June 6, 2016 Small Cave
Diving small cave is perhaps the most dangerous form of cave diving there is. This is because small cave pushes the diver to her physical and technical limits. Your profile and equipment must be streamlined so as to fit in spaces that may require removing one tank in order to maneuver through the passage. The diver must be physically fit in order to maintain the body positions and workload required to navigate tight passages. Lastly, a cool mind is definitely an asset when pinned between bedding planes or locked in a twisted hole submerged deep within a cenote .
Zsolt and I like to dive small cave. This is one of the reasons that we are here in the Yucatan–the Yucatan is an utter Mecca of small cave caves.
Which brings me to today: On our second dive in Caterpillar, on the downstream side, we made a left turn onto a side-route. The cave became small as we swam between a bedding plane that eventually forced us to flatten our bodies, extend our fins, and lower our heads to avoid scraping our helmets on the ceiling.
The bedding plane eventually gave way to a narrow corridor that could only be navigated by swimming sideways–we must have looked like the orcs of Moria scurrying along the wall–until the hallway compressed us into a narrow restriction that made a ninety degree turn. We navigated the hole by twisting upward in a corkscrew to ultimately slither into a new corridor.
From the corridor we pulled ourselves along the floor using nubbins and edges through another section of bedding planes until we reached 1/3 of our gas supply which was about 42 minutes into the dive. Here we reversed the process and returned to the safety of the surface.
Overall it was an 83 minute dive and the best of the trip so far.
Enjoy the video!