Steve Clark
Well-known member
Not sure how much interest folks will have in this. A pure cave-diving rather than caving trip, but thought I'd share here rather than leave the videos just sitting on my hard drive.
Last week, a couple of us flew out to Mexico to meet a couple of long-standing friends who have recently moved out there in a radical life/career shift. Now based in Peurto Adventuras, 75km south of Cancun and diving out of the Zero Gravity dive shop - one of the original bases for GUE style cave diving and still a solid training centre for those choosing to learn to cave dive in this style. A strong commitment to exploration and science with the team there, and we assisted with some water, temperature and calcite raft sampling for some folks doing some research on historic groundwater levels at a US university.
Typically, we were diving in the usual GUE style - a team of divers, open-circuit back-mounted manifolded AL80 doubles, 32% nitrox. Usually taking one AL80 stage giving a penetration of about 60mins in, 60mins out. Gas planning using the the 1/2s+10bar turn pressure in the stage, dropped on the line & 1/3rds in the doubles, after initially reserving the stage exit gas (50bar or so in the doubles). Max depth ~20m, average depths closer to 10m. Diving quite slowly and carefully to avoid damage to formations. Penetrations of 500-800m or so.
The other 3 in the team were using some pre-production units of the new Halcyon Symbios rebreather. This functions as a gas extender with a small 2L oxygen bottle, chest-mounted. It just clips onto the front of a standard DIR/GUE/long hose setup, with one extra QC6 hose to connect the backgas to the RB dil. This works really well with a mixed team of CC / OC divers and all the usual gas-sharing and responses to failures work in the same way. 10kg, size of 1.5 shoeboxes, very portable unit. Uses magnetic induction wireless communication between the head, computer, pressure transmitters and mask-mounted HUD. Expensive, but very clever kit.
I shot the video using a Go Pro 8 in the standard Go Pro housing. Two £30 cheap chinese video lights (4x18650) cells on a basic camera tray. Seemed to work reasonably well in the good visibility.
Travel out on the TUI direct flight from Manchester to Cancun. 1h20min from the airport to the area.
Day 1 - Minaturo.
Commercially owned cenote used for swimming & snorkeling. Team of 3, all open circuit. Main line through the wiggly entrance series and then drop down into the halocline zone.
www.dropbox.com
(Video will play in dropbox or click the download symbol on a PC)
Last week, a couple of us flew out to Mexico to meet a couple of long-standing friends who have recently moved out there in a radical life/career shift. Now based in Peurto Adventuras, 75km south of Cancun and diving out of the Zero Gravity dive shop - one of the original bases for GUE style cave diving and still a solid training centre for those choosing to learn to cave dive in this style. A strong commitment to exploration and science with the team there, and we assisted with some water, temperature and calcite raft sampling for some folks doing some research on historic groundwater levels at a US university.
Typically, we were diving in the usual GUE style - a team of divers, open-circuit back-mounted manifolded AL80 doubles, 32% nitrox. Usually taking one AL80 stage giving a penetration of about 60mins in, 60mins out. Gas planning using the the 1/2s+10bar turn pressure in the stage, dropped on the line & 1/3rds in the doubles, after initially reserving the stage exit gas (50bar or so in the doubles). Max depth ~20m, average depths closer to 10m. Diving quite slowly and carefully to avoid damage to formations. Penetrations of 500-800m or so.
The other 3 in the team were using some pre-production units of the new Halcyon Symbios rebreather. This functions as a gas extender with a small 2L oxygen bottle, chest-mounted. It just clips onto the front of a standard DIR/GUE/long hose setup, with one extra QC6 hose to connect the backgas to the RB dil. This works really well with a mixed team of CC / OC divers and all the usual gas-sharing and responses to failures work in the same way. 10kg, size of 1.5 shoeboxes, very portable unit. Uses magnetic induction wireless communication between the head, computer, pressure transmitters and mask-mounted HUD. Expensive, but very clever kit.
I shot the video using a Go Pro 8 in the standard Go Pro housing. Two £30 cheap chinese video lights (4x18650) cells on a basic camera tray. Seemed to work reasonably well in the good visibility.
Travel out on the TUI direct flight from Manchester to Cancun. 1h20min from the airport to the area.
Day 1 - Minaturo.
Commercially owned cenote used for swimming & snorkeling. Team of 3, all open circuit. Main line through the wiggly entrance series and then drop down into the halocline zone.
Dropbox
www.dropbox.com
(Video will play in dropbox or click the download symbol on a PC)
