Channel: Good Mythical More
YouTube Video ID: Jc610M4qsAo
Episode Post Date: March 25, 2026
Episode Number: 3008
Transcript
I went scuba diving in a pitch black cave. Welcome to Good Mythical More. Yes, you're back. So, uh, I mean, I survived you whatever cave you were in. That's what I texted my wife right after I got out of this cave that you survived Uhhuh. Well, because she was worried as wives tend to be. Oh, okay. I, um, were you worried? Yes. And I'm gonna tell you about that. Oh, really? So I was in Mexico, Tulum, to be exact, never been there. Okay. But, um, lots of people have recommended it. It was a nice sort of halfway point to meet, uh, Jesse's sister and her husband mm-hmm. For a little celebration of her birthday. And we were, and, and, and Chris, my brother-in-law is scuba certified. And I was like, I'm scuba scuba certified. I didn't go scuba last year 'cause I was kind of dealing with the heart stuff last year and I didn't want to like have a, even though it wouldn't have been dangerous, I didn't like the idea of having an AFib episode while Yeah. Scuba diving. 'cause that's just kind of disconcerting. Yeah. You know? And so I was excited to get back at it and I asked him if he wanted to go and he was like, yeah. And then. I was like, okay, we were getting ready for the trip. And I was like, you gotta send me your scuba certification card. And he sent me his, his, his, uh, patty Open water certification. It was from 1990. It's like he was a baby and he wasn't even concerned. Uh, no, no. I mean, yeah, when we missed a a if I go a whole year, I'm like, I feel really rusty. Well, here's the thing about Chris. First of all, he's a very like. You don't ever worry about him in situations like, you know Chris, he's like, yeah, he's kind of like, he doesn't panic and he, I, he knows how to do things. His last dive was in Costa Rica in 2014, but they asked all these questions and they were like, okay, well what we're gonna do is we're gonna get in there and we'll do a little, little refresher with you guys in the, you know, before we go into this thing. So I was looking up possible dives. In, in Mexico. And so you, when you're on the Yucatan Peninsula, which is where like Cancun is, and then you got Tulum south of that, so that's like the eastern side of Mexico. That big peninsula where the meteorite hit that, um, or the meteor hit and became a meteorite, I guess that ended dinosaurs. Oh. That's one of, that's the theory. Okay. And, but anyway, there's, and now there's water in it and you swim in it. I don't know if the crater is actually related to this, but it's just you've been in a cenote before. Have you seen a cenote before? Uh, no, I haven't. So these are these beautiful underground rivers that is fresh water. And the Mayan people, it was very important in the Mayan culture throughout history. It was a holy place, but it was also a place where they would, they would drink the water. And, uh, I thought it was like a, the way, the way that I've seen it from like a flyover drone, it's just a hole that would like very lush, and then it's just a, it looks like a pond. Yeah. But you're saying that that's under, that's an underground river. So basically what it is, it's a giant limestone formation that goes from miles and miles and miles, maybe across the entire Yucatan Peninsula. I don't know how long it goes. And what happens is, is you've got these limestone caverns that were empty at one point, forming s stites and S stalagmites. Mm-hmm. And then at some point it filled up with water. And then parts of it, once it filled up with water collapsed and created openings that you're seeing from, from the top. In fact, the place that we went is called, which is Two Eyes, and that is because two holes. There was a guy looking at it from, uh, helicopter and he saw the two openings and then like a little like smiley face of trees or whatever, and he was like, oh, two eyes dojos. And so. That was what they named this one. And I was looking at the possible dives and one of them and, and I, and I was like, I thought you had to be advanced or cave certified to go into a cave. And I was like, I don't wanna go into a cave. I want something that's open water. So in scuba diving you got open water certification, which is like you've just learned how to scuba dive and you've done some training. That's what I have. You can go to a certain depth, like maybe 60 feet. I don't know what it's. And, uh, but I looked at options for being able to do this open water certification, and they were like, you can dive in this cenote. And it's basically a cavern dive. And apparently the definition of a cavern is that you always have some focal line to light. Okay. Which by the way, turned out to not be true, which I will get to in a second. Doesn't sound like it. Um, it's dark. So