Monday
We’re back at Cenote Eden and this time the dive goes to plan. We go in, then go to back up lights and exit. Howard and Mark are already exiting the cave and I’m removing the reel when Matt decides they are too far in front of me. He tells me I’m out of air. I fin over to Mark, signalling like crazy, but it’s hard for him to see as he’s in the daylight zone. He turns, I get his reg, and we move to the line. Drill over I’m allowed to go back to my loop. Then Mark loses his mask, I lose mine, and we exit in touch contact. Then my SPG on it’s longish (2 inch) bit of string gets entangled. I signal to Mark I’m stuck and unclip it, untangle it, but then a tie off has come loose and my fin gets ensnared. I take it off, untangle it, and am replacing it when I feel someone taking the other off!
After the teasing I gave Howard I’m determined to surface with both fins and somehow I make it to the surface laughing.
Later that night I replace the string tying my SPGs to my clips with much shorter line. I ask Matt why he didn’t just tell me to do this instead of tangling me up in the line. “You learn better that way” he tells me. He is right.
A superb day, but it all goes downhill from here…
Team Chaos in Touch Contact 
Tuesday
The next few days we spent in Taj Ma Ha. My communication is poor, and I over-communicate, which stresses out Mark and Howard. After a couple of days I’m not “back seat diving” as much but it still comes out when I see something I don’t like. Mark and I are clashing slightly, as we have different ideas of how things should be done, and I need to let go more. Howard is the most overweight of all of us, and as a result is struggling with his trim.
Mark and I fall out underwater during a pre-dive S-drill. I’m not one for ranting and raging, so I fume for a bit but calm down a bit before the dive. Mark is “Kirk”, Howard is “Spock” and I’m “Uhura” in number three position. We tie in to the mainline and progress through a ziggy zaggy bit. Mark has got a bit too far ahead, so I flash him at around the same time Howard flashes him as there has been a small cave collapse which has obscured the line. In the discussion between Howard and Mark, the viz gets badly stirred up and it all goes to rat shit. I get ready for touch contact and wait. And wait. Just as I’m about to turn around I feel the push from Howard and we go. A little later I look behind me I can see both Howard and Mark’s lights but nothing else. Reasoning that we’re out of zero viz I break touch contact and we head out of the cave.
We exit the cave and get a major bollocking.
The debriefing is stark and merciless. At this point it dawns on me that we are on track to fail the course.
We get out of the water, and agree to do another dive, which goes better. I do a lost line drill which went ok, although I didn’t find the line on the first attempt. Recovering the line for the second attempt is interesting, especially as it has gotten tangled in all manner of rocks. I find the line on the second attempt though.
Mark doesn’t manage to complete his drill as Howard has run out of diluent. We suspect a leaky manifold.
I think I know what I need to change to the pass the course.
Janos in silhouette 
Wednesday
The first dive is better in some ways but not others. The touch contact exit not as good as it could be, but we got out alive. I signal to Mark for a safety stop but he responds with a thumb so we head up. I find out on the surface that he has had a small flood and a caustic cocktail.
It’s the end of diving for the day so we strip Mark’s breather and head back for the rest of the theory. We finish it, and replace the ADV diaphragm on Mark’s rebreather. Replacing this is tricky (it took me a couple of hours when I did it at home last year) and Mark’s already frazzled nerves are getting even more strained. However, I have a go and manage to fit it on the second attempt.
A post dive debrief 
Thursday
I was in a confident mood on the way to the dive site, as I knew what I was doing wrong, so I just needed to stop doing it. That’s half the battle right?
This dive went better and we managed the first of a series of planned jumps before Howard turned the dive on dil. On the way back I strayed too far from the line and Matt quickly removed my mask. I flashed the team immediately and Mark guided me to safety. Lesson learnt.
Five minutes into the next dive I spotted why Howard was using through so much dil. Bubbles were escaping from his wing. I signalled him to hold and investigated the problem before thumbing the dive. Bollocks. It was going really well too.
Mark and I then went for a third dive with Matt and Patrick to recover the reel we’d left in from the first dive. This was brilliant. Mark and I agreed to swim quickly in and to cruise very slowly back, which we did. And there were no drills. Brilliant!
Patrick gives us an encouraging debrief where he talks about fine tuning as the basics seem to be coming together. I am feeling a bit more optimistic now but there’s still a way to go.
A neoprene neckseal acts like a push up bra... 
Friday
Howard was diving with a borrowed Halcyon wing and I was still feeling optimistic. There was still much room for improvement but I was confident that I could raise my game sufficiently. I was back seat driving less and being much more aware of the team. I just needed to keep moving in the same direction.
Today we were diving at Chaak Mool, much of which was explored and surveyed by Matt. We entered at the Little Brother and went through the restriction. The dive went ok-ish, and the drills were ok-ish too.
Second dive and it all went to crap. We were in a bedding plane about one metre high and thumbed the dive due to crap viz being stirred up. Leading the team out I looked behind and could see Mark, not just his light. Thinking we were out of zero-viz I broke contact, not realising of course that Howard bringing up the rear couldn’t see.
Then during the way out I ended up swimming a metre or two too far ahead. Mark was told to go out of air, reached me, but in the rush the mouthpiece came off my reg.
Bollocks.
We surfaced, and Matt’s face was like thunder. We all knew what we had done wrong, so there was no need for a detailed debrief. Instead we silently got out of the water and dekitted. Instead of the detailed debrief we had a general chat about cave diving. It was late and getting dark when we finished.
I now thought that we were 90% likely to fail, but we had one last chance to pass. Matt said it was a good thing we had two days off before the final day, as it would would give us time to reflect on our weaknesses.
Janos below the halocline 
Writing poetry during the surface interval 