(28-10-10) After a three-week trip, our reporter stimulates our senses with the story and pictures of an intense underwater experience through Mexico, in its fresh and salt waters. Carlos  dives in the mysterious underwater caves and the great blue, among the impressive whale sharks and going through the colourful reefs in the Riviera Maya.

    I come back for the third time to Tex-Mex but with a more ambitious project this time: to shoot a video full of strong emotions: dive in a reef, underwater caves, whale shark and the great white, everything in less than three weeks in Mexico.

    To help me an old friend of mine is coming with me: Mr. David. With more than 100 kg of luggage we go to the airport. Later on, and with the rest of the material, my wife, Mrs. Celia comes. More than enough equipment and team, we seem to work for the Natxional Xeographic, buddy.

VISITING THE CARTWRIGHT

    To begin with, the first day we went to the underwater cave named Jardín del Edén, although it is commonly known as Ponderosa, and this is the reason why I made the “funny”??? joke you can read above. It is an ideal underwater cave to start with. Its entrance is some kind of quite shallow lake where a dozen species of different fish and a turtle, which feeds on the abundant underwater flora that covers the cave, live. It is worthy to see it, even snorkelling.

    As there is only one route, the usual thing to do is to dive here once and then to go to another cave. Its main characteristic is a long hole in the right side when getting inside, through which the majestic sunrays enter, creating a light curtain that lights the different sorts of mangrove swamp that adorn it. Inside, we will meet transparent waters, areas with turquoise water, or red ones due to the presence of tannin acid (the one the roots of some plants release; just in case there is any chemist with us, its formula is C14H14O11. Exciting, right?)

    The wrong thing of this hole is that there are few stalactites and stalagmites, but, in contrast, there are many fossils of marine bugs. You also will meet some acid clouds, but nothing to do with what I will explain you later… not now, later. Don’t be impatient…

    In fact we dived some other underwater caves (there is one dozen to choose), but, as I have already explained them to you in another article two years ago, I don’t want to be repeating. The crowning jewel is to be reserved till the end of the article, in one of the boxes of this page.

    Satisfied the itch to visit underwater caves, we took the plane to go to Guadalupe (but, as it was said in a movie: “that is another story…”)

DID YOU WANT WHALE SHARK? STUFF YOURSELVES

    We have come back from visiting the Great White Island (no, I am not going to tell it to you in this article, there is no space for everything…) and, since we have seen the “evil” shark existing, it is time to talk about the great one.

    The people of Bahía Divers organize an excursion for us and recommend us not to go through Holbox, the usual area, but through the area close to Contoy Island, where they sail since some seasons. Water here is not green but blue, and, despite the fact that there is less plankton –and therefore less visibility- the population of sharks is usually bigger.

    Up to now I have been content with watching them in Galapagos at a 30 m. depth, flapping my flippers like a nut-boy, taking a pair of photographs and coming back to Darwin’s island. If being lucky, a pair of different specimens in one dive.

    When we reach the boarding area, a small port next to Cancun, we feel a bit worried: dozens of vans full with tourists from everywhere and of all kinds…  Phew! How different from the archipelago, we say. This looks like Disneyland on holiday.

    People go to the different ships, about ten people in each one plus the skipper, a sailor and a guide. We all leave, as in a race, towards the horizon.

    45 minutes later we see a small group of vessels with the engine ticking over at a distance of half a mile from the bow, offshore. I can’t see any thing else… What the hell are they doing?

    David, don’t you see the surface moving? Oh, my gosh! Two fins in front of us, no, three… no way, there are thirty! No, you count well, there is another group there… they must be about 75!!! I begin to slobber, wetting my light neoprene suit (watch out, if you don’t bring your own suit you will have to wear a life jacket, something dishonourable for a diver. They also give you the tube and glasses, and some kind of flipper of poor quality. Bring your own equipment, trust me).

    The sea is quite calm, but we feel a light rolling aboard. We are sharing the “adventure” with a tourist family (well, more tourist than we are). I tell David and Celia to stop their impulses and wait for the best moment. Theoretically, only two people besides the guide (the sailor works as a guide too) can jump into the water at a time from every ship. Everybody wants to be first… Well, not every one.