we go to the, uh, and I'm gonna show you some pictures of the video in a second, but I'm just gonna tell you what we did first. So they, the way that they have built these things, and interestingly, at some point in the past, because these cenotes were so sacred to the Mayan people, the Mexican government gave all of the cenotes back to the Mayan people. So the Mayan people, like the indigenous people. Run all of the cenotes. Hmm. And, um, and they do very well with this because people are constantly in there paying to dive and to snorkel. A lot of people just snorkeling, like in the open part. But then, so Jesse and I went snorkeling in one of these, um, outside of, I think it, I think it was outside of Cabo, which of course is the other side of Mexico. But I think there's a cenote over there and. I saw people scuba diving, like there was a line like going into a deep dark cave, and they were just like, these dudes like going on this line and with their light. And I was like, oh, that's kind of scary. I'm a little bit claustrophobic, but I want to do that. That's what I meant. And so I was like, I'm gonna sign myself up for it. And they were like, there are two lines that we're gonna take. One of them, we're gonna go into this thing and then come back. And then the other one, we're gonna go and we're gonna come up into a big air pocket that's a bat cave. Woo. And there's gonna be bats. All on the ceiling. And I was like, yeah. And I was telling Chris and he, Chris was totally down. He was not, he wasn't word at all, but as we were in the, so the guy who was our dive instructor, tour leader was the guy who picked us up from the hotel. And so it's just the three of us. Oh, okay. Daniel and, uh, local guy, boy, he's from Mexico City, but local now. And he's telling us, and I'm like, so I'm like, so we're gonna be able to like see light the whole time. Right. He's like. Uh, yes. Uh, yes. And I was like, okay. And then, and then he, I, I was like, but there's like air pockets, right? We're not going that. I was reading about it online. I was like, we're not going that deep. And then there's like air pockets, there's places to like come up, right? He says. Um, yes, there's some places that come up, but the air is toxic. So he was like, you wouldn't wanna breathe it because it's just this air that's trapped in this cave. And the, I think the guano from the bats has been going into the water, and I don't, he's just like, you just don't wanna do that. He's like, in order to have an access to an air pocket, it has to have access to the outside in order for us to go up into that. So I was, I had on my watch because. I was gonna use my watch as a dive computer, which I did, and. I am like looking at my heart rate, go up on my watch and I'm like, okay, I'm in the car. I'm already nervous and I'm thinking, I don't wanna get in there and use all my air because I'm asking all these questions. He could tell I was a little bit nervous and he was like, you're gonna be fine. He was like, I've never had anybody run out of air. He was like, I've got two whole tanks. He had two giant tanks. He is like, I'm only gonna use half of one of my tanks. So you've got your brother-in-law's, extra air, excuse me, he doesn't run out. And then you've got my whole tank, and then there's other divers and also like, we're always gonna be like five minutes away. He's like, you're fine. So I was like, okay. So then we get into, we go into the eNote and you like, get your buoyancy down and all that stuff. And then we start diving. Let's, I'll show you some of the, the pictures in the video now. So, oh yeah. Okay, here we go. So who's taking this video? Daniel? No. So Daniel's in front with those two tanks, and then that's me. The very long person. And now you'll see when he pan, he tilts up a little bit here. That this is at the end of the dive where, okay, see all these people, this is like the access to the whole thing. Like this is the access to. Where you would walk down and come into that thing. Right. Okay. Um, so this is because the guy who's taking pictures is hanging out here where all the people are snorkeling, uh, and he's just like going around taking pictures and videos and then selling, charging you a lot of money to airdrop them to your phone when you get to the shop at the end, Uhhuh. And I was like, yes, I'm gonna talk about this on my show, so please give me those uhhuh. Um. What if you watch the, okay, so here's a, here's a, here's a, uh oh, there's a little bit dark, deeper into the cave there. He gave us that light. Are you under a big fish? Uh, no. That is just the ceiling. Ceiling. It's like scales there. So there were little teeny fish throughout this thing. Very, very small fish. And that was almost the only wildlife that you could see in there because it's almost ex just