A different kind of diving
Most of the dives I have made before coming here have been in the sea. I like it there: the sun shining through clear, blue water on to brightly coloured coral; fish everywhere; little shrimps that clean your nails (yes, really, even in Scarborough apparently); everything very Finding Nemo.
Here, it's a bit different. We do have a nice reef stretching out from the beach and the diving there is fun, but the real interest is in the cenotes you find in the jungle that covers most of the Yucatán peninsular right down to the coast.
Cenotes are holes in the Earth's crust where rock has collapsed to reveal an underground water system below. The Yucatán has no above-ground rivers to speak of. Instead, water flows from inland mountains to the sea via a complex and mostly unexplored network of underground channels. Over the years (by which I mean millennia) the roofs of some of these channels have fallen in, forming cenotes. Some are little more than a few centimetres wide but others are the area of a big village pond or more. The Mayans believe(d) these holes give access to the afterlife and many sacred Mayan sites are built near them. It's estimated there are probably something like 6,000 of these holes into the world beyond/below in the Yucatán jungle, but only about 2,400 have been mapped.
There are many things that appeal about cenote diving. Most cenotes are in great settings – pools of azure-blue water surrounded by the lush green of the jungle; wildlife everywhere; and the feeling of being a long way from the manmade world (though, as they are on private land, they do tend to have a ticket booth and breeze-block "toilets"). The water itself is silky smooth and totally clear, as it really hasn't done anything more than filter through miles of limestone rock. And they form entrances to a mysterious system of underwater caves and channels that stretches across the whole of the peninsular.
Before anyone gets concerned, what I am not doing here is proper cave diving. Cave diving is dark, scary and difficult, the underwater equivalent of potholing, and I have no desire to squeeze myself through some tiny rock hole in the pitch black 20 metres underwater. (And, even if I wanted to, I'm not qualified to do that. It takes a lot of very serious training.) Instead, in a normal cenote dive, you go down and through spacious rock channels that lead either back on themselves or to another cenote maybe 50 metres away.
And you see some amazing things. These caves were not always underwater and many of them are chock-full of stalactites and stalagmites, like beautiful underwater cathedrals. In a dive four of us did this morning, at a cenote called Tajma Ha, we came across a group of stalagmites neatly piled up by Mayans when the water level was lower, perhaps for taking to another site – you see stalagmites used as decoration in the Mayan ruins. In another, you can see a circle of black on the rock floor, now deep underwater, where, when the caves were dry, someone lit a fire.
But, for me, the best moment is when you approach another cenote. There, above you in the distance, is an block of vivid blue where the sun is shining through the water from the world outside, and silhouetted against it are plants and tree roots and, often, the skinny white legs of snorkelers as they paddle around the pool above.
At Tajma Ha, if the conditions are good, you can also see what is called a halocline, where fresh water from the mountains floats above the heavier salt water from the sea. The two don't mix and the border between them forms a wavy mirror that seems to hover in front of you. It's a magical thing to see.
Back in the real world, I am beginning to appreciate how much work I have to do to become a divemaster. I have added a list to the sidebar on the right of the page and I'll put a little tick when I have done each stage. Wish me luck.
Here, it's a bit different. We do have a nice reef stretching out from the beach and the diving there is fun, but the real interest is in the cenotes you find in the jungle that covers most of the Yucatán peninsular right down to the coast.
Cenotes are holes in the Earth's crust where rock has collapsed to reveal an underground water system below. The Yucatán has no above-ground rivers to speak of. Instead, water flows from inland mountains to the sea via a complex and mostly unexplored network of underground channels. Over the years (by which I mean millennia) the roofs of some of these channels have fallen in, forming cenotes. Some are little more than a few centimetres wide but others are the area of a big village pond or more. The Mayans believe(d) these holes give access to the afterlife and many sacred Mayan sites are built near them. It's estimated there are probably something like 6,000 of these holes into the world beyond/below in the Yucatán jungle, but only about 2,400 have been mapped.
There are many things that appeal about cenote diving. Most cenotes are in great settings – pools of azure-blue water surrounded by the lush green of the jungle; wildlife everywhere; and the feeling of being a long way from the manmade world (though, as they are on private land, they do tend to have a ticket booth and breeze-block "toilets"). The water itself is silky smooth and totally clear, as it really hasn't done anything more than filter through miles of limestone rock. And they form entrances to a mysterious system of underwater caves and channels that stretches across the whole of the peninsular.
Before anyone gets concerned, what I am not doing here is proper cave diving. Cave diving is dark, scary and difficult, the underwater equivalent of potholing, and I have no desire to squeeze myself through some tiny rock hole in the pitch black 20 metres underwater. (And, even if I wanted to, I'm not qualified to do that. It takes a lot of very serious training.) Instead, in a normal cenote dive, you go down and through spacious rock channels that lead either back on themselves or to another cenote maybe 50 metres away.
 |
| Divers can go down, along and up into another cenote. Cave divers will go for the scarier bit further down. It's usually much more gentle than these brutal verticals and horizontals suggest |
And you see some amazing things. These caves were not always underwater and many of them are chock-full of stalactites and stalagmites, like beautiful underwater cathedrals. In a dive four of us did this morning, at a cenote called Tajma Ha, we came across a group of stalagmites neatly piled up by Mayans when the water level was lower, perhaps for taking to another site – you see stalagmites used as decoration in the Mayan ruins. In another, you can see a circle of black on the rock floor, now deep underwater, where, when the caves were dry, someone lit a fire.
But, for me, the best moment is when you approach another cenote. There, above you in the distance, is an block of vivid blue where the sun is shining through the water from the world outside, and silhouetted against it are plants and tree roots and, often, the skinny white legs of snorkelers as they paddle around the pool above.
At Tajma Ha, if the conditions are good, you can also see what is called a halocline, where fresh water from the mountains floats above the heavier salt water from the sea. The two don't mix and the border between them forms a wavy mirror that seems to hover in front of you. It's a magical thing to see.
Back in the real world, I am beginning to appreciate how much work I have to do to become a divemaster. I have added a list to the sidebar on the right of the page and I'll put a little tick when I have done each stage. Wish me luck.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated to avoid spam, so there might be a delay before they appear.