Manantial De Porfidia
Dominican Republic 1/13/2009
by Phillip Lehman

Divers: Thomas Riffaud, Phillip Lehman

As we are hanging out after a dive, Jose out of the blue informs us of a cave he just "remembered" about, in the DR there is always another cave, just never all at once.
This cave is in fact right in the middle of town under a woman named Porfidia's house.
We drive through town to the spot and park, I am thinking yeah right, were is this cave, we are literarily in the middle of town I can't imagine a cave here.
I get out of the car and follow jose through Porfidia's house and out the back door to a small yard, and there it is a good sized sinkhole!

photo Bobby Pritchett

It looks a bit dirty and there is some trash in the entrance, what can you expect, it's in the center of town! I climb down about 15 meters to the bottom and it opens into a big weird looking yellow and very slimy dry cave, there is a nasty looking shallow sump directly in front of me but I can see it does not go and is choked out on all sides.
Jose tells me we need to go left and through a boulder squeeze to get to an area with more water. After negotiating a series of boulders we get to the breakdown squeeze, when it collapsed it only needed a few meters more to totally block the passage, we get through no problem and emerge on the other side to a fairly large cavern, still yellow and still very slimy.
There is an island of breakdown in the center and it is surrounded by clear water, I think to myself cool, this may be worth it after all.

photo Bobby Pritchett

It is easy to forget were I am, directly below the town and all the septic tanks so I reluctantly get ready to jump in and check it out.
I never thought this might be worth it so I did not bring a bathing suit, I take off my shorts and jump in in my boxers, Jose and the crew look at me laughing and a flurry of jokes are flung in my direction, whatever, I am hoping the water is clean, it smells clean at least, but it's really cold.

To avoid stirring up any silt, I decide to use the floating pancake technique, a common practice in surfing when falling on a shallow reef to avoid getting cut, I float over to the wall in front of me, I shine the light down and I see a potential tunnel going in, I try to free dive a bit further in to see if it might go but it silts out real bad.

photo Thomas Riffaud

I climb back out of the cave covered in mud and slime and let Thomas and Bobby know that I think it might go, they are both unmoved and not super motivated since it is directly below town.

For some reason I decide to take a chance on this one and not do a power snorkeling recon dive, instead we will dive this one in full gear, Thomas agrees, why not?
I make an all in bet with Bobby "we will empty a full 800 foot reel on the first dive and the cave will be really big", Bobby laughs at me...We take two 800ft reels.
By now the entire neighborhood has gathered in the street around us, they all think we are insane and that we are going to die.

After carrying the gear down, we gear up in the shallow pool being as careful as possible but by now it is totally silted out.
I tie off to a rock out of the water and sink down along the wall were I saw the tunnel, I can't see a thing and keep swimming ahead, it's zero viz so I use the force, and I suddenly emerge in crystal clear water and see that the tunnel we are in is a low but wide bedding plane, dark soft rock with really weird clay banks, cool! I see a lot of shrimp everywhere, I think about a Discovery Channel Man vs Nature episode were they said if there are shrimp in the water it means it is clean, it comforts me as I am now swimming in a cave directly below a densely populated town in a third world country, I try hard not to think about the porous properties of limestone.

photo Bobby Pritchett

After making a few really stupid tie offs, Thomas gets pissed and takes the reel from me and swims on ahead, I don't care so far this cave goes! I am happy, this rules!.
The shallow bedding plane goes up into a restriction and then just before the surface opens up to a large large dry cave, we swim just below the surface and around a big debris cone at the center of the cave and then the tunnel dips under the ceiling at the far end of the dry cave and goes down to about 6 meters, it goes up a small silt hill, I see Thomas ahead and he turns to me with a huge smile and a few seconds later I understand why, the cave opens up really wide and big, it looks like a wide open field, we are both hysterical, this cave goes big time!!!
The rock is contorted dissolved and pure white with dark colored silt banks everywhere, the tunnels range from big to huge, there are numerous air pockets and I see many leads, I drop cookies on the line and we continue swimming in what looks like the main way on, there is no hallocline but some really wild water density changes and multicolored rainbow layers everywhere, very nice.

photo Thomas Riffaud

After a while I see Thomas stopped ahead with yet another huge grin on his face and then I see the empty reel in his hand, yes! we are in about 800feet already and there is no sign of the cave stopping!
I break out my reel tie in and we continue, the cave does not get any smaller and the light gets lost in some places, I see sections with perfectly cylindrical holes in the ceiling about 10-12 inches in diameter, they look as if someone took a drill bit and drilled holes all over the place, I swim up and shine my light up a few and cannot see the end in some, I am hypnotized by this very cool geological feature and swim upside down a little while to watch theses holes, tripping out and thoroughly enjoying the moment.

.
ceiling formations photo Thomas Riffaud

Swimming along further in I see a very big white crab standing on the floor and swim up to it, I am thinking it's dead but when I get close it bolts away! and makes a huge silt cloud in the process, great defense mechanism! This is the first time i see such a big crab in a cave.
We continue swimming in I see more weird circular deep potholes in the ceiling and fossil sea urchins in some part too, the cave at this point has been shallow at only an average depth of 6 meters, and I am constantly turning around to gauge the percolation but for some reason there is only a minimal amount of silt raining down, in comparison to the other caves in the area this one has good viz even on the first dive.

photo Thomas Riffaud

After a while my reel also runs out, I had no idea we would find a cave like this, we should have brought the big reels, we both have plenty of air left but no more line! We pause for a moment and stare down the tunnel ahead, it looks like it gets a bit deeper, there is a slope that appears to level off at about 10 meter and as far as we can see keeps going, immediately to our right it looks like there is another tunnel that makes a sharp 90 degree turn, I make a final tie off place an arrow and we head out.

The way out is uneventful The viz is ok for most of the way, there is zero viz in only a few spots especially the last 50 meters or so back to the entrance, but nothing like the other caves in the area.

As we surface I tell Thomas I knew it, he shrugs, but we both agree we scored!

We both climb out of the cave covered in mud and slime and with a feeling of satisfaction that only a good cave dive or big wave surf session can give you.

People are tripping out, we have been gone for over an hour and no one thought we would make it out alive, we are now officially crazy gringos, and people look at us funny, some are curious about what we saw in there but most think we are insane and are to be avoided.
I let bobby know that I was right, we laid 1500 feet of line and the cave still goes, I won the bet, it feels good, one of my best dives.

From L to R
Jose, Thomas, Bobby, Jose, Phillip, David

Dive time 1:07mins
Max depth 8.8 meters
Fun factor 11 (out of a possible 10)