Cenotes

We ate dinner at the airport before taking a direct flight to the vacation destination of Cancun, Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula. We arrived late, getting to our room well after midnight. We were excited, but the girls were already asleep when we got in. Amy and I quickly showered and got to bed, hoping to get some sleep before we had to be up for the modeling session.

We caught up on each other’s adventures as we ate breakfast, using the mind link for anything sensitive. I was thrilled for the twins; they left with contract extensions that would keep them in the Bodyglove family until 2036 with a significant pay raise. It had the schedule flexibility they needed to work with their school and mates, and they would pay them to make two USO trips before the contract expired. I was thrilled to hear this, as I knew how much they wanted to spend time with service members. Our appearance at the San Diego Exchange was one of our best. “We’ve talked about doing a show on SEAL training, but we should consider a USO show as part of our reality show,” I said.

“I’d LOVE that,” Amy replied. “Can we fit it in?”

“We can if we do one less show on the Sea Scout,” Linda replied.

“Or we turn one show into a documentary,” I said. “Think about which location would make the best shark-focused documentary, and we can change that out. Maybe one on Hammerheads in the Keys or Bermuda? Great Hammerheads make great shows.” We might as well, Discovery wanted them too, especially for Shark Week.

“We can see what we come up with, and maybe our local expert has an idea.” A documentary took a couple of weeks to film, as you wanted lots of underwater videos to fill the show.

The twins had been thrilled at how successful our negotiations had gone. “I can’t wait to do the talk shows,” Makani said.

“We can come up with some fun games and contests,” Noelani said.

“I bet you can,” I said. I grew up watching those shows, and I had my ideas. Trivia contests, bloopers, behind the scenes moments, and interviews would quickly fill up a 21-minute program. We’d still have to work hard to make a quality product, but I could do it from home. Wherever that ended up being, I thought to myself.

We did a lot of the shooting early before the beaches got crowded. We did attract spectators, but Carla worked with local police to keep a perimeter. We finished at the beaches by ten, and then our party had a police escort to Captain’s Cove, a restaurant with seating on the pier. We ate a light lunch on the water while Mercedes and her photographers took candid shots. This time, the shoot was emphasizing beach wraps and dresses. Finally, we went back to the Westin Ocean Villas and Spa for photos in the expansive pool and spa areas.

We finished at three, giving us a short break in our rooms before we had to leave for the public appearance at a local surf shop. With Christmas coming, it was a popular event, and we gave out Bodyglove T-shirts and other swag to the adoring crowd. After a good meal and some dancing at a local club, where I failed miserably on camera at salsa dancing, it was back to the hotel.

The next morning we met our security escort, four off-duty Mexican police officers, and loaded into three SUVs for our trip into the countryside. We’d hooked up with a dive shop specializing in diving cenotes, sinkholes now filled with freshwater, or layers of salt and freshwater, that dotted the jungle. Juan was our guide, an English-speaking twenty-five-year-old dive instructor who ran tourist dive expeditions. We piled our gear into the backs and hopped in; Linda, Amy, Fiona, and I were riding with Juan, while the twins and Carly followed. “What can we expect today?”

“We’re going to blow your mind on three dives, all completely different cenotes,” he said. “Have you done any cave diving?”

“Smaller caves in the ocean, and mining pits back in Minnesota,” I said as I thought back to the cave near Perth we’d dove on.

“You’re going to love these. We are diving three cenotes today; one shallow, one medium-depth with lots of formations, and one deep. The first is all snorkeling, the second we’ll snorkel then scuba, the last is all scuba. We’ll be in depths from five to eighty feet.”

“Photographic conditions,” Linda asked.

“The best you’ll ever see,” Juan promised. “Crystal clear water that makes it appear like you’re floating in the air. In some places, you’ll need good lighting for your cameras, and everyone will be carrying underwater flashlights. The best shots are when the broken rays of the sun come through the water and light the caverns up. Get the cameras on the bottom and shoot up as they swim through the rays, and that’s the money shot.”

“Sounds fun,” Linda said.

“How is the temperature? Are we going to need wet suits?” Even though we were in the tropics, groundwater could be cold.

“You’ll need a wetsuit for the second two dives. Our first one has perfect conditions for snorkeling, with wide swaths of shallow water, lots of fish and vegetation, and warm temperatures.”

That would give us a chance to wear some more revealing swimwear, which would make Mercedes happy. “How about crowds?”

“We have paid extra to have privacy for the time of your shooting,” Juan said. “Linda made it clear she needed the best filming conditions, so I blocked off two hours at each of the first two sites. The third is on private land, and we’re diving it only because the owner is a fan and wants to be on your show. I’ve been in that cenote once, and it blew me away.”