completely. Crystal clear water as far as you can shine your light. Wow. Is as far as you can see. And how cold was it? Uh, I think so We were in three mil wetsuits, I think. And the water temperature was like 62, 63. So it wasn't bad. It wasn't, that's cold water, but it's not California cold uhhuh, you know what I mean? Um, let's go to the next picture. So you got Chris coming up with me, Chris, he's chill. He's fine. Are you holding onto a line at most of the time? Uh, can you see the line in this picture? No. You're not holding onto the line, but you are following the line. Like it's a, um, like it's a highway, so you've got the, you've got the rope and so you're, you're going like this, and there's other people coming out on the other side. Do you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Okay. Next, I think this is, is another video. No, this is just a picture. Hello. Okay, this is a cool one. So that's Chris. And this is like when you're getting back to the end again and you've got the, the is that when he ascended to heaven, beams of light coming down. And I think there's another one of me that's kind of, uh, go to the next one. Oh yeah, look at that. Is, is that when you descended to hell? Well, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get this printed out and I'm gonna put an inspirational quote under. It's be like motivation. What? I need to do this again. Oh, look. Peace sign. Oh, you gave the peace sign to the photographer? Yeah, I did lots of signs and this is the one that I chose. Okay, so this isn't that crazy because I'm at there at the end, but let me tell you about the, you should, you should have done one of these. Uh, what is that? Three? Three stooges. That's a Turkey. And then you've got, I can't remember what the, um, any of them are at this point. Sea turtle. Uh, what is this chase? You know, you're a scuba diver. Uh, I've have you put your hand the other way so that you're, the fist is on the back of your hand. And then, and then do that. Yeah. That's a jellyfish. Yeah, jellyfish. So, and then if you lose the fist fist, then it's an octopus. And you, you do make it swim and, and what if you do this? This is a turtle. No, I think it's just a shocker. There's something with a turtle. Uh, let's see. I'm show the other video if we've got that and then I will, uh. Is there another video? Yeah. Okay. So I'm doing that kick and you see the audio makes me need to pee. Look, now I go to the frog kick, which I think looks kind of dumb. He told us to do the frog kick to keep from kicking up the sediment. So this is like right when we were getting in and I was like practicing the frog kick. I kind of gave up on it. Yeah, you need to work on that. I gave up on it. Okay. But here's the thing. So we get to the bat cave, you know that I am, I, I am not into bats. Mm-hmm. But we got to the bat cave. And we, um, you're scared. We came up and we looked up and there was light coming in from the sun, and he was like, oh, all the bats have left. He was like, the bats have left because people, he says, oh, it's because there's been people coming in here and shining lights. And they're like, ah, what the hell? And they get outta there. But then we found one little hole that had like 20 bats. We finally found a little bat. There's a furry hole. I was like, oh, there they are. And I got right beneath them. And then I started. Thinking about the guano coming down and going in my mouth and giving me an infection. And, uh, so I closed my mouth and moved to the side because in the bottom of the, of the ca all throughout the cave and these little ga like little, the lowest spots throughout the cave, there was poop, and then seeds, like that big. And he's like, those are all the seeds that the bats eat. They eat. They're fruit bats, okay. Or the bats that eat fruit. And so it's just these collections of seeds just all around the bottom. Not growing, of course. And then he showed us some fossils, like in a couple of places because that used to be the o it used to be the ocean floor. And then he reaches down and he shows me like this skeleton of a bat that was like on the bottom. And I didn't really what he, what he was doing until he reached down and he like picked up a bone and he like hands it to me. And I'm like, what is this? And then I pick it up, I, oh, it's a backbone. I put it in my wetsuit. Now you're gonna hand it to me. I put it underneath my wetsuit to be like, I'm gonna take this bone with me. Yeah. Probably not supposed to do that, but it's a bone. It's not, you're not, you can't take, you can't touch the rocks and you can't take any of that with. You, but he handed you a bone, handed me a bone, I put it in there. And then when we got out of the dive, I forgot about it. So my backbone is just out there somewhere. I totally, totally lost