TRAVEL SPECIAL
Part one : In which Woz embraces his inner troglodyte
300 metres back in a Mexican cave , I reflected that if you had shoved me here at the start of the trip I would have been very , very unhappy . After a week of carefully structured , progressive training from Lanny Vogel at Underworld Tulum , Rob ( a very nice chap from Birmingham who cremates pets for a living ) and I were perfectly happy gently sculling along looking at the spectacular stalagmites , stalactites , columns and organ pipe flowstone formations that surrounded us , one eye on the permanent cave line , the other slowly moving the light around to look at the surroundings .
The beginning of the week started with a cavern dive at Dos Ojos , where we swam around a couple of pre-laid lines , all of the time within the blue glow of a daylight exit . We were looking at the beautiful rock formations made when the water level was lower and the caves were just dripping rather than
flooded . We surfaced in a cave full of bats when following the ‘ bat line ’ and saw a mildly disturbing ex-Barbie doll being mauled by a toy crocodile on the ‘ Barbie line ’. While this was very pretty , I was here with Nick Lyon to learn all about shoving ourselves up Mexican caves on an Intro to Cave course . Sadly , Nick had to bail , as on Day 1 he was bitten by an insect that caused his face to swell ( I am not a monster – I ’ m a MAN ) and so he wasn ’ t comfortable with full cave diving .
Rob and I had both previously done a GUE Fundamentals course , so were pretty evenly matched when it came to the basic platform of skills in a twinset- valve drills , donating the long hose and the five propulsion techniques to stop us from kicking up the silt or breaking the delicate cave formations as we moved about . Intro to Cave has some limitations – no deco , no passing through restrictions , use 1 / 6 of your gas for the initial penetration , and you need to be proficient at propulsion and have really good buoyancy and trim to move around in the caves . It ’ s a very specific
Below left : Pato the pooch – too wriggly for hand luggage
Below right : How you learn a back kick in a jungle
Bottom : The darkness beckons at Kukulkan
PHOTO : ELAINE WHITE
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