Diving Taj Mahal
Diving Taj Mahal
By: Don Crawford
Copyright: 2000
It is a warm morning in the jungle on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
After an early breakfast in the warm breezes on the island of Cozumel, off Mexico’s eastern coast, we travel by ferryboat to the mainland. Following a forty-five minute Jeep ride on the dusty coastal highway, we arrive at our destination. We are in the jungle somewhere near Akumal. We will be diving in an underwater cave known as Taj Mahal.
We walk a short distance on a path through the lush green jungle and from a high bank we get our first glimpse of a small cenote. A cenote is a pool of water that is exposed after the roof of a water filled cave collapses. Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula is riddled with these cenotes and underground rivers.
There will be four of us diving today including our guide, Jose. Jose explains how we will conduct our dive in this underground wonderland. One of the rules we will observe is called “the rule of thirds.” We will use one third of our air going into the cave, leaving one third to get back out, and one third in case of an emergency.
After our briefing, we don our gear and head down a steep set of crude steps formed by rock. The water at the edge of the cenote is shallow. We conduct one last check of our equipment. There is no room for error here. One by one we place our regulators in our mouths and drop sideways into the shallow water. Once in the water we turn on our lights. It appears we are going for a swim in a very small, very clear, pool. There is a rock wall on three sides, and the pool is less than twenty feet across. Beneath the surface at one end there is a hole in the rock wall. This will be our entrance to this amazing underwater world.
As the air escapes our BCs (buoyancy control devices), we descend and move toward the hole. We glide beneath the ledge and enter a world seen by very few people. Our lights illuminate the floor, walls and ceiling of the passageway. The water reaches to the roof. There is nowhere to surface. We are totally dependent on our life support systems, our training and each other. We move further down the passageway and into the cave known as Taj Mahal. The water clarity is unbelievable. It is as if we are floating through air, not water. We move still deeper. At this point we are at least forty feet underground. The passageway widens and we find ourselves in a room. There is no air, only water. We float weightlessly, as if in space. The ceiling is covered with stalactites. The floor is a wide crack that goes down, ever narrowing, into nowhere. There is daylight ahead. It comes from a crack in the ground above. As we move closer, we see tree roots hanging into the water. As we pass underneath this crack in the earth, we look up through the clear water and see a slice of the world above. We see trees, blue sky and air. It is there, but it is not a part of our world. Our world is covered by rock and water.
We move on, our lights exposing sights to our eyes that have been flooded for the thousands of years since the last Ice Age. These caves were dry twelve thousand years ago. When the ice melted, they were flooded and remain so today. Again, I see light from the world above. We continue on, past a number of these cracks and holes in the roof of our world. At every turn I expect to see drawings on the walls or pottery sitting in a corner. My mind wanders and I wonder what type of animal may have passed this way before the water took this place for a home. We pass ledges and holes in the walls that lead off into nowhere. The rock formations are spectacular. It is no wonder they call this place Taj Mahal.
We turn left off the main corridor and enter another passageway. We are moving into total darkness. We check our air again, ever conscious of our decreasing supply. Weightlessly we move further into the cave. Looking back, the light is gone. We are totally alone, cut off from the rest of the world by the distance we have traveled, the water, the rock, and the darkness. We turn our lights off and are absorbed into this darkness. Our eyes strain, but see nothing. It is as if the world has been removed and we remain. The only sound is the air flowing from our tanks as we inhale, and the bubbles as they rush past our ears looking for the surface, but there is no surface. These bubbles will be trapped forever at the ceiling unless they find a small crack in which to escape into the earth.
We turn our lights back on and continue to move forward. This side passageway links up with the main corridor again and we head back in the direction from which we came. I feel a sadness as I look ahead and recognize the hole in the earth that was our entrance to this world and soon will be our exit from it. I turn and look back, trying to lock what I have seen, experienced and felt, into my memory forever.
There have been no emergencies today, just an incredible journey into a very hostile, yet beautiful world. Jose has led us through a world that has been experienced by very few people. I feel lucky to have been one of the few.
This cave has been here for thousands of years and will be here for thousands to come. We have left it unchanged - touched only by our eyes. It however, has somehow touched our souls and will remain a part of us forever.
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