When Christmas was drawing near I wanted to spend it with friends. I have met a lot of people during my travels and gone to many new places. However for the holidays I had some special plans for celebration and diving. I went back to the Bahamas and to Cristina Zenato. Me and the Australian scholar Yolly had decided to spend Christmas together with Cristina and throw a bit of cave diving into the mix. After travelling a lot it was nice to be at a home away from home like this, with people I knew. Yolly was doing her cavern and intro to cave course and I had promised to help out a bit with getting her accustomed to the doubles before the course started. She was a quick learner so she soon did valvedrills, helicopter turns and air shares and making it look easy. Diving in daytime and in the evenings trying to mix traditions from different continents made for a wonderful Christmas. We had a chance to try Swedish pickled herring against the Australian vegemite and Sweden came winning out of that battle, no discussion.

Then the cave diving started for real and as Cristina pushed her students on all sorts of drills I had a chance to spend some time trying to document them and the cave environment as well as doing a bit practicing for myself. Me and Cristina had some special dive plans for the end of the week so I practiced my side mount and stage handling as much as I could. Revisiting some of the caves where I did my course but this time with Cristina making trouble for other people than me I had a chance to really look at them and appreciate a lot of details I missed last time. I knew they were good but found a lot of things that exceeded my expectations in terms of decorations easily comparable with what I saw in Abaco. With ease Yolly passed her course and became a brand new cave diver so this year all three scholars have completed cave diving courses! I would recommend this to anyone who has an interest in some really challenging diving that forces you to hone your dive skills.

So with the course finished it was time for our little end of the year project. Cristina has been living on Grand Bahama for many years and has explored many of the caves there. One project she has been working on for five years is exploring the two systems of Chimney blue hole and Mermaids pond. These systems are close to another and a connection between these was one of the goals of the exploration. There is only one ocean to land connection previously in the Bahamas, found by Brian Kakuk. With a connection the cave would also become one of the larger on the island. The weeks prior to my arrival Cristina had been back and intensifying her efforts in exploring Chimney and laying thousands of feet of line in new leeds. Chimney is a little bit tricky as the diving has to be matched carefully with the tides. As the tide goes up water enters the cave in a massive whirlpool for six hours and then there is a short slack before all that water start flowing out of the entrance with force for six hours. It is in this short window of time when the tide changes that we had to slip into the cave. Its only just at the entrance/exit that the current is strong but it would be impossible to swim in against it once it starts blowing and it would be madness to go in when its siphoning as there is no chance to get out until the tide changes. Thankfully things like tides are faithful and quite predictable so we knew exactly when to be dressed and ready to start our dive.

With four tanks each we squeezed in through the entrance and started our long swim towards the end of the line. The cave is highly decorated but also highly influenced by the native settlements inland. Pollution has made the bacteria growth here explode and this together with a generous amount of silt makes the cave unforgiving in terms of touching just about anything. Fortunately most of the tunnels have plenty of room to swim without being to near bottom or walls. As we swam further and further in we dropped our stages and could swim on with only two tanks each making moving a little bit easier as we approached the yet unexplored part of the cave. As we came to the end of the line the exploratory line came out and I started putting new line in this tunnel never before swum by anyone. It is a special feeling and we were a bit like children in the candy store at the same time as we had to remember just how far a swim it was back where we came from. It is a sweet mix of emotions that all needs to be tucked away and saved for later as your mind focuses on important things like keeping you alive. The tunnels grew darker but suddenly we started seeing things we didn’t expect in the cave but that made us even more excited, garbage!

Now you might think garbage isn’t something to get all excited about but we knew that during hurricanes a lot of garbage often got pulled down in the mermaids pond opening so this meant we probably were getting close. Covering our strong cave lights with our hands we started looking around for other light sources and soon saw a small sliver of light coming down from above us, we had found an opening! This wasn’t the larger opening in Mermaids pond but likely a nearby small hole letting some light in so we kept going. The tunnel got a even darker and a bit silty so we soon thereafter called the dive, happy with the accomplishment. After a long swim out, picking up the stages on the way we got to the exit. Exiting Chimney when the water is going out is a bit like being born again. The opening is a straight shaft going from 12m up to the surface and with a current of maybe five knots or more pulling you along. A lot of fun.
After such a successful dive we went straight and started blending the tanks so we could go back the next day again.

New day and with new energy we loaded up the truck again to go back in the cave and se if we could find more of that light. Once again we sat at the edge of the entrance waiting for the tide to turn and like thieves snuck in at the first opportunity. Grinding our way through the low entrance and then again swimming in the spacious tunnels, this time knowing a bit more what to expect. As we reached the end of the line we had put in the day before Cristina tied in the exploratory reel and lead onward beyond were we stopped the day before. Everything just flowed and we had reached this point with plenty of gas left to keep looking further and we pushed on. Before long we got our reward, there right in front of us it was the main line leading down from Mermaids pond and it was an emotional moment when Cristina tied in the new line coming all the way from the ocean entrance in Chimney to the line coming from Mermaids pond that is actually her own original exploratory line. To complete the deed we followed the light and surfaced in the pond, we had completed the traverse.

At this point we took a pause where we called the divecenter to let them know what had happened and they came out and took some pictures remember this moment by. Then we climbed back in the water and started the long swim back out to sea so we could pick up all the tanks we had dropped on the way in. Once again we were spit out by the cave and washed ashore to stand on the beach and make a celebratory dance.
This was the last dive of 2012 and a sort of peak to a very good year of diving, I look forward to what 2013 will bring.

Last but not least I would like to congratulate Cristina who was just entered into the Explorers Club, well deserved!