We arrived at the first dive area, a long, shallow cenote near the ocean called Casa Cenote. It was a popular tourist spot, but we traveled by kayak to an entrance at a more remote area reserved for us. Our gear was minimal; mask, snorkel, and our free-diving fins. As we paddled across the turquoise waters and looked at the sand and mangrove roots under it, I started getting excited. “This is fantastic,” I said as we arrived at our dive site.

The management had strung a line across warning the area was closed, and one lifted it so we could paddle under it. Juan gave us a quick brief of the area as we arrived at a small beach area. Linda and Carly were using scuba gear to stay underwater and film; Fiona was going to follow us snorkeling with her camera. Of course, we had small cameras built into the sides of our masks, as Linda never met a camera she didn’t like. We were also wearing our waterproof necklaces with the built-in microphones. I pulled my diving shirt off, leaving me in a white bikini with a narrow back. Amy had chosen a red one, while the girls were in matching neon green and neon pink. One last gear check and the ceremonial starting of the cameras, and we slid under the water.

The edges of the cavern were broken limestone and mangrove, and there were thousands of small fish among them and the algae growing like fields of grass. The tangled mangrove roots were fun to swim around, but soon Juan led us to deeper water. Linda would motion for us to swim somewhere as she maneuvered to get the light and the shot right, and we’d do it. After her second tank, we changed gears. “We’re doing the Crack now,” he said. “Normally we do this in scuba gear, but it’s only twenty feet deep, and you two can free-dive it if you want. It’s open along the top if you need to come up for air.”

The twins weren’t as comfortable, so they got on scuba gear as well. They followed Juan through the long broken-rock formation first with Carly filming. We waited until they were out of sight before we started after them. Linda dove to the bottom with Fiona staying near the surface with cameras running. We’d added weight belts around our narrow hips to stay down; after our breathing exercises, we started our dive.

The key to a long free-dive is economy of motion; the more you move, the faster you use up your oxygen. We kept our arms still and used the big muscles in our legs and hips to drive the extra-long fins we used to push ourselves down. It didn’t take long to level out just above the bottom, and it was spectacular. The crack was between two and five feet across, with sheer rocks on both sides reaching towards the surface. Boulders and sand were on the bottom, and we moved through the winding passage for almost three minutes before we headed to the surface for air. “Wow,” I said as I took deep breaths.

“Amazing,” Amy agreed. Fiona kept filming above water while Linda stayed at the bottom looking up. After preparing, we dove again, taking three more trips before we completed the run.

“That was the warmup,” Juan said. “Time’s up, let’s get back to the cars and head to the next spot.”

We stowed our gear and headed out, this time to the Dream Gate Cenote. Half our security team waited at the cars, while the other two waited by the water. As we pulled on our wetsuits near the water entrance, Juan and a local guide gave us our diving brief. “Dream Gate is a limestone cave with an opening to the air,” he told us. “Like other caves, it has formations formed over millions of years. It is not allowed to remove, break, or disturb these formations, so be careful as you dive in narrower areas. Buoyancy control is critical as you swim through the caverns, so stay on top of that. The maximum depth is thirty feet, so no decompression points are required. Keep your lights on bright and wide; the camera lighting will help as well. The more light, the better the formations show.” We grabbed our flashlights, while the camera operators put dual high-power lights on each side of the camera.

We broke into two groups; Amy and I would follow the local guide with Linda and Fiona, while Carly would film the twins with Juan. The entrance was a round hole with light streaming, and as we got down lower, it took my breath away.

The cavern looked like a cathedral to the Gods. Isolated columns covered in calcite formations stretched between the floor and ceiling, looking almost alive with the oozing flow of the calcite. Looking up, I saw the cavern ceiling was covered with thousands of stalactites from millions of years of groundwater leaching into the cave. Below us, stalagmites and mounds littered the floor. I’d toured caves back in Minnesota and Wisconsin as a kid, and these looked just like them, except filled with water. Visibility was exceptional, and I could understand what Juan said about it feeling like you were floating in the air. Only the bubbles broke the illusion.

Things got better when we started exploring the caves off the main cavern. We had to go single file as it got tighter, and I knew the ‘mask cam’ footage would be sensational. When our tank air gave us the warning, I was disappointed. We swam back and changed tanks, this time switching areas with the twins to see other parts of the cavern. After the second bottle, our time was up, and we had a big problem. “How are we only going to do ONE episode with all this footage,” I asked Linda. “This is unreal!”

