The Washington Post - USA (2022-02-22)

C8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22 , 2022

ACROSS
1 TV host with her
“OWN” network
6 Avoider of foods
from animals
11 Weep

14 “A penny
saved ...” is one

15 Thrill
16 “Into __ Woods”

17 *Chic runway
event

19 Actress de
Armas

20 Not clash
21 Zac of “High
School Musical”
films

23 Mex. neighbor
26 Part of a snicker

27 Seafood found
in cakes

28 Short rest
29 *Popular betting
sport
34 PC problem
solvers
36 Harvard or Yale,
e.g.
37 Robert of “The
Sopranos”
38 Spanish bull

39 Director Ang
40 As well

41 Greek Cupid
42 Lively dance

43 Bowling woes
45 *Uptown New
York City thor-
oughfare west
of Madison
48 Game console
letters
49 Its symbol is Fe

50 Dedicated poem
51 Test for M.A.
hopefuls
52 Masters of
the Universe
superhero

54 With 55-Down,
superhero alter
ego
56 Señora Perón

57 Practical
judgment ...
and a hint to
the starts of
the answers to
starred clues

63 Tennis call
64 Coin flip call

65 Baseball’s
Shohei Ohtani,
notably

66 “Black-ish”

patriarch

67 Scents

68 Sporty car roofs

DOWN

1 Dolt

2 Romantic kiss

in a crowd,

for short

3 Univ. aides

4 Turkish title

5 Song sung by

a toon mining

septet

6 Facade

7 Otherwise

8 “Dilbert” cry

9 From __ B:

basic step

10 Period of

change that’s

“ushered in”

11 Diva’s goal

12 “That’s awful!”

13 Coffee source

18 The first of them

was sold March

6, 1912

22 Spa treatment

23 Brings together

24 Zen

enlightenment

25 Close, but not

precise

27 Weep

30 Prolonged battle

31 Holiday lead-in

32 Empty __:

parent whose

kids have

grown and

moved

33 __ Pointe,

Michigan

35 Speech

platforms

39 2020 Super

Bowl number

42 Yr. starter

43 Khartoum’s land

44 Eyes closely

46 Bigwig

47 “We can do

without him”

52 Conducted, as a

meeting

53 Eternally

54 Starfleet rank:

Abbr.

55 See 54-Across

58 20-vol.

reference

59 Red Guard

leader

60 Nonprofit

aid gp.

61 Labor Day mo.

62 Golfer Ernie

LA TIMES CROSSWORD By Seth Bisen-Hersh

MONDAY’S LA TIMES SOLUTION

© 202 2 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 2/22/2 2

going to train cave divers, and I’m going to

explore caves.’ ”

Gibb achieved all those goals within a few

years, even discovering a small cave system

not far from her home. But her biggest

discovery came in 2014, after getting a tip

from a fisherman, who said there was a hole

deep in a mangrove swamp. Gibb and Rou-

quette-Cathala rented a little boat, found

the hole and discovered a cave at the bottom,

but the entrance was only about one foot

wide — too small to swim though.

Gibb had a hunch there were other

caves in the area, so she looked at Google

maps and noticed that the water above the

hole had a yellowish hue. She searched the

map for similar-colored water nearby and

systematically began checking them. For

years, Gibb kept finding tiny peepholes

into what looked like a large, intercon-

nected system of caves. Then in early 2019,

she finally found an entrance that she

could wriggle through — barely.

“I couldn’t see anything, so I was swim-

ming blind. But I felt water flowing toward

me, and so I swam against the current. Then

I felt water pushing up from underneath me,

so I nosedived down into this hole. About 25

feet down, I go through another entrance

and find myself in a big chamber completely

covered by bright orange sponges.”

Gibb and Rouquette-Cathala had to

swim backward to get out of the cave, and

Rouquette-Cathala refused to go back in.

“I said, ‘Yeah, it’s like really poor visibility

and it’s a little unstable, but I haven’t spent

the last five years looking for this place to

not dive it,’ ” Gibb recalls.

She did two more dives alone, pushing

farther into the cave each time, and even-

tually found what she was looking for: an

anaerobic (without oxygen) ecosystem

filled with hydrogen sulfide and surfaces

covered in layers of microbes. Gibb col-

lected microbes and sent them to scien-

tists at Northwestern University to ana-

lyze. So far they’ve found DNA from an-

cient single-celled organisms called ar-

chaea (pronounced ahr-KEE-uh).

When she’s not looking for caves, you

can find Gibb in her dive shop in Tulum,

Mexico. Tulum has cenotes (si-NO-tees) —

picturesque, crystal clear caverns that are

relatively safe for beginner cave divers.

The cenotes are pretty, Gibb says, but she

much prefers the mucky, stinky, danger-

ous caves that she has discovered herself.

“I get to see places that no human on

Earth has ever seen before,” she says.

“How cool is that?”

CHIP SAYS

Flowing lava can form caves. The longest lava

cave is the Kazumura Cave in Hawaii, which

is almost 40 miles long.

kidspost

KIDSPOST.COM

Read more stories

about science, history

and current events on

our website.

