New cave! Oh, the excitement :D
Otoch Ha is on the Nohoch road with access controlled and limited by Zero Gravity. This cenote (also called Nariz) is an offset sinkhole with one line the goes up and downstream and an entry T in the very beginning of the cave. Since this is technically outside of what we're allowed to do at the Intro level, Nat did a full briefing on how to handle and navigate Ts - we got the briefest taste of what a Full Cave class was like.
You need a sturdy 4-wheel drive vehicle to get here. For real. The "road" is bumpy at its best and requires a little bit of planning while driving so as to not completely destroy your undercarriage. Interesting fauna along the way as well. Tarantulas are fairly common in the jungle around here but this thing was large enough that even I saw it from the backseat of a truck that was trying its best to dislodge me from my seat.
The walk down to the entrance is a little dicey in backmount doubles but, thankfully, very short. The mainline comes all the way out to open water and is at about 5ft but is super silty. It took me a good minute or so to find it even though it was a foot from my face.
Otoch Ha is amazing - I think this is going to become one of my favorite caves. It has a little bit of everything; decorations like the Nohoch mainline, some smaller areas, large boulders and lots and lots of jumps to explore. We did two dives here; first downstream (green line on the map below) and then upstream (pink line) from the T.-> 78min, 36ft, 75F downstream; 63min, 41ft, 75F upstream
Diving one of the caves that Beto had mapped was super cool for me!
- U