Mexico
Sistema Dos Ojos - "Two Eyes" in Spanish
See also my River Run story on a separate page and River Run pictures down this page.
Dos Ojos means Two Eyes in
Spanish, and it is easy to see how that system got its name, as two eyes (cenotes) are
very close to each other. Couple of yellow cavern lines start in the East Eye, side by
side. The left one goes to Bat Cave cenote and looped around into itself and the one on
the right goes towards West Eye, around one side of it and a
little into the cave. Once in the cave, the cavern line makes a very sharp turn and right
at that turn, there is (was in 2007) a plastic crocodile with the Barbie in its jaws. The
diver in the shot is me and it was taken by my buddy, Tom Wilson.
The Upstream
In 2006, we did a Basement Line as well. Slightly less pretty then the main upstream line. Probebly not visited as often as Mainline and therefore slightly more silty too.
East Eye cenote was very sizeable with some interesting features and (typically) tons of cavern divers.
Downstream line is one of my favorite dives. Called River Run, it starts at the East Eye and goes towards the coast, passing a lot of cenotes on the way, the first one being Dos Palmas cenote. During my first swim on that line, right after 2 hurricanes hit the area in 2006, I was wondering about the River Run name until we got into some narrower passage and really felt the flow. There we were, in the middle of huge underground river that carried us with it as it ran towards the coast. I did not even have to kick much. The cave had so much variety with tighter passages opening up into huge rooms, shallow sections changing into very shallow (as if almost surface), large passages changing back to narrow and into massive vertical breakdowns... Formations were everywhere, on the walls, ceilings, floors. The colors ranged from off white to rusty brownish hues. I did this dive a few times since 2006 and wrote a story of our 2008 swim to Dos Palmas and back here.
