I’d looked up a diving company weeks before we left and booked my day of diving.
Also, on a whim I decided to take a nitrox course, because why not. Erik at Beyond Diving in Playa was a fantastic guy to work with on this. He encouraged my questions and answered most of them with patience. I’m now nitrox certified for scuba, which I hope will come in handy. This experience also taught me how better to plan my own dives if I know where we’re going before hand – a necessity for nitrox diving.
I woke up early and caught a cab to his dive shop 40 blocks up the street. It was me, Erik and another instructor from Colorado diving that day, and everyone was super friendly and excited about the day. We drove down to The Pit first.
The Pit is a 130 foot dive with a hydrogen sulfide layer at about 110, and a fresh/salt water layer at 60. We got everything ready and headed in.
As soon as we got to 60 feet though,I noticed my camera housing was filling with water. The lens port had chime undone, despite me checking it 5 times. I was pissed, but I tried to move on. I asked Erik if I could put it back up at the top so I didn’t have to carry it. Minutes later, angry and with no camera we descended.
The fresh/salt layer was the first interesting part. It’s like someone put a fairly sharp Photoshop blur over your mask. You pass through it quickly and continue descending.
At 110ish, you find the HS. In photos, it’s like a bright sea green cloud. You drop through it and come out the other side and look up at the cloud you just passed through. Unfortunately, in our case the cloud had descended a bit further and when we got to 130 we were still in it a bit. (Only a bit – I couldn’t see Erik 5 feet front of me as we posed through it). So no looking up. 🙂
We started slowly circling up and around the giant cavern. It really is just a giant hole in the ground…Which I find fascinating!
40 minutes of diving later we surfaced near some French free divers. I grabbed my camera and they commiserated with me about my loss. I’d probably be more angry if this hadn’t been the third piece of electronics I’d busted in the last 365, or the third piece busted while doing diving related things. At some point you just have to laugh…(and then reevaluate yourself…)
We drove next to Dos Ojos, slightly more touristy because snorkeling there is very interesting still.
Right now, this is my favorite place on this coast. It’s totally chill. People are there and some have things for sale, but it isn’t crowded and no one was in my face. Add on the amazing natural surroundings, and it’s just fantastic!
Dos Ojos is two cenotes connected by a series of underwater caves. It’s stunning, and currently my favorite dive ever. If you dive, I recommend it highly. I won’t say much more, and will leave it to the photos to help me out.
We did two dives there and then left to get food. Erik took us to a little taco shop who’s name escapes me, but it was a tasty meal after a long day.
We drove back to his shop and I took my nitrox test. 76%…C+ is ok my books…We went over my mistakes and clarified them. Unfortunately, that was the end of a long day and i just wanted to go lie down, when instead i had to take an exam and I made several easy mistakes.
Photos to follow in a few minutes!
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