Kambesis, P. P, Para 5. Derek had described El Pit as exactly that, a deep sink hole in the Limestone of the area, I had no idea at the time just how deep it would prove to be, but looked forward to what was going to be the deepest dive I would carry out whilst in Mexico. I or Photoshop creationsβ¦β¦.? How wrong that would prove to be! I had decided to dive the cenotes using my AP Valves Inspiration rebreather. I knew the advantages of 4 hours of diving on one canister of sofnolime would far outweigh the time allowed by a twin-set, and I had no real idea how I would take to long immersions in caverns with little, if any, light.
El Pit is a collapsed cavern in the limestone substrate that covers most of the Quintana Roo, part of the Yucatan on the Caribbean coast of Mexico, the area from Cancun down through the Mayan port of Tulum to Chetumal and indeed on into Belize, famous in my past life as a glory posting in paradise, but more famous in the wider world for its Blue Hole, a Jaques Cousteau find and the site where he did some ground breaking dives.
The presence of the ubiquitous Stalactites and Stalagmites within the systems proving that for long periods of time these caverns, tunnels and caves were above sea level, but now, through climate changes and land movements, have become flooded, sometimes partially, mostly completely, leaving them both a wonder and a challenge to modern mankind. Descending into El Pit is a phenomenal experience, the view is quite magnificent and, even from the surface some 30m until you reach the Hydrogen Sulphide halocline, a perfect level of mist which gives you the impression of a graveyard at twilight, especially as there is a dead sapling still standing on the remains of the cave roof, collapsed to the floor in a desolate pyramid of broken Limestone and debrisβ¦..
Managed to free it-just in time!! Ascent was slow n steady no dramaβ¦was a flood!! The autopsy thankfully, not mine β¦. I had been at my physical limits so much so that my sight was starting to sufferβ¦. Up to finish watching the bubbles of 15 or so other divers which resembled a Jacuzzi as we exited. El Pit is a magnificent dive, from the trek into the jungle to reach it, to the kit carry down the wooden steps to reach the dive platform and the eventual descent into its beautifully clear waters, it finds a place in amongst the most unusual dives I have done.
That is not just because it is a Cenote and part of a huge system of mystical passages and caverns under the Mayan homelands, with all their bloody history, which reach from miles inland, through jungles full of ancient pyramids and ruins, where Jaguars still patrol ghost-like and unseen, eventually to meet the Caribbean Sea.
