.....it's a feeling that I've never never never had before. For those of you who now the Avicii song, that is basically how I feel right now. Today was one of the best diving days ever. We have been diving the Cenotes in Yucatan, Mexico for the last few days.
For those of you who don't know what a cenote is, here is a one alinea summary (feel free to skip it, but it is quite interesting if I may say so myself): Some 65 milion years ago, the Yucatan peninsula was a massive coral reef below the sea. During the last iceage this reef rose above the see a lot. Because it was limestone (thanks to the coral reef), caves formed in it, just like in Limburg or the "grotten van Han" in Belgium and the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa in Mexico.
Unlike those caves though, after the last iceage (think about rising sealevels...), they partially submerged again. Not to the old level though, else many american schoolkids wouldn't have beaches to get drunk on during spring break, and maybe equally important ;) the Mayan's wouldn't have had their nice peninsula either. But because of the porous limestone rock, all fresh water seeps through it, and forms a layer of fresh water on top of the salt water beneath.
That fresh water is what the mayans drunk (and basically we still do today), but again more importantly, it also creates a very beatiful mixture of fresh and salt water to dive in, together with other facinating geological effects. During the time the caves were dry though (a few tens of thousands of years) really beautiful stalachtites and stalachmites formed as well(amongst other things), just like in those other famous caves. So basically, you have hundreds miles of caves, many connected. Sometimes the roof of a cave get's thin though (especially with disolving limestone), and it collapes and leaves a nice round hole in the earth with water beneath. That is called a cenote. There are a whole lot of them (hundreds? thousands?) dotted around Yucatan with interconnecting tunnels, and tunnels leading to the open ocean. The largest system is over 200km long. There area plenty of open cenotes all over, for easy access, and to allow diving in caves (mainly caverns for us actually) with surface air and natural light always close by, usually in sight.
That is enough of a geology lesson (I always found this interesting as a kid), but more interesting is the "feeling I've never never never had before" as Avicii puts it. Have you ever wa(/o)ondered through those touristy caves thinking how beautiful they are but also how cool it would be to explore those caves without all the tourists? And have you ever thought about how cool it would be to be able to fly? Or have you ever driven in the countryside early in the morning or in the evening and seen the mist in the fields on the side of the road, thinking there should be a ghost standing below that single tree? Well, all of those feelings, and more, came true today.
Doing the cavern diving we did the last few days, with today as a highlight, you basically fly weightless through those caves. The formations are incredible, and because the water is so clear, you sometimes forget there is water at all and really feel like you're flying. While following a route, you see side passages opening left and right (itching to go in, but knowing you can't), you fly over a hill, around a pillar, past a gallery of stalachtites and stalachmites, and down again into the next tunnel. An air pocket at the top of a cave creates a mirror reflecting all light from your torch down, creating a lightshow on the rocks below. When the water get's shallow, you stick your head above it and there are bats flying around, and meter thick tree roots penetrate the cave top to get to the water below. And then you go down again to continue your route. To top it all, on one dive, there is a single hole (filled with water of course), going down 30m from the opening of the cenote, where sunlight really shines down in rays to the bottom. A clear blue ocean with beams of light shining all the way down. And you're halfway on the wall, seeing both the trees 20m above you around the rim of the cenote, and the beams of light on the bottom on a white cloud of hydrosulfuric acid 10m below. The cloud of hydrosulfuric acid occurs naturally in the water (waste product from plant material breakdown by bacteria) and forms a white nebula of multiple layers. Swiming through that feels like flying through the mist in a mysterious magical landscape. Branches of fallen trees stick up from the bottom of the cave through the nebula. You expect a black crow to sit on a branch and fly off, to inform the witch of that nebula you are there. Playing with your hand and torch through the nebula makes it swirl and move around. The diver next to you is broken up in slices by the thin layers of nebula between you.
When you go up again and get close to the end of the dive, you see light from other small cenotes as green aquaria in the distance, with crystal clear water, fish and plants in them, and ocasionally a snorkler (if your later, a lot of them actually, but we were early birds). And when you surface again in your cenote, their are plenty of birds around, like motmots with beautiful colors and tails or weaver birds.
Although this might sound too fantastic, and indeed it is multiple very different dives compressed, all these things we've seen and felt in just a few dives. And many more things, like frodo scrambling through mordor below mount doom, or swimming between the mangroves seeing fish(y) parents garding their young, or molly's like you see them in an aquarium compete for mates between the water lilies growing to the surface.
