PSAI - PSAI - CAVE DIVING TRIP TO MEXICO

CAVE DIVING TRIP TO MEXICO (PSAI DIVERS FROM CHINA)
Written by PSAI DIVER Wang Yuan
Photo by PSAI DIVER Wang Tao

After our fantastic trip in United States, we (8 Chinese PSAI divers) came to Mexico for cavern and cave diving in February. We all know Mexico caves have the best visibility and normally are very beautiful. We were looking forward to dive here a long time ago. Now our dream came true. Our main purpose is to see the beautiful caves but on the other hand, we want to learn more experience of cave diving and practice the skills. Cave diving has just started in China. We need to come out of China to see more and learn more. We spent 9 days in Playa del Carmen. We dived 8 different cenotes including KUKULCAN, CHAC-MOOL, TAJ MAHA, DOS OJOS, Nohoch Nah Chich, ANGELITA, GRAND CENOTE and PONDEROSE EDEN. Each of these cenotes is very complicated and need a long time to explore. We had very limited time so we just saw only a small part. When we dived in Taj MaHa, we saw the famous cave diving explorer Steve Gerrard. He was very kind to us and gave each of us one book called Cenotes of Riviera Maya. This was a very useful book for guiding us caving diving in Yucatan.

Before each dive, we planned our dive and checked the equipment carefully. We were never in a hurry. This is what I learned from my PSAI cave diving course in Florida. Take your time until everything is ok. This is our first time of taking pictures in caves. So we were very careful. We knew that the awareness may decrease when taking the pictures in unfamiliar caves. It may endanger the whole team's safety. So when I led the dives I set up our cookies on the line when we marched along the mainline. I paid more attention to the guideline and our team members’ gas pressure. We also hired a local cave diving guide at our back to support us. We found that in some caves the mainline deployment is not as clear as in Florida. Sometimes the jump line is too close to the mainline. This may lure some unintentional diver to the jump line but without knowing it.

We found that Dos Ojos and Nohoch Nah Chich were the most impressive to us. The white stalactites and stalagmites are everywhere in the caves. Best thing is that there are no haloclines. Because the caves are shallow we got longer bottom time. I really hope we can find some similar caves in China. But the reality is that the cave formation in China is different to those in Mexico. And the pollution from farming damaged many caves. Maybe there are better caves but hard to access. We will continue our work.

This time our teammate used the twin tanks although I used the sidemount. I found this is a very good way of equipment configuration. Especially good for cave diving in China for many caves in China are narrow and twin tanks is not always easy to get. But my Oxycheq is somewhat bumpy. I will look for a more streamlined sidemount equipment. We also tried to use the DPV in our cave diving. It was amazing. We could extend our exploration distance much easier. Knowing some basics of DPV cave diving, we decided to buy the DPV and practice in China. Next time when we come to Florida we will use DPV to see more.

Our next trip will be Truk Lagoon. Hope every diver dives safe in the New Year.

PSAI