Wet and Dry
By Fred Devos
When reading articles written by dry cave explorers,
the stories often end with the disappointing discovery of water filled passage.
On the flip side, when entering a dry cave, underwater explorers despair
and move on when no water is found. Exploration at Punta Venado continues
with the discovery of 3 more cenotes and several thousand feet of new passage.
As well, a large dry-cave located 6 miles (9.7 km) inland has proved a worthy
challenge and opens an interest in dry cave exploration.
Sistema Carrillo
Determining the extents of this young system will prove to be hard work, as solitary small tunnels seem to be connecting major NE-SW phreatic tubes. In other words, as soon as you believe you have come to the end of the upstream or downstream, a small tunnel leads to another, almost identical, parallel tube. It is believed that the further away from the coast we can get, the better the chances are of finding the classic, deeper, NW-SE passage which make up most of this area's cave systems.
2/9/00
Christophe Le Maillot and myself poked the small leads we had previously
marked. After an hour of running into dead-ends we found a place where the ceiling
was separated 2 feet from the floor and managed to squeeze through. We immediately
passed a large phreatic tube with enormous white rock, beautifully sculpted
by the river of water. I chose to leave this till later and pushed as far north
as possible. Yet another tube took us upstream where it eventually squeezed
down to "no-mount" size.
We had a tougher time in the downstream area but with determination we discovered 2 new cenotes ... Choco Pol and Belle. Passage length now exceeds 6,000 ft. (1,824 m).
Cenote Camino
The most exciting discovery was left for the drive back when we decided to sniff around a breakdown by the side of the road. A low-ceiling overhang lead to a pool of clear water and with now-empty tanks, snorkeling was our only option. The airspace pushed back another 40 feet (12.2m) in the dark. The floor fell away and the walls showed stunning white formations. A slight flow of water tweaked our interest further and we new where our next day off would be spent.
Dry Cave
10/9/00
A local farmer pointed out this dry cave to Yair Azubel and myself back in July
and this time I returned to further explore it with Daniel Riordan. Because
of the area's low elevation, most cave passages are water filled, but when you
move inland from the coast, the land rises allowing more cave to remain dry.
The entrance is 12 feet (3.6 m) in diameter and 35 feet (10.6 m) straight down.
Rappelling gear was used to reach the floor of the cave and ascenders were comically
experimented with to eventually get us out of there. By leaving his gloves below,
Danny doubled the challenge by having to go back down.
The system has about 1,000 feet (304 m) of walk-able passage with beautiful formations everywhere. One dagger-like stalactite hangs 14 feet (4.3 m) from the ceiling while pools of clear water are seen some 50 feet (15.2 m) below ground level. Especially spectacular are the many halactites and large rim-stone dams.
To feel the effects of gravity and to freely communicate with each other made this a very unique "dive" and has sparked an interest to further explore this and other dry caves.
Horses have been arranged to evaluate yet another of the cenotes at Punta Venado. Exploration will continue in Sistema Carrillo and a day is being planned for the first dives in the promising looking Cenote Camino.