My dive today, after this forced hiatus, was in Carwash. I like to strike a compromise between doing new systems and passages and returning to favourite places. CarWash is an old friend.



I'm diving with Steve Bogaerts, probably the best cave diver in the world. At least that's what it seems to me. His knowledge his boundless, and has been exploring this area for some years now. His technique is not only just better, it's an order of magnitude better. I think I'm a reasonably fit diver. I can get my SAC rate to 12L a minute while swimming in no flow conditions. That's better than most. Well he can get it down below 6 liters per minute (I saw it in his gauge). That's better than 99% of what people do... when they are sleeping. I asked him what was the secret. Experience, Gym and Yoga seems to be the answer.

I woudn't hesitate to recommend him to anyone for guiding and training, if he is available. He is the explorer who was on the world news earlier this year when he connected Nohoch Nah Chich with Sac Actun and made what, at the time, was the biggest underwater cave in the world with about 160kms of surveyed passages.

His exploration stories are endless. His survival from a passage collapse, that left him in the wrong side of the collapse, deserves a book. Continuing the dive into the cave, he found a new Cenote that saved his life. However the return thru virgin jungle was not without its perils, so he decided to go back and try to dug out the collapse. Almost got stuck in falling debris and further collapse. Returned to the cenote. While trying to find his way overland almost collapsed from heatstroke. Finally he made it to the departing station and had to repeat the trip a few times before finally hauling all of his equipment back. He was exploring alone without a supporting team.

The odds of survival must have been minute. First finding an exit was sheer luck. Then that the entrance allowed him to exit was another lucky occurrence. I can just imagine seeing light in these kind of conditions just to find out that the exit is like dinner's hole in Nohoch, a sink hole, basically the inside of a cone. One could be there for a month before dying of hunger. Fresh water would be abundant, and hypothermia wouldn't set in if you could get yourself out of the water. Not nice.

He's been on BBC documentaries. And you can find him on youtube. This is an example:



But back to CarWash. Steve is a fast diver. So I had expectations of reaching deeper sections of the cave. Mike, one of my previous guides was also fast, but I didn't dive with him all of the time. The other guides took it ultra conservatively, slowing down for safety. As always this is always a compromise. You should never enter faster than you can exit. My marathon running however lets me keep a good pace for a few hours without slowing down.

Map of Carwash, first dive upstream in red, second dive downstream in brown

Steve had warned me that Luke's Hope cenote had construction working going on and thus the upstream section between the entrance and Luke's Hope was silty. Actually it wasn't silty. Visibility was not near zero. It was Zero Zero, like in zilch or nada. However knowing that it was temporary and that past Luke's hope it would clear up gave me some tranquility. It's however a special situation. Quite different from exiting the cave with eyes closed while training. You cannot loose the line. If you do, the stress level will go sky high until you find it again. And if you don't...

We didn't get all the way to dreamland as I intended. Called the dive on thirds.

The jump after luke's hope, down thru a restriction on the floor is always a great moment.