During my attempts to connect the systems Balun
Actun and Dos Ojos, between March and April 2011, I made some dives in the cenote Dos Palmas with the objective to verify data
and to find any unexplored cave passage left by previous exploration.
Close to the cenote Motz Hayá there is a cave, orginally explored by Buddy Quattlebaum in 1994 and continued by Steve
Keene in 1996, where the waterflow goes to North East, in contrast to the main direction of the entire Dos Ojos system,
which flows to South East.
The guideline ended in a small room and the water flow continued toward the North through a
restriction.
The cave continues towards North, with alternating
break downs and restrictions, though in a highly decorates scenery. The flow is
constant and quite evident. This drew my attention to a possible connection to the system Eb, which belongs to a group of
caves located around
the Mayan ruins of Xel-Ha, and was explored in 2008 by Bil Phillips.
I explored 3642 feet / 1110 meters of new passages,
before I arrived into a wide chamber formed by a great break down. Here the cave opens into two deeper and phreatic
passages: a very low bedding plane toward the West and a passage into salt water with a weak flow toward the South East.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to enter the cave from the cenote Eb due to the prohibition imposed by INAH because of
the presence of remains and potteries.
The reported data by Bil Phillips shows the
shallow caves between 20 and 30 feet deep. I explored a short distance toward the East before I arrived at few break downs.
Above one of them, over a restricted chimney, I managed to get a point where I was able to see the guide line
laid by Bil Phillips three years before.
Another small piece of the big puzzle was put in place. This connection added
the Eb cave system to Dos Ojos, the third largest underwater cave system of the World.