THE BEES

WE SCHEDULED ONE LAST, SMALLER PROJECT for this season after the Coka Ha exploration. This endeavor began at the end of 2021. The BEL team received additional help from Dr. Mario Valotta and Cameron Miller, who joined the exploration.

The Bees cenote is just a few kilometers north of Tulum. It belongs to the Sac Aktun cave system, and Paul DeLoach and Dr. John Zumrick first explored it. Robbie Schmittner and Kim Davidsson connected the northwest (“Naval”) and northeast parts of the cave (respectively) to Sac Aktun in 2004. The cave features many fractures and canyon-like tunnels and, being close to the sea, it has a wide network of passages with porous rock and heavy percolation in untouched areas.

This project happened by accident when survey divers discovered a decent-sized tunnel close to the entrance that was big enough to comfortably carry gear further to the northeast, upstream section of the cave. As the divers regularly collected more data about the area, they discovered that the aforementioned tunnel created a huge shortcut compared to the existing lines leading to the same area. This encouraged the team to explore further and arrive relatively quickly and with less effort to areas that seemed unvisited in recent years or even since the original exploration.

The movement of the water seemed to come mainly from two directions—northwest and northeast—which created two main conduits in a V shape. The tip of the V is Abejas and from there, the water exits into the sea. Identifying this left the divers thinking of exploring the seemingly open area between the two main waterflow directions.

Backmount progression

As the team made their way farther north-northeast, they surveyed existing lines and added new, smaller lines that created more shortcuts toward their desired area. One of the old northeast lines ended, but divers had observed a small but solid hill in a previous survey session. Once on top of it, a tunnel revealed itself and kept going for about 150 m/500 ft until hitting another old line. The newly installed line turned out to be the second connection between Abejas and the northeastern area of Sac Aktun after Kim’s connection in 2004. Luckily, the size of the new tunnel allowed for further backmount-sized, upstream progression.

In early 2022, this work continued with the help of DPVs. Traveling with more gear and dealing with complex navigation—even while using the shortcut lines—was not the most comfortable in some areas, but the slowly growing distance required the use of diver propulsion vehicles.

Very early on, the team arrived in an area that wasn’t well visited, and older exploration lines even started to decrease in some of the areas. This gave the divers the opportunity to start looking for leads into an open area.

Many of the initial leads to the west were promising at first, but they soon hit the saltwater level, and the tunnels decreased in size and eventually stopped.

Many of the initial leads to the west were promising at first, but they soon hit the saltwater level, and the tunnels decreased in size and eventually stopped. Uncommonly for the area— especially below the halocline—these saltwater tunnels were colored dark brown and black with a considerable amount of fine-grained sediment on the floor.

After their initial bad luck, the team moved further north and tried to break into the open western region at every possible opportunity. The biggest success occurred about 2 km/1.4 mi upstream from their initial starting location. A low-ceiling, freshwater room had a small opening on its far side. The cave opened into a defined—but very irregular—single tunnel that headed towards the northwest. This tunnel led to a large, highly decorated room with a collapse on its east side. Turning slightly south from here and navigating some restrictions, the team discovered another decorated room. It took some time to figure out the correct way from this location, but the cave took a hard west and contin- ued for a few hundred meters. Although the new area had plenty of cave formations, it wasn’t nearly as solid or white in color as classic areas of Sac Aktun tend to be. The highly silty areas and percolation were manageable but ever-present, and the team did not encounter any other cenotes along their way.

The boneyard

For a short while, the cave almost seemed to stop. The team had to navigate around a collapsed area where, luckily, the cave continued on the other side. The cave started to change, and more collapses followed.

One of the collapsed rooms contained numerous prehistoric animal bone remains, including one side of a jaw. So far it is unknown to which type of animals the bones belonged to, but it was definitely an interesting find!

After the last collapse, the cave was not in the freshwater anymore and descended back below the saltwater level. Here, the cave again became darker and continued for a while, but no-flow conditions and increasingly smaller tunnels halted further explorations. This new area had a promising start, but after 2.4 km/1.5 mi of new line, there were no signs left of tunnels going further west.

Final thoughts

Even well-explored caves can conceal (sometimes very well-hidden) secret corners. It is impossible to tell with 100% certainty that a given section of a cave is fully explored due to the complex nature of the underground passages. Efforts like this show how much of these systems we still don’t know and have not discovered yet. One of the strongest tools and approaches towards a successful exploration is survey. Even if the cave contains lines, revisiting sections and collecting accurate data can lead curious divers to uncharted places. 

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful for the support we have received to complete all these endeavors.

Thank you to:

• Dr. Mario Valotta, who acted not just as a valuable team member in the water, but also gave his support in the form of additional equipment needed.

• Cameron Miller, for his commitment to go through some challenging dives with us.

• Cuzel Filling Station, who supported the projects with GUE standard cylinders and gas fills, sometimes even in the evenings at the end of our long exploration days.

THE BEES // DIVE DATA

DIVE between Abejas and

Emőke Wagner, Dr. Mario Valotta, Cameron Miller, and Laszlo Cseh

Bjarne began diving in 1993, taking his first tech classes in 1997 and his first GUE cave and tech classes in 1999, so he has been part of the GUE community since the early days. In the early 2000s, he spent several years in Florida, where he was a part of the WKPP. During this time, he also pushed Sheck Exley’s end of line in the Cathedral cave system. Bjarne is currently on a world cruise with his wife on their sailboat. For the last few years, they’ve been stuck in Mexico.

Emőke Wagner is originally from Hungary and began diving at a young age. She has been an active instructor since 2014. After a couple of years spent traveling around the globe, she moved to Mexico with her husband in 2017. While living in Mexico, cave diving became her real passion, and she began exploring more of the local cave systems. Since 2016, Emőke has been working as a full-time GUE instructor and is currently teaching the cave, foundational, and recreational curricula.

László Cseh is from Hungary and has always been fascinated with the underwater world. He became a recreational diving instructor in 2012 and began teaching and traveling with his wife, Emőke. After becoming a GUE instructor in 2016, he moved to Mexico to look for new diving challenges. Local cave exploration possibilities helped him achieve his GUE cave instructor certification.