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Mexico Mayhem in Multiple parts. Part III: Day 1 Taj MahalWe had originally planned to dive Garden of Eden in the Ponderosa system as our first set of "warmup dives" partly because the diving and the cenote are beautiful, but also because this is where our class started and is almost like a "home base" for us.However, Danny had informed me prior to the trip that the cenote is closed on Saturdays, so we decided on Taj Mahal instead, which we are also quite familiar with, and is close to both the store and the fill station. Taj Mahal has (at least) 1 cavern line, 2 (I think upstream lines) and 1 downstream line (which we did not learn of until late in our trip) Our favorite line for our cave1 dives is the upstream line, "DCS dome" which after about 10 minutes of swimming, rises sharply to about 5 feet of depth, and actually has an air dome where you can surface. Unfortunately, due to the lens on the video camera not being very wide-angle, I dont have any good shots/footage of the dome. Also, for some reason a lot of these stills were very dark, so I've had to monkey with them in photoshop a bit. Descending into the cavern zone.  STOP! (or not )  The (in)famous "polar bear" rock that lets us know we are on the right track  Through the halocline  I love the "mercury effect" as bubbles collect on the ceiling. Sadly, I think this does damage the cave somewhat but is unavoidable on open circuit.   I also love just how white the rock is below the halocline layer. Gorgeous.   And the "curch organ" effect of the speleothems hanging from the ceiling  Unfortunately, since this is a family website, I cannot repeat the name lame buddy #3 gave to this room, which was into "new territory" for us beyond the DCS dome ...    More ceiling structure, but of a very different kind -- these caves are so diverse.    And the views on the way out are pretty good too...    Bubbles hitting the surface in the dome. Very odd to see when we are still 10 mins from the exit.  And then back to the cavern zone    Two very nice and relaxing dives to get us warmed up for the days ahead! And one final piece of possible news is that Taj Mahal may (may) be getting bathrooms! There was definitely construction of some kind of bathroom-like building going on, but given the rate of progress, I wouldn't count on them being finished too soon ... 11:16 AM - 12/8/2007 - post comment
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