Carri St. Germain, Dave Duguid, Joe Fortuna
Cliff preparing for his dive with Anna – survey
Settling into the mud – the water is 1 foot deep!
Dave and Joe practice survey techniques
Project Participants and Sponsors
Aquatech/Villas De Rosa
Sartek Industries
Dive Rite Inc.
“More exploration of Calavera!”
Saturday, April 20, 2002 –
Today the team welcomed the three newest (and final team members) to join the 2002 Expedition to Akumal (Carri St.Germain, Dave Duguid, and Joe Fortuna)…..welcome aboard! Today proved to be very productive towards one of the primary missions of the expedition, videography. Mike has been able to focus on the “shot list” (a list of all of the critical footage needed to document the expedition) and was able to shoot about an hours worth of video in and around Villas DeRosa. At the conclusion of the expedition, the team members will assemble at Mike’s house to edit and produce a 2002 Expedition video.
Team 1 (Anna and Cliff) operated out of Cenote Camillo today for the purpose of surveying parts of the downstream passage. Their task was to collect wall data between the first and fourth “T”, which would complete the survey of the downstream Cenote Camillo. They took a slow swim up to the fourth “T” admiring the scenery around them. The downstream passage is very different then the upstream one. It started out with a narrow and silty tunnel. The passage then opened up and they passed several impressive formations and marvelous ceiling decorations. Finally, they entered a minor bedding plane restriction leading and swam through a narrow tunnel leading to the fourth “T”. On the exit, they stopped at each survey station, where Anna took the azimuth bearing and Cliff took down distances to walls, ceiling and floor of the tunnel. The survey of the downstream passage has been completed!
Team two, consisting of George, Renee, and Andy, found themselves in Cenote Calavera (Raphael) once again looking for the underwater connection between two openings in Cenote Muchacho that are in the same Cenote (just a few feet apart over land). The connection continues to elude us. While we were there we removed approximately 100 feet of line that was placed in the cavern on a previous expedition. The removed line did not continue from the surface to continuing passage and turned out to be in the same cavern that had been surveyed just two days ago. On our swim back to Cenote Calavera we explored the passage known as “The Road to Athens” (due to its many large white columns). Although we found several promising leads we were unable to find further passage. At the end of our dive we removed our equipment from the Calavera site, as we will be operating from another location deeper in the jungle for the next couple of days.
The evening events included dive planning, a survey class on the beach, another fabulous dinner, and a viewing of “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace”. More video footage was planned for the next day as well.
Expedition Team:
Anna Olecka
George McCulley
Terrence Tysall
Mike St.Germain
Carri St.Germain
Andy Henderson
Thecia Taylor
Renee Power
Cliff Sifton
Dave Duguid
Joe Fortuna
Send questions or comments to the Trilobite.
Questions and Comments To the Trilobite
To all my friends diving the cenotes of Akumal. Greetings and safe dives for the duration of the expedition. Remember: We always bring back ourselves and usable data. TNT, mi hermano. Good hunting for virgin cave.
Mike ArmstrongThanks Mike! We all love you and miss you. Wish you were here!
TNT and the gang