PHOTO : ELAINE WHITE
Above : A spooky halocline at Angelita
Right : Neoprene blindfold foxes Woz
Below right : “ Fancy a cave dive by yourselves ?” Mayan Blue Cenote
adding your own arrow marker to indicate the way out , all just using touch alone . We had one dive where all three of my lights ‘ broke ’, Rob ’ s primary also ‘ broke ’ so he shared one of his backups , which also ‘ broke ’, albeit with me putting up quite a bit of a fight with Lanny chuckling through his reg trying to wrestle it from my grip .
The entrance to the cave systems are away from the Cavern Zone , to prevent divers from being tempted into a cave that ’ s beyond their training or experience . To get to the line , you have to tie your own primary reel in the open water area , with a secondary tie-off in the overhead part , both identifiable by touch so that if you have to navigate out by feel alone , you know when you are at the end of the line . As there can be a couple of lines in a cave , we marked our lines using cookies , a circular plastic disc that you can identify by touch and sight . A spare cookie from both Rob and I made it onto the cookie line strung up round the Palapa , the bar at Underworld Tulum .
Laying a decent line is much more than just letting it run out behind you – as you deploy it , you have to remember that you may be following it by touch alone , and that anyone already in the cave may be doing the same . So a bit of courteous , well thought out routing is needed , keeping it low and tight , avoiding line traps – places where the line can go but a diver can ’ t – and not zig-zagging all over the place . It ’ s quite a challenge . Rob and I both found that the added complexity of laying a neat line , for the first few dives , would increase our gas consumption . This got better as the course progressed , and the techniques became more natural .
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