PROJECT: CENOTE DOS PALMAS
Cenote Dos Palmas is a classic example of Yucatan Peninsula cave diving. A labyrinth of decorated cave passages, shallow depths, and pristine visibility make it one of the most popular entrances to the Dos Ojos section of Sistema Sac Actun.
Quick Facts
Project Name: Dos Palmas
Location: Tulum, Mexico
Status: Complete
Team: Rory O'Keefe, Alex K.S. Fraser
Cave Length: 11,432 meters / 37,507 feet
Max Depth: 17 meters / 55 feet
Sketching Dives: 70+
The History
Dos Palmas was initially explored in 1991 by Steve Gerrard who was working with the assistance of Hilario Hiler. On his first effort, Steve successfully laid over 500 meters of line heading upstream towards Dos Ojos, and another 400 meters downstream towards Nicte-Ha.
Around the same time, another diver by the name of Buddy Quattlebaum had begun working his way upstream towards Dos Palmas from Nicte-Ha, and quickly made a connection to Steve’s downstream line.
In 1992, both divers returned to the project with the goal of connecting Dos Palmas to the Dos Ojos cave system. This time working from Dos Ojos, the team made the connection to Steve’s upstream line from the previous year, making Dos Palmas a permanent link to the Dos Ojos cave system.
Over the next five years, the area saw a tremendous amount of exploration thanks to the efforts of many dedicated divers, and by 1996 the Dos Ojos cave system had grown to 59 kilometers in length.
During that time frame, the QRSS records show that the remainder of the Dos Palmas area was explored by Chuck Stevens, Robert Osman, Dan Lins, Gary Walten, and Kay Walten.
The 1996 survey of Sistema Dos Ojos.
In 2011, a significant connection was made by Alessandro Reato. Working from the entrance of Dos Palmas, Alex connected the 9,900-meters long cave system, Balun Aktun, to the northern section of Dos Palmas.
At the time, this connection made Sistema Dos Ojos the third longest underwater cave in the world, with over 78 kilometers of flooded passages. More information on Alessandro's work can be found here.
Finally, a full three decades after the original exploration of Sistema Dos Ojos took place, the Dos Ojos cave system was connected to Sistema Sac Actun by Robbie Schmittner in 2018. This long-sought underwater connection between Sac Actun and Dos Ojos created an underwater link to over 347 kilometers of cave passages, making Sistema Sac Actun the longest underwater cave in the world.
At the time of this project, Sistema Sac Actun has a reported length of nearly 370 kilometers, with Cenote Dos Palmas being one of its most accessible entrances.
Mapping Dos Ojos
THE DOS PALMAS SECTION
by Rory O’Keefe, January 29, 2022
It’s Finished!
I am thrilled to announce that as of January 2022, I have completed the Dos Palmas map. The project required over 70 sketching dives to map a total of 11,431 meters / 37,503 feet of underwater cave passages, including 4376 meters / 14,356 feet of newly explored cave. With average dive times of 180 - 200 minutes, that translates to over 220 hours of work, not including resurvey, exploration, or drafting.
A free digital copy of the final draft is available on our Maps page - all we ask is that you consider donating a small amount of money to the cartographer if you enjoy using the map. Contributions will be put towards the funding of future mapping projects and can be made through PayPal here:
A limited run of 100 signed art prints will be available for purchase in-store at Under The Jungle Dive Shop in Puerto Aventuras. The 16”x20” prints will be priced at $40 USD, and come carefully packaged for travel. An open edition of water-resistant prints will be made available at local cave diving centers for $35 USD.
I would also like to thank the following people for their support and assistance with the project:
Zack Bloom, Alex K.S. Fraser, Natalie Gibb, Sev Regehr, Nicholas White, and Under The Jungle Dive Shop.
Videos by Natalie Gibb of Under The Jungle.
The Concept
My objectives for the project were simple, I wanted to first create a navigational aid for cave divers and second, I hoped to show the full extent of the cave system for conservation purposes.
Cross-Sections are 2x the scale of the plan view.