you. What were you thinking you were gonna do with the backbone? I was gonna frame it in a thing. I was gonna put motivation underneath. Um, you could have put it, you could have put it on the picture of yourself. Yeah, I would do. I mean, I would do a little necklace. I'd have a little backbone necklace now. So I will say there was one time that I got a little uneasy and that was, he could see that we were, after our first dive, he was like, you guys are like really good. Like you, your buoyancy is, we got, 'cause it was only like 20 to 30 feet the whole time Depth. Mm-hmm. Depth. And you know how you can like set your buoyancy, then you control your buoyancy completely with your breath. Yeah. And you're not like using your BCD. So that's what I was doing. And so we were like, you would like kind of ri, I mean, it's so cool. Like I, I highly recommend scuba diving because you're like flying through this thing. And so I was like, it feels like you're in space and you can like see this guy in front of you with these two lights. He had giant lights, Daniel did so we could see everything. Yeah. I love it. And you feel like you're in the abyss, you know the movie. Yeah. And. Uh, but then he, he, he's like, okay, you guys are doing good. He's like, I'm gonna take you down this little, we're gonna go into this cave. He, he said that, and I didn't really understand, but we went into this thing and like went kind of around a corner and went for a little bit longer. And I'm like looking, I'm like this. I like, there's, I don't see, I don't know. There's, we're on the line, so we're fine. And then he's like, he, he like stops and he like, gets our attention and then he's like, points at the light and he's like. You know, cut the light off. Yeah. And we turned all three of our lights off. Well, no, first of all, he said he was like, hold, he was like, grab the line. We grabbed onto the line and then we turned our lights off. Total darkness took nothing like complete darkness and like I am, my heart rate immediately went up. Because I was like, because I just, I was started to, I started thinking about how if you were by yourself, like let's just say you're a, you start, wait. The things you're thinking about down there, no, you're not supposed to think at all. Well, when I was a kid, at least I don't, when I was a kid, we went to this place called Radium Springs, which was a, a natural spring in Georgia. And my dad used to say, there's crazy guys that scuba diving in those caves and they die all the time. You know, he like told me, he made me. And they did. Yeah. Because you would go in there, and this was back in the day, toxic fumes in like the eighties, where like you are the one figuring out the pathway. Yeah. And you're the one tying the line. These are, these lines are really well established, but I was just thinking, could you imagine? But complete nutter darkness if you, if you got completely separated from your group and then you're light stopped working and you were in a cave. And it's not like you can feel your way because you know how disorienting it is. Like you don't know how, you can't tell if you're going up. And so then when we got out, he, he probably left the, he left the light off for maybe 30 seconds and towards the last like 10 seconds, I was like, I can't take this anymore. Oh, really? I was like, I, but I wasn't gonna be the one to cut the light back on. I wasn't, I was gonna let him do it. I was like, I'm, I'm holding onto to this line. And so then he cuts it back on and I'm like. You have to, you give the oak here, if you give this symbol and diving, it means we're going up. Yeah. You can't give thumb. You give this, it means you're going down. This means you're okay. That's the international symbols. So. I was like, I'm still cool, man. This means octopus. And, and then we came out and then we were talking about it after. He was like, yeah. He said as soon as it went dark, you guys lost your buoyancy control. And he was like, I could feel the line light going up. And I had no idea. I couldn't feel it going up, but he could because he's like, you know, he's a, he's done it forever. A lot of shy, you're doing a lot of shallow breathing, you're doing something. But I, but, but then I got out as soon as I got service, I texted Jesse, I survived. But that feeling of being in complete, utter darkness, I mean, we, I've been in a cave before, not under water, where you do that and it, it, your body does have a reaction. Even if it's not stress, it's just like your eyes wanna open, your eyes, wanna see so bad that they just like peel themselves. It feels like your eyes are peeling back. Yeah. And you're just like, oh my, I, I just don't think about worst case scenarios. Yeah, man, I just go with people. Who do that? Like Chase? Yeah. Yeah. Cha Chase is Chase. You asked me are diving buddy. Are are you gonna take your camera? Mm-hmm. Yeah, because I mean, we, you got into scuba diving first, then Link got into it and then I got into it. We've been on a couple of trips with you. Mm-hmm. And, um, you've got the camera and I have a camera, like a 360 camera. But I have just learned, I don't have anything. I have learned. There too many things to think about. I don't need a camera. I'll let this guy do it, and then I'll give him pesos to, uh, to, yeah. Airdrop also, it's almost a rule that when you don't take your camera, you end up having a better dive where you see more Oh, awesome stuff, because they see, because the animals look for cameras. