George McCulley as he arrives with his gear
Karl Shreeves arrives with a cylinder and gear
The dive team
Downstream
Sunday, September 17, 2000 –
This system, Sistema Camilo, has proved to be rather interesting. On the downstream side and after traveling through over 1500 feet of small or low passage, it opens up into this enormous tube. This passage is at times over 60 feet wide and 50 feet tall. On the other side, the upstream side, we seem to have hit a dead end. We may be merely missing a passage to larger tunnel or it may be that this cenote is just an offset sink on a larger system. We will have to keep looking!
The new team members were well indoctrinated into the routine today – hike, sweat, haul gear, sweat some more, drink some water, continue to sweat, set up equipment while sweating, dive, disassemble gear and begin sweating, haul some gear, hike, sweat again. They seem to fit right in. We divided the group into three teams, Renee and George upstream taking wall survey data, Karl, Mark and Tony downstream exploring some side passages and Terrence, Kyle and Grant downstream push. With the two teams downstream, more than 900 feet of surveyed passage was added to the system.
As it turns out, the great room that Grant and Karl found yesterday is actually an exceptionally large passage. As you swim through the tunnel, staying close to the ceiling, it somewhat resembles flying over the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The passage meanders slightly with a generally northern heading.We will continue to explore this area of the cave. Since we leave on Saturday, we also have to start thinking about how we will wrap this up. It has been an exciting expedition and we hope that we will have been successful in aiding the local population of land owners and divers as well as letting a some of you learn about this interesting part of our world.
Send questions or comments to the trilobite.
Questions and Comments To the Trilobite
Hey Guys!
I’ve been keeping track daily but haven’t had time to comment yet!! Everything looks so exciting from this end – we really need to get a housing for your camera though to get some in-water footage! I want to see what this Allison room is all about!!! How long are you guys planning on staying at this cenote? Are there others you have scoped out? Send Terrence my love and if you could Kyle, give him a great big squeeze for me too. Good Luck All and keep having fun!
AllisonWe will probably try to get some video of this system before the week is over. However, I probably won’t be able to get it up on the website, since I don’t have the software needed to do that. We will most likely just be diving this site because it keeps giving us more to see rather than start a new site. By the way, I must squeeze a bit harder than you do, because Terrence turned blue and passed out. Is that normal?
Mark
Looks great, wish I was there. Houses going ok. I may be movinig to Richmond. Ribs OK to dive!!!
MikeThanks for checking on the job. We’re having so much fun and losing weight in the process, if you can sell the houses for what you think is a good price, I might just send for the wife and kids!