Coming up!
Jonathan explores part of the longest submerged cave in the world!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
The jungle of the Yucatan is filled with mysteries and adventure.
For miles and miles, it’s only trees, with no sign of rivers or lakes.
But there are rivers.
They flow underground, through vast cave systems.
In a few places, the ceiling of the cave has collapsed, creating cenotes--entrances to
the cave systems.
In one cenote, called Zapote, we explored unusual formations called Cave Bells, formed
by bacteria.
But the toxic hydrogen sulfide layer prevented us from going too deep to explore much of
the cave.
About an hour drive away from Zapote is another cenote, and this one will allow us to really
explore!
Cameraman Todd and I are on an epic adventure to the Yucatan of Mexico.
Of course, whenever we go cave diving in the Yucatan, we meet up with our good friend Christine
Loew, an experienced local cave diving instructor who knows all the good spots!
And our adventure begins on a nice smooth dirt road into the jungle!
Soon we arrive at cenote Nohoch.
The owners of the cenote have built a bit of a tourist attraction around it, with an
observation tower and some zip lines.
But for us, it’s all about the diving.
Nohoch Nah Chich, which means “giant bird cage” is a cave system that stretches over
42 miles and has 36 different cenotes providing access.
Cenote Nohoch, is right in the center of the whole thing.
And we’re definitely not going to see much of this huge system in one dive!
Christine: And we’re also going to dive in that direction…
Christine walks us through the facilities, then we review the dive plan.
Christine: “Mayan lesson: Nahoch Nah Chich means giant bird cage.”
Giant Bird cage!
How cool is that?
This is my place baby!
Because there are so many different routes, we have to make a careful plan on where we
are going and what is involved.
But we can’t dive until all the gear is ready.
This is a popular place for cave divers, so they have a really nice setup.
Finally, the fun part.
You’ve gotta get your mask just right because once you put your helmet on you can’t really
adjust it.
Then we follow Christine down into the crystal clear water.
As we prepare to leave the cavern zone, where we can see light from the sun, Christine ties
off a line.
The permanent cave lines start a few hundred feet further into the cave, to keep open water
divers from following them.
So we start with our own line that leads from there back to the cavern zone.
Since every dive team places their own line from the main line back out of the cave, each
team always knows when there are other divers in the cave.
Reaching the main line, Christine ties our team’s reel to the line.
Then she places a marker, called a cookie, on the line.
That marker has her name on it so nobody else will take it out by mistake.
Nohoch is known as one of the most beautiful caves in the Yucatan with good reason.
Everywhere we look, there are gorgeous formations.
In some areas we are very shallow, and the water doesn’t completely fill the cave,
so there are huge air pockets above our heads.
In theory you could stick your head up in there and have a conversation.
However, since these air pockets don’t directly connect to the air outside the cave, there
is no way of knowing if the air is safe to breathe.
But it looks cool, like an upside-down puddle above our heads.
As we swim weightlessly through these winding passages, it’s hard to believe that 15,000
years ago, these passages were dry.
Back then, during the last ice age, sea levels were much lower, so the water table in the
jungle was lower too.
These caves were bone dry.
We could have walked through this cave back then.
And the evidence is here: formations hanging from the ceiling, called stalactites, were
created by dripping water almost like icicles of stone.
When the dripping water hit the floor of the cave, the result was stalagmites.
And as those two formations grow, they can meet in the middle, forming a column.
Soon we reach our first jump.
We are going to leave the main line and go down a side passage.
So we have to make what is called a “jump,” over to another line.
The side passages already have permanent lines in them, but they don’t connect to the main
line because that can be confusing, so we put our own line between them temporarily.
Christine ties a spool to the main line.
Then we swim across the jump and tie on to the line in the side passage.
When we return, this jump line ensure that we can find the main line again.
This is one of the unbreakable rules of cave diving: never be out of sight of the line
that leads all the way to the entrance!
Soon
we come into an amazing room filled with crazy formations known as helictites.
Helictites are thin little whisker-like formations that go sideways off the drip formations.
Nobody is quite sure how they form.
For a long time the prevailing theory was that they are formed by wind blowing the dripping
water sideways.
But more recent evidence suggests that surface tension caused by a special kind of bacteria
may be the cause.
Either way, they grow in a dry cave, not a submerged cave.
As we keep going, Christine leads us through very large rooms.
This crystal clear water flows beneath the forest, the lifeblood of the Yucatan.
And most of the time we are no deeper than 30 feet.
Just above our heads, a thick tropical jungle.
While some of the formations are opaque, some of them allow light to pass, like a flashlight
behind a finger.
Our goal is to leave nothing but bubbles and pristine cave behind.
A beautiful flowstone formation reminds me of a waterfall, frozen in time, sculpted in
stone.
A formation like this takes thousands of years
to form.
Finally, it’s time to turn back.
Another firm rule of cave diving is that you can only use 1/3 of your air to get into the
cave.
You use another third to get back.
That leaves the last third for unexpected delays.
Soon we get back to the jump. and Christine spools up her jump line as we cross back to
the main line.
The arrows point the way out, because obviously following the line in the wrong direction
would be disastrous.
People think cave divers are nuts, but look at the things we get to see!
As we swim back to the entrance, and it’s a long swim, I have time to think about how
far this cave goes.
We swam only half a mile into a cave which is 42 miles long.
But a few years ago, cave explorers linked this cave to another huge system called Sac
Actun.
Then they linked Sac Actun to a system called Dos Ojos.
These three systems together are now the longest underwater cave in the world, stretching 215
miles!
And with that humbling fact in mind, finally we make it back to the cavern zone where we
can see the light from the sun.
Fortunately, we never went deeper than 30 feet, so even though our dive was two hours
long, we have no decompression to do.
Woo, wow!
Stunning.
What a gorgeous environment that is!
I feel incredibly lucky to have visited Nahoch Nah Chich.
Nevermind the fact that I can brag about diving the longest known submerged cave in the world,
it’s just a beautiful cave, with crystal clear water, almost no current and shallow
enough to stay for hours.
Indeed, a treasure of the Blue World!
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