    My premonition is fulfilled twenty minutes later. The family is exhausted after having jumped into the water twice, and not only for having being swimming with the tube and the jacket very excited, but also for the rocking of the ship. They drop like flies. And, what is better, the same happens in the “competition’s” ships. I look at my fellows; we close our zippers, check cameras and jump. Finally.

    Less than half a minute later the guide pointes out a specimen that is coming to us with the mouth opened; I check the controls, everything is working. Come on! The leviathan passes by us indolently, some bored with the small orange beings splashing pathetically next to it for some time.

    The visibility, despite the floating disperse particles, is about 15 m., the images are good only at about 5 m. distance, otherwise they lack contrast. But when you are almost touching the animal, you have to swim back to prevent being run over, watching through the camera its reflect on the surface, something that only a camera-diver can experience.

    The whale shark goes away slowly but strongly; we swim after it but soon we realise that it is not the strategy. There are many specimens, why chasing them? It is better to cut in front of them.  We put our heads out of the water and, a few meters to the right we see the double fin out of the water, it is coming oblique; we swim in the same angle and some time later we see its silhouette appearing.

    Rats! They are two specimens together, almost in single file. Smoke comes out of our memory cards. They swim aimlessly, and only change course when they see a group of humans floating in their way or when they see they are to collide with their kinds. The bottom is 20 m. deep, but they are on the surface most of the time.

    After some brief but intense swim, we go back to the ship to rest and change lenses. Some other vessels go to Mujeres Island, which is in our way back to the port. They have been promised that there, protected by the island, can practise “snorkel in the reef.” Oh dear, you abandon one of the wonders of nature to see “coloured fish”! "Hasta la vista, baby!"

    We go back into the water; the guide is bored with us and, as she has realised we are not to drown, she left us alone, but keeps an eye on us from the gunwale, just in case we are eaten by a shark… Silly thing....

    Two “whales” come from opposed ways. I think they will turn round but, as two people in a corridor in the underground, they go to the same direction. The collision is inevitable. When the two masses crash there are trashes of the tails of anger everywhere, and it is better not to be very close: those creatures weight more than my faithful dog. Among the foam I got to see that one of them has an identification mark in the dorsal. Surely some biologists will enjoy with that. Silly thing…

    We go aboard, exhausted, but smiling like a Hare Krishna. The captain asks if we want to go to the reef. I look to the tourists –half of them are red because of the sun and white due to the seasickness- and I look at David. There was piety in his eyes. Let them suffer a bit longer… in the Catalonian coast we don’t have whale sharks! Not a single one.

    My wife, who must be getting old, joins the group of damaged tourists and falls into slumber. She is not the one she was…

    We jump again into the water promising not be there for so long. There are only half a dozen ships and almost all the animals are for us. I am tired, but continue swimming with the interception technique. Images enter in the cards, one after the other, and also in my brain. It is difficult to forget. Whale sharks are everywhere. Some times I begin to swim to one direction and see that three are coming from a different one and I change my mind. Please, organization!

    The tourists are on the verge to commit suicide and even David, who is younger than me (or so he says) has swallowed some water through the tube and is feeling a bit wrong. Ok, let’s go to play the fool to the reef…

    In our way back home the guide, Ms. Nora, says that she has seen up to 200 specimens, weeks ago… Wow! In can’t imagine what having all of them only for me could be.

    Now, after a three-week stay, some flights, ships, boats, taxis, vans, tarantulas and mosquitoes, the trip comes to its end. Sadness we say goodbye to the team of Bahía Divers, who has shared with us the wonders hidden in the sea around the Yucatan peninsula and its impenetrable rainforests. Where else could we see reefs, underwater caves, white sharks and whale sharks in the same country? And, to that, we can add sea lions, manta rays and sailfish. But, as I said above “that is another story…”

    More info: www.bahiadivers.com and www.haciendaparadise.com