A dark place

Having dried inside-out overnight, I was about to turn my wetsuit right again this morning when my eyes detected some movement in the suit. As I carefully checked, out came some weird but innocent looking insect. Too small. Still suspicious, I slowly bent some more neoprene, thereby revealing the actual alert tripping culprit: a small scorpion (2cm not counting its bent up tail). Welcome to Mexico!

Pickup truck fully loaded with three sets of gear & doubles, Richie, Gosia & I agreed to pay Jailhouse a visit, Richie absolutely wanting to show us the Swiss Syphon, despite my stated reluctance for dark places. I never felt at ease in Sistema Naranjal and suppose I never will, its stained walls absorb all light and extrude a somber mood.


With three Ts, a jump and another T it's a rather complex left-right-right-left-right path line to get to the sub-halocline Swiss Syphon, but the salt water passages there are quite something to behold indeed.

On the way back from the cenote, Richie spotted Gunni sitting in a roadside café, so of course I jumped out of the truck to greet my former boss of Aktun Dive Center, now fully into kite board surfing.

Jailhouse

Jungle pool entry followed by a slide down sandwiched between easily stirred up decomposing dirt and a low tannic acid stained ceiling.


We immediately take the first T left and dive along passages so dark our lights seem useless. Captivating black stalactites bring to mind jail bars, hence the name of this cenote I guess. Probably haunted...

There's quite a lot of silt deposited everywhere. A thick layer of it. The mood's definitely somber but brightly clears up after the second T, where we turn right and dive down below the halocline, here at 15m, into slightly warmer and bluish salt water. Our mission area.

The tunnel down here's whitish with crusty crops of beige formations. Half an hour into the dive we pass by some old bones, supposedly from a big tapir.

When I reach 2/3 of my nitrox, I call the dive, looking forward to getting out again. For some reason, Systema Naranjal, incl. Cenote Cristal aka Naharon, Mayan Blue aka Escondido & Cenote of the Sun among others, never quite gave me a good feeling inside.

[ entrance fee: 100 Pesos ]