figure out the restriction. Just remember calm, logical and relaxed. Up ahead you see our first decompression tank. This is our 50% oxygen what's otherwise known as nitrox. Before I go through the air switching process I'm waiting for my partner. It's incredibly it's important to work with your partner and go through a process that we call NOTOX. NOTOX is a process that is designed to keep divers safe. At various depths oxygen has different impacts on the body. What NOTOX does for us is it creates awareness around the tank we're using, the percentage of oxygen and how we go through the process of changing regulators and switching over to breathing a new gas. The very last thing we do when we're switching air mixtures is we adjust our dive computers. What this does is it allows our dive computer to recalculate our deco time at a 50% oxygen rate versus a 21% oxygen rate. We'll also do the same thing when we go higher up to say six meters deep and switch over to 100% oxygen. So let's talk about deco or decompression for a little bit. This is not a full course on decompression and there's going to be lots of things I leave out. The most high-level description is that as you're breathing underwater you have 21% oxygen and a mixture of nitrogen. Your body is going to absorb nitrogen and the deeper you go the more nitrogen it absorbs. As you come back up nitrogen has to leave your body. Deco is the process where we ascend to a certain level. Our computer tells us how long we have to wait and then we go to the next level. These stops and the time that it takes for you to do these stops gives your body a chance to naturally off gas this nitrogen. You may have heard about something known as the bends and for recreational divers this is more commonly known as a safety stop. But for divers like myself it's not uncommon for us to have to decompress for 30 minutes or even longer. This is why we use different mixtures of air and it helps us reduce the amount of time that we're hanging out underwater waiting for nitrogen to leave our body. In my next few videos I'm going to cover why I went into caving, the type of gear that we use, why we use it, and whether or not it's worth it. Thanks very much for watching and I hope you really got some value out of this.