Because of the incredible complexity of the cave system, I made the decision to draw a simplified map; focusing only on the walls and columns of the cave.
To compensate for the lack of floor and ceiling detail, I planned to use frequent cross-sections to show the size and shape of each tunnel which had the added benefit of leaving space within the plan view to include the guidelines.
This simplified style of cartography would also allow me to print at a smaller scale, which would be necessary if I chose to continue mapping across the Dos Ojos region towards The Pit.
The Map
I can really only describe the mapping portion of the project as an all-out slog. I simply sketched, and sketched, and sketched, with a few micro-adventures in-between to explore the new sections of the cave.
Don't get me wrong, I love mapping caves and will never stop, but at a certain point, I feel that all I really did here was drive to the cenote, get into the water, swim somewhere, sketch, and repeat about 70 times!
Note: If you are interested in learning more about the mapping process, I have an introductory series on underwater cave cartography here.
So, rather than drone on about the boring details of my map, I'd like to end this report with a series of progress pictures leading up to the final draft of January 2022. Enjoy.
UPDATES: CENOTE DOS PALMAS
Note: A digital version of the final draft is available on our Maps page.
AUGUST 2020
The first month of progress. This was about 5 dives into the project and I had absolutely no idea how much survey I was missing.
OCTOBER 2020
This was 18 sketching dives into the project and I genuinely thought that I would be finished in 10 more dives - I was wrong, very wrong! If you look closely at the survey you will notice quite a few lines have been added, particularly on the west side of the map.
DECEMBER 2020
I still like this layout, but had I continued in this direction the final print size would have been 4 feet long with 20-kilometers worth of cave passage. I decided to split the map into two; Dos Palmas and Dos Ojos. I will be starting the Dos Ojos map during the summer of 2022.
JANUARY 2021
This layout change was an extremely difficult decision for me. I felt like I was cheating myself by cutting the map in half, but it needed to be done. At this point in the project, I had something like 100 open leads marked that would have to be surveyed and mapped - a job that ultimately added 4376 meters / 14,356 feet of newly explored cave.
APRIL 2021
Not a ton of progress here - I think, in all honesty, I needed some time off from the project. I had also purchased my first DPV in February and wanted to spend some time learning to use it before continuing with mapping.
July 2021
This is a realistic example of what my personal draft of a project looks like. The red circles are my “to-do list” and I would regularly add 3-4 more for every circle I finished. If you look closely you will see that a lot of the missing pieces and open ends in between the major guidelines have started to be filled in. I was also forced to remove the full 100m x 100m grid as there simply wasn’t enough space with all of the new cross-sections.
OCTOBER 2021
At this point in the project, I started to redo large sections of the upstream and downstream mainlines. I was unhappy with the accuracy of my first few sketches and felt that they were not up to par with my more recent work. There were two main reasons for this: First, I was using a smaller-than-normal sketching scale of 1cm = 10m and it took me some time to get used to visualizing the cave at this scale. Second, I did not have a sufficient amount of survey at the time to properly sketch these areas.
DECEMBER 2021
I had been suffering from “cartographers block” for much of 2021 and it was time to write the ending of my map. After months of swimming around the cave and cleaning up all of the ridiculously annoying bits and pieces of my to-do list, I sat down and planned one final push. It would be 5 dives, one for each major corner of the map. The plan worked, and 211 minutes into dive number five, I took out my clipboard one final time and drew a shamefully emotional cross-section. I was done.
JANUARY 2022
The final draft of Dos Palmas after 220 hours of sketching underwater.
Where can I find the map?
A free digital copy of the final draft is available on our Maps page - all we ask is that you consider donating a small amount of money to the cartographer if you enjoy using the map. Contributions will be put towards the funding of future mapping projects and can be made through PayPal here:
A limited run of 100 signed art prints will be available for purchase in-store at Under The Jungle Dive Shop in Puerto Aventuras. The 16”x20” prints will be priced at $40 USD, and come carefully packaged for travel. An open edition of water-resistant prints will be made available at local cave diving centers for $35 USD.
