Category — JJ Rebreather

First up I want to announce very happily that we have done some remodeling to the front of the shop. So far we have had only positive feedback and this is only the beginning, stay tuned for more changes and always some pics to check out. We are very motivated going into this new year with exciting projects on the calender and some big news soon to be announced.

We also took the time to review our courses and schedules updating and changing them as we see dive training not as a static,  but an ever evolving and growing thing. We are very lucky to have a team of instructors and friends that are constantly trying out  new equipment, techniques and procedure and we get to have interesting discussions about the way we do things. Of course not to forget all of the courses and students we get to teach day in day out, from all around the world that constantly bring new ideas that inspire us. When ever they struggle with a skill or procedure they force us to rethink the way we do it or the way we teach it and therefore help us to become better in what we do. There is no substitute for experience and this is certainly true as well for teaching!

Joram practicing lost line drill in Cenote Chac Mool

As for me I could not have been any luckier, after starting the year with a sick leave I got to teach some of my favorite courses!!!

It started of with Welmoed, a cave Instructor from Holland who came in to get some formal training on stage diving and scootering. As she had plenty of previous experience we could go right through to Stage-Multistage and Advanced DPV Cave Diver.

9 Days full of action and I loved every minute of it =)))))) Definite highlights for me were the 160min double stage dive in Cenote Outland, passing the Black Hole with all of its Skeletons, the 210min double stage, double scooter dive from Nohoch main entrance to the Blue Abyss and finally a 180min double stage, double scooter dive from Dos Palmas to the LSD section. Super awesome days that were made perfect by a comment from Welmoed:” This was the BEST dive of my LIFE!” Nothing sounds better in the ears of a diving Instructor!

Ready for a multi stage multi DPV cave dive!

After that Phillip from the Dominican Republic who runs Aquavista Films LLC came back for some more training in sidemount diving. Having done already very challenging exploration cave dives in his home he was looking to refine his techniques and get a set of critical eyes help him to become an overall better diver while showing him a couple of tips and tricks to make his life easier.
We started with some multistage training in sidemount configuration where we were joined as well by Kim my very good friend and exploration partner down from Tulum. To say the least we had a blast and did some really wicked dives looking at all the different aspects and gas rules that make stage diving in sidemount such an interesting subject.
After that we went on to do the advanced sidemount course as Phillip had already plenty of experience diving sidemount!
We started off with a morning of theory followed by 3 hours of intense training in confined water…and confined in was =)

Followed by two days of crawling through some of the smallest places the Riviera Maya has to offer, while dealing with one drill after the other. On the smile on Phillips face after every single dive I could clearly see that he had a great time…in his words it was:”EPIC”

Now I am off to be student myself again, doing a crossover to the JJ CCR and then I get to teach a CCR Cave crossover followed by yet another advanced sidemount course…am super STOKED!!!

Have a great 2011 everyone, filled with success, family, friends, health and plenty of awesome moments under water! Hope you find the time to come down here for some out of this world cave diving!

I had the great pleasure of diving on the last day of December 2010, the last day of the year, and what a great dive it was. It was a very nice day, almost no clouds, balmy 27 C or so in the shade. With little regret I was thinking about the people living in snow storms along the U.S. East Coast or Central Europe where at this point a lot of airports, highways, Autobahns & train stations where closed due to the snow and ice. The water temperature in the Cenote was as always 24 C and visibility of over 60 meters.

Cenote Pet Cemetery

The day before the last day of 2010 I started diving with Jirky and Kirsty in Cenote Dos Ojos, both are avid Rebreather divers from Finland, using the JJ CCR Rebreather for all their diving they do and thus brought their Rebreathers to Mexico to do guided cavern diving. Besides having fun diving the beautiful Cenotes they were going to decide if they would like to take a CCR cave diver course in the future.

Cenote Pet Cemetery

When it came to decide where we are going to dive the last day of the year we decided to go to Cenote Pet Cemetery, part of the Nohoch Nachich cave system. Reason to go there was the high traffic at Dos Ojos as we are in peak season. Pet Cemetery is out of the way, far in the jungle and no snorkelers go there, at least not a lot of them. The Cenote is beautifully located deep within the jungle with high trees all around. The dry section of the Cenote itself is densely vegetated with palm trees. The cave itself is white with lots of Speleothems. A beautiful setting, very calming, very quite.

Cenote Pet Cemetery

Cenote Pet Cemetery has its name from cave explorers Mike Madden and Eric Hutchinson who when finding and surfacing in the Cenote for the first time during a cave exploration dive in search for a connection between cave systems Dos Ojos and Nohoch Nachich where looking at all the animal bones laying in the Cenote. Eric told me that Mike said it looked like a Pet Cemetery, thus the name.

When Jirky, Kristy and me rolled up to Pet Cemetery on that last day of 2010 we met Christine and Etienne, both local dive guides, who shared with us the last of the year dive experience.

Slowly we got ready and prepared our Rebreathers. Jirky and Kristy both dived their JJ CCR while I was on my Megalodon CCR. The first dive was done clock wise along the cavern line enjoying this beautiful white and decorated cave. Awesome. No camera was taken on the first dive to go for an orientation to the dive site and enjoy the dive without the burden of taking images.

During the surface interval just before the second dive we decided to bring the camera. Both JJ’s got rigged with slave strobes during the surface interval to lighten up the cave a bit behind the divers to give it more depth. I had two more strobes on my housing to lighten up the front of the divers.

Cenote Pet Cemetery

Off we went for our second dive of the day in a counter clockwise direction while I was shooting away, taking photos as we went around the Cavern tour loop. As we terminated the dive I took some half over half under images in the open water area right next to the platform and stairs.

Cenote Pet Cemetery

Matt