Mexico – Day 9: The Pit, Nicte-Ha and a quasi-religious experience

This morning the shop owner asked my dive guide where she wanted to take me today. And she said, completely casually, "Pit, Nicte". Short for "the Pit" and "Nicte-Ha". And just like that, two advanced cenotes were on the plan. My partner took a quiet day today and I set off alone with the guide.

And honestly, I still don't really know how to describe that first dive. It was almost a religious experience.

We arrived after a long bumpy drive through the jungle, just as everyone else was leaving. During the briefing we stood at the rim of the cenote and she explained the dive to me. She pointed at a smaller opening in the rock and said that sometimes a second beam of light falls into the water there, if you happen to be there at exactly the right time. Spoiler: half an hour later we were there at exactly the right time.

After about five minutes we were the only people in the water. The water was unbelievably clear, and both beams of light, one huge and one smaller, fell through the entire cenote down to the hydrogen sulphide layer at around 30 metres. It looked completely absurd.

At about 14 or 15 metres we first passed through a halocline, where fresh and salt water mix. The water suddenly goes completely blurry, roughly as if you were looking through oil being swirled into water. At the same time it threw bizarre, flickering shadows onto the walls when you shone a light on it. It took surprisingly long until we were all the way through. And then the white fog of the hydrogen sulphide layer below us was suddenly quite close.

That is not really the bottom of the cenote. But everything below it is too deep without deep-dive training anyway, and it only continues into a real cave from there. So, out of bounds. 😉 We then slowly circled along the wall, under overhangs and between stalactites. And then branches and tree trunks suddenly loomed out of the fog. It looked creepy and beautiful at the same time. I almost cried. Then I looked up and saw the two shafts of sunlight dancing all the way down from the top to that fog. At which point I almost cried again. Very impractical underwater. So I refrained. ^^

After that we ascended very slowly, exploring little niches and overhangs on the way and coming back again and again into the big illuminated shaft. Every time a small cloud passed in front of the sun, all the light went out for a moment. Not really dark, but the whole cenote suddenly had a completely different mood. And then the sun came back. And all the lights were on again. The full show. During the briefing my guide had also mentioned that from a certain spot you can see the colour difference between fresh and salt water. And so it was: the salt water below was deep blue, the fresh water above had a greenish tint.

I was, uh, largely speechless. Which, given the length of this blog post (we are only at dive 1 ^^), is obviously not true. Tiny detail: while loading the truck I had accidentally packed my partner's XL wetsuit. I normally wear S or M. That was a bit impractical. Just a smidge. The neck opening was so wide that I tied it together with a hair tie. Around one wrist I wrapped my headband, around the other I pulled the dive computer as tight as it would go. The suit was still absurdly big. xD Another fun fact: yesterday I did not, as I had thought, dive with four kilos of lead, but only two in total. WHAT? Good thing I didn't know that yesterday. ^^ I would have thought I needed more with a 5mm suit.

The descent was therefore a bit tricky with the enormous suit and two kilos of lead. On the first attempt I briefly thought I might not get down at all. So we surfaced again, took a breath, and I tried once more. All the air out of my lungs and staying as motionless as possible. The air pockets in the far too large suit still kept rolling me onto my back, and I had to push myself back onto my front with my hands. Very dignified. 😀 But I got down. And from that moment on the dive was simply glorious. My guide said afterwards that she had kept checking on me, but each time only thought: ah no, she is doing fine.

The second cenote was Nicte-Ha. From the outside it looks like a beautiful pond full of water lilies. That is also the picture you see everywhere online. The water lilies are only the bait, though. The actual line, which we dived in and then back out again, was more of an obstacle course over long stretches. It went through cavern sections, up, down, around tight corners, between stalactites and stalagmites. In some places floor and ceiling were maybe two and a half metres apart. Then the space opened up again to eight metres. In between, again and again, windows out into the sunlit pond with the water lilies. And then you were suddenly back inside the rock.

At one point a single sunbeam came through an opening and hit exactly a mound of branches, wood and rubble. A whole shoal of small fish was swimming around it, suddenly lit up completely by the light. Absolutely unhinged. For that dive my guide had given me one extra kilo of lead, which really helped. The cenote was only about six metres deep in many places.

Twice through that strange underwater obstacle course, back into the light in between and past the water lilies. Then back into the cave. Bizarre. I think those were two of the most beautiful dives I have ever done.

Back at the dive shop the owner asked, "How was it? Did you enjoy it?" And I answered, "Yes, very much. So much that this is now going to become a problem. ^^" And he just replied, "Well, cave course next. :)" I think it will be a GUE Fundamentals course first, though. Properly back to basics. And with that, the two diving days are already over. And it was everything, and honestly more, than I had dared to hope for. Next up:

RK3 fins

Possibly swap the harness on my BP/W for something simpler

Find a GUE instructor (looks like that means travelling to one of two cities a few hours away)

But for now, only tacos and beer and Tulum are on the programme. Tomorrow we head out early to the Maya ruins.