“Good problem to have,” she said.

We loaded up for the third site, where the owner waited for us at the locked gate off the road. Santiago waved us through, then closed up and walked to his Jeep. He led us a few miles into the jungle, stopping in a small clearing. Linda got out and started filming as he greeted us. “The Cenote is down this trail,” he said. “I’m too old for it, but you kids have fun.”

We geared up as Juan gave us the brief. “This Cenote is a pit-type, with sheer walls and almost a hundred feet deep,” he said. “There is a layer of hydrogen sulfide at sixty feet that looks like fog. You can go beneath it, but you’ll be out of sight, so don’t do it alone.” Hydrogen sulfide was a poisonous gas produced by rotting organics, and the layer meant there was no current to disturb it. Juan went over the dive plan and safety stops; we would have only a few minutes below the layer. We left our security and Santiago at a picnic table by the rocks that formed the edge. It was a four-foot drop into the water, and a rope was hanging down to pull yourself out later. This time, we were all staying together. We jumped off the rock into the cold water, stopping at the first safety stop at ten feet to do buddy checks.

The narrow opening to the pit meant natural light wasn’t as plentiful, and that sunlight broke up in the jungle canopy. The net effect was to have narrow beams of light that penetrated the clear waters to the bottom. Combined with the crystal clear water, it would look great on television.

There weren’t the cave formations or fish like the previous dives, but the water was crystal clear. The natural light was so striking that Linda didn’t use artificial lights to brighten it up. The walls opened up into a slightly larger canyon as we descended, and Linda took lots of photos looking back up at us as we followed the walls down.

As we got closer to the milky fog of the hydrogen sulfide layer, we started to see the remains of trees sticking up through it. They must have fallen in when the sinkhole collapsed, and now they were spooky black skeletons poking up through the mist. We stopped at fifty feet, spending a few minutes exploring the cave just above the swirling fog.

Linda dove below it with Juan, signaling for us to wait one minute. When we couldn’t see them anymore, we counted until it was time, then the four of us dove through the layer as Fiona and Carly filmed from above. The layer wasn’t as thick as I thought, and I could see Linda’s camera lights as I swam down. Under the layer were more trees and clear water, and we clicked our lights on to explore. After five minutes, it was time to go back up. This time, we emerged like ghouls from Hell through the mist as my security team filmed.

We made our safety stops on the way up, finally emerging near the entry rocks. Juan exited first, then collected the camera equipment, tanks, and fins, stacking them by the rocks. Once he did that, we each grabbed the rope so he could pull us out of the water. Soon, only Linda was left, as she took a few more shots of the scenery from the base of the rocks. We were all smiling like fools; this had been a great day of diving. I needed to come back here again.

It was Fiona who reacted first and linked me. “Something is wrong. Our police aren’t here. Santiago’s bag is at the picnic table, and he isn’t.”

We all quieted at her warning and took a sniff; a breeze came through, bringing with it the scent of blood. “Stay here, something is wrong,” Fiona told us. She grabbed a pistol out of her bag as I reached for the knife strapped to my calf.

“I wouldn’t do that,” a man’s voice said. Looking up, three men carrying AK-47’s, their heads covered so I could only see their eyes, stepped out from behind the trees above us. “Toss the knives and guns in the water, and put your hands on your heads.”

I looked around, seeing more men with guns. Where the hell were the police? “I don’t see a good option,” I sent. “Do it,” I said. I tossed my knife behind me, the splash joining the others. I was glad Linda hadn’t said anything. Hopefully, she was hiding, and they wouldn’t notice she was missing from our group. “Don’t say anything about Linda, and don’t look back. If they don’t take her, she can get help.”

A shot rang out, and I looked in horror as Juan’s chest exploded in red. He fell back into the water, dead before he sank out of sight. “WHY? He didn’t DO anything!”

“Our orders were to bring the women. Walk up here single file and into the van. If you resist, you die.” Keeping our hands on our heads, we walked up towards the gunmen.

“The hidden faces are a good sign. It means they want to ransom us, not kill us,” Fiona said.

Santiago’s body was in the trees along the trail, one bullet in the forehead. He was a nice man who didn’t deserve to die. Reaching the parking area, I could see the police vehicle was gone. “I don’t know if they were scared off or on the take,” I said.

“Either way, they are dead men,” Fiona promised.

Our hands were zip-tied behind our backs. One of the gunmen held the door open to a beat-up panel van, while two newer SUVs parked in front of ours. The back was hot and bare, a cage separating us from the driver and armed guard. We sat on the floor as the door slammed shut, and the van lurched forward towards our uncertain future.