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They get shot. They're, they're so shy. The one time my, uh, cow, my camera flooded, I immediately saw an octopus and a harbor seal. Uh, over at this Channel Islands. Yeah. I'm just gonna, you know what, just have to remember it. I will say I used my, my Apple Watch, not a sponsor, and the Oceanic app is also not a sponsor, but I was like, I'm gonna use this thing, and it has an app and it au it automatically created logs and it automatically recognized. That the pictures that I had taken at the same time, the pictures that got taken at the same time as my dive. Oh wow. So it logged and it, it includes all of the media and it has where it was Yeah, your dive profile and your, it's cool that it brings in the photos. Yeah. And so it's like, I'm so bad at keeping my log. Yeah. So now it's just automatic. That's nice. And I've gotta tell you, I caught the bug again. My favorite type of diving is I'm ready to go again, cave and cavern diving. But I think when you're talking about. About n not knowing what to do if you're separated. There is a cave certification, right? Oh yeah, yeah. There's cave certification, like rec's kind of similar too. You're to, so then you, you learn how to, how you're supposed to react to those kind of things. Now I'm not, and I would guess that it has something to do with, you probably need to have a noise making device. I'm not doing cave. I don't want to do, I don't wanna do real caves. I'll stick with caverns, but. Que question chase. Do you know about this wreck that's off San Diego that they did? They sunk, that's supposed to be crazy Awesome. Yeah. Uhhuh. Um, I, if it's the one that you're, it's the one I'm thinking of. I dove it once, it's like 360 feet long. Yeah. Uh, and it's kind of at an angle. Yeah, slightly. They, they, they, a lot of times they'll take one of these old warships and they will sink it for the purpose of diving. Mm-hmm. And they did that. And then when they sunk it, it flipped on its side. So now. And it sunk early, so everything is on its side. And so now you dive through all of the wreck, but the doors aren't in the right places because of all that. And so you get disoriented. I'm gonna do that, but uh, so you've done it? Yeah. Uh, there's the Yukon and then there's the Ruby E. Um, I think I did the Ruby E and they're like, this was a long time ago, like when I first got certified, 2018 ish. Oh, okay. Um, and I. That was one of the few times I was like, oh, I, I dived beyond my means. I went a little deeper than I for then the, um, just basic open water cer that I had at the time. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, it was dark and I didn't know my buddy that I just met on the boat and I immediately was like, I shouldn't be here yet. And so I don't really remember much besides like, panicking. Don't panic. Don't panic. Yeah. The thing is, I actively was, when I dive with Shepherd, because he's uh, 17 and you know, when I dove with him before he was like 14 and 15. Having a 14-year-old as your dive buddy, you're thinking you're worrying about him the whole time. Right. He's never checking on me. Never. Like you're supposed to check constantly on your buddy. And I'm like, I'll say that was kind of what it was like diving with link too. Like he was like, you, you were just having such a great time. You always time. You gotta check on your buddy man. Or when you decided to lead, all of a sudden you were just like way ahead of us. 'cause you were just excited. Yeah. Gotta keep up man. Yeah, we, I mean, last time we went, we had a stranger with us. And I, I regret that IWI, you know, if I really regretted it, stranger, we could, could done something about it, you know, stranger danger, go down with three, come up with two, you know? Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's a great way to get rid of something, but I don't think you deserved it. So, Rhett, how deep did you end up going in, in the cenotes? Uh, I think my max depth, which I can look at my log book and tell you was 33 feet. So it was not bad at all. It was, no, not terrible. Yeah, nothing.