Oh, Brother

After our swim through Kulkulcan at the Chac Mool cenotes, we walked back up to the trucks to switch out our air for a second dive in the other cave, Little Brother. The other team, which included my brother-in-law and my friend's wife, had finished the first dive ahead of us and were already about to head down for their second, so we saw them off and started changing out our gear.

When my friend hooked up his next tank, it had a clearly audible leak. He tried reconnecting, checking to make sure there was a o-ring at the seal, but nothing seemed to stop the leak. We had one backup tank on hand, so he switched over to that one... only to find a version of the same problem. And there were simply no other fresh tanks on hand.

But there, sitting next to the truck, were the tanks that all of us had used on the first dive. One of them was the one his wife had used, and we all knew how little air she tended to consume. My friend connected to one tank: 1350 psi left (from 3000 to start with). He connected to another: 1400. Then he connected to a third: 1900 left. That had to be it. And, given the air he'd used himself in the Kulkulcan dive, 1900 seemed like enough for him to go with. Hell, given my air usage in the first dive, it would have been enough even for me to go with... though I'm certainly glad it didn't come to that. We finished gearing up and headed down to Little Brother, the second dive site.

Right at the start of the dive, we had the chance to test the "wave your light to signal the group" system. We'd only been going for maybe 30 seconds, and I noticed a flashlight on the cave wall waving up and down. I looked back to see my boyfriend waving his light and my friend coming to his side. I then caught the dive master's attention with my own light and we all circled up. It turned out to be a minor issue: the skirt on my boyfriend's mask was folded in just a bit, so water was steadily leaking in, almost faster than he could clear the mask. By the time the dive master and I had stopped, my friend had already helped him fix the problem, and they were ready to go. But it was nice to know that the system worked.

For most of the dive, there wasn't all that much difference between this and our previous dive. More claustrophobia I probably should have been feeling but wasn't:

More interesting cave features:

More following a thin line through the darkness:

But about two-thirds of the way through this dive came something special to really set it apart from the previous one. The passage led to a subterranean chamber with enough space to surface in.

Though the chamber appeared to be completely enclosed, fresh air was getting to it from the surface somehow. We were able to bob around in the water, take our masks off and regulators out, and have a leisurely look around. The room was full of wonderful stalactites and other features.

It was like a real-life room from Casa Bonita, my brother-in-law joked later. (Hilarious, if you know the restaurant from more than its notorious appearance on South Park.) But it was also one of the most tranquil places I've ever visited. We'd passed dozens of other divers throughout the two cenotes dives, and in truth hadn't actually swam all that far to get here... and yet for the few minutes we spent in the chamber, we were all alone, and it felt more secluded than any place I've gone in recent memory. It was a truly unique and memorable experience.

We put our regulators back in (well, except for my boyfriend... who momentarily forgot to when he first tried to submerge again), then swam the last 10 minutes or so back to the entrance. We packed up our gear, met back up with the rest of our gang (confirming that indeed, the tank with enough air for a second dive had belonged to my friend's wife), ate a lunch, and then headed back to the hotel.

It rained on and off throughout most of the day, which it turned out would put a crimp in our plans a few days later (but I'll come to that). Still, it was hardly enough to stall another afternoon of lounging around the pool. This was the end of the scuba diving for the trip, but we still had a couple more days planned before we returned home.