For those of you who don't know what a cenote is, here is a one alinea summary (feel free to skip it, but it is quite interesting if I may say so myself): Some 65 milion years ago, the Yucatan peninsula was a massive coral reef below the sea. During the last iceage this reef rose above the see a lot. Because it was limestone (thanks to the coral reef), caves formed in it, just like in Limburg or the "grotten van Han" in Belgium and the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa in Mexico.
Unlike those caves though, after the last iceage (think about rising sealevels...), they partially submerged again. Not to the old level though, else many american schoolkids wouldn't have beaches to get drunk on during spring break, and maybe equally important ;) the Mayan's wouldn't have had their nice peninsula either. But because of the porous limestone rock, all fresh water seeps through it, and forms a layer of fresh water on top of the salt water beneath.
That fresh water is what the mayans drunk (and basically we still do today), but again more importantly, it also creates a very beatiful mixture of fresh and salt water to dive in, together with other facinating geological effects. During the time the caves were dry though (a few tens of thousands of years) really beautiful stalachtites and stalachmites formed as well(amongst other things), just like in those other famous caves. So basically, you have hundreds miles of caves, many connected. Sometimes the roof of a cave get's thin though (especially with disolving limestone), and it collapes and leaves a nice round hole in the earth with water beneath. That is called a cenote. There are a whole lot of them (hundreds? thousands?) dotted around Yucatan with interconnecting tunnels, and tunnels leading to the open ocean. The largest system is over 200km long. There area plenty of open cenotes all over, for easy access, and to allow diving in caves (mainly caverns for us actually) with surface air and natural light always close by, usually in sight.
That is enough of a geology lesson (I always found this interesting as a kid), but more interesting is the "feeling I've never never never had before" as Avicii puts it. Have you ever wa(/o)ondered through those touristy caves thinking how beautiful they are but also how cool it would be to explore those caves without all the tourists? And have you ever thought about how cool it would be to be able to fly? Or have you ever driven in the countryside early in the morning or in the evening and seen the mist in the fields on the side of the road, thinking there should be a ghost standing below that single tree? Well, all of those feelings, and more, came true today.
Doing the cavern diving we did the last few days, with today as a highlight, you basically fly weightless through those caves. The formations are incredible, and because the water is so clear, you sometimes forget there is water at all and really feel like you're flying. While following a route, you see side passages opening left and right (itching to go in, but knowing you can't), you fly over a hill, around a pillar, past a gallery of stalachtites and stalachmites, and down again into the next tunnel. An air pocket at the top of a cave creates a mirror reflecting all light from your torch down, creating a lightshow on the rocks below. When the water get's shallow, you stick your head above it and there are bats flying around, and meter thick tree roots penetrate the cave top to get to the water below. And then you go down again to continue your route. To top it all, on one dive, there is a single hole (filled with water of course), going down 30m from the opening of the cenote, where sunlight really shines down in rays to the bottom. A clear blue ocean with beams of light shining all the way down. And you're halfway on the wall, seeing both the trees 20m above you around the rim of the cenote, and the beams of light on the bottom on a white cloud of hydrosulfuric acid 10m below. The cloud of hydrosulfuric acid occurs naturally in the water (waste product from plant material breakdown by bacteria) and forms a white nebula of multiple layers. Swiming through that feels like flying through the mist in a mysterious magical landscape. Branches of fallen trees stick up from the bottom of the cave through the nebula. You expect a black crow to sit on a branch and fly off, to inform the witch of that nebula you are there. Playing with your hand and torch through the nebula makes it swirl and move around. The diver next to you is broken up in slices by the thin layers of nebula between you.
When you go up again and get close to the end of the dive, you see light from other small cenotes as green aquaria in the distance, with crystal clear water, fish and plants in them, and ocasionally a snorkler (if your later, a lot of them actually, but we were early birds). And when you surface again in your cenote, their are plenty of birds around, like motmots with beautiful colors and tails or weaver birds.
Although this might sound too fantastic, and indeed it is multiple very different dives compressed, all these things we've seen and felt in just a few dives. And many more things, like frodo scrambling through mordor below mount doom, or swimming between the mangroves seeing fish(y) parents garding their young, or molly's like you see them in an aquarium compete for mates between the water lilies growing to the surface.
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