Cave Diving

In the Yucatán, the 1980s ended with the discoveries of the Dos Ojos and Nohoch Nah Chich cave systems which lead into a long ongoing competition of which exploration team had the longest underwater cave system in the world at the time, with both teams vying for first place.
The beginning of the 1990s led into the discovery of underwater caves such as Aereolito on the island of Cozumel, ultimately leading to the 5th biggest underwater cave in the world.
By the mid 1990s a push into the central Yucatán Peninsula by dedicated deep cave explorers discovered a large number of deep sinkholes, or pit cenotes, such as Sabak Ha, Utzil and deep caves such as Chacdzinikche, Dzibilchaltun, Karkirixche that have been explored and mapped. To this day these deep caves of the central Yucatán remain largely unexplored due to the sheer number of cenotes found in the State of Yucatán, as well as the depth involved that can be only tackled using technical diving techniques or rebreathers. In the end of the last millennium closed circuit rebreather (CCR) cave diving techniques were employed in order to explore these deep water filled caves.
By the end of the 1990s, The Pit in the Dos Ojos cave system located 5.8 km from the Caribbean coast in the state of Quintana Roo had been discovered, and it is presently (2008) 119 m deep. At that time, technical diving and rebreather equipment and techniques became common place.