TODAY

Daytime temperatures may reach

the mid-60s, and there is a high

chance of showers.

ILLUSTRATION BY EBBA SHINKMAN, 11, OAKTON

RORY O’KEEFE

Gibb, above, took a photo of fellow

diver Miranda Bowman, top, in an

underwater cavern called a cenote.

BY SADIE DINGFELDER

When Natalie Gibb emerges from one
of her cave dives on the southeast coast of
Mexico, the 41-year-old could easily be
mistaken for a swamp monster.
“I’m dripping with microbial goo and
reeking of rotten eggs. My skin is burning
from the hydrogen sulfide, and I’m grin-
ning ear to ear,” Gibb says. Why the smile?
Because she’s just visited somewhere no
one has seen before.
“When I was 5, I would say I wanted to be
an explorer, and people kept telling me the
entire world has already been explored,” she
says. “Turns out, that’s not true.”
Since 2014, Gibb and her dive partner,
Vincent Rouquette-Cathala, have discov-
ered more than 55 miles of caves beneath
mangrove swamps near the border of
Mexico and Belize.
Scuba diving in any cave is extremely
dangerous (and requires years of special-
ized training), but Gibb’s caves are next-
level terrifying — and gross. For one thing,
they are often filled with dissolved hydro-
gen sulfide, a poisonous substance that
can be absorbed through the skin and
cause headaches, dizziness and nausea.
Plus, it makes you smell like rotten
eggs. “People are like, ‘You know, you need
to take a shower,’ ” she says. “And I’m like,
‘No, I just took a shower. I’m off-gassing.’ ”
Also gross: Gibb often emerges from
dives covered in black slime — the re-
mains of microbes that hitched a ride on
Gibb and died the second they touched
the oxygen-rich water of the estuary. “For
them, oxygen is poison, and hydrogen
sulfide is just fine,” she says.
Gibb went on her first dive in 2003
while on vacation in Florida. Four years
later, while traveling in Mexico, she was
persuaded to go on a guided cavern dive.
(Caverns are like caves with big open
mouths, so you’re never far from the en-
trance or the surface.)
“Before the dive, I thought cave divers
were crazy. Afterward, I was like, ‘Okay, I
am going to be a cave diver. I’m going to
have my own cave diving center, and I’m

F or daring diver, exploring d eep, smelly c aves is a delight

NATALIE GIBB

NATALIE GIBB

Natalie Gibb photographed diving partner Vincent Rouquette-Cathala in an underwater cave they found off the coast of

Mexico. Diving in caves can be dangerous and gross. They have explored ones filled with a poisonous, smelly substance.

Adapted from an

online discussion.

Dear Carolyn: My

sister-in-law

(“Sally”) recently

got a puppy-mill

puppy who

immediately

presented with a

host of problems — worms,

cough, etc. He’s about 4 months

old now and, after thousands of

dollars spent in vet bills, is

allegedly “fine,” but was so much

work that Sally (30s, not

attached) moved home for the

help. My mother- and father-in-

law were scheduled to visit my

family — we have four kids

under 6 and a dog — next

weekend and just informed us

that Sally is coming, too, and

bringing the puppy and isn’t that

great?!

My husband immediately

questioned the health of the dog,

and it was waved off. I then said

I wasn’t comfortable with a dog,

still so young, who was so

recently so sick — vomiting just

two weeks ago — being both

near my dog and my very young

kids. Not to mention the fact

that he isn’t housebroken,

chews, bites like all puppies do,

and we have a dog that goes

absolutely insane around other

dogs, getting very rough. My

twins are 1 and can’t walk,

spending all their time on the

floor.

My mother-in-law is livid and

says this is because I don't like

Sally — which is true, we have a

long contentious history — and

if the dog can’t come, then

neither can Sally. She also said

the new dog is “part of the

family” and I'd better just get

used to it.

Am I being unreasonable

here? We’ve never allowed guests

with dogs. The idea of a hotel

was written off, and the dog is

too young/sick to be boarded.

— Not Comfortable

Not Comfortable: Oh for fox’s

sake.

No too-sick-to-board, inside-

pooping, adult-dog-agitating,

needle-tooth puppies around

small children! Period.

This is not even a question.

Your no-dogs policy with

guests is also not up for debate.

Your home, your rules.

That they’re howling about

this doesn’t make their case any

stronger; it just adds massive

boundary problems to their side

of the balance sheet, in addition

to the child-endangering

recklessness.

There may be plenty for you to

own in this “long contentious

history” with Sally — your

description is leaking some

contempt — so watch that. But

even if so, you’ll need to start the

patching-up process some other

time and in some other way —

one that doesn’t put little

crawling people at risk.

Re: Puppy: Drawing the line and

saying no to the puppy is a task

for the husband, right? It’s his

family. It sounds like they’re in

agreement on this but that

Uncomfortable is having to take

the lead in dealing with this

problem.

— Anonymous

Anonymous: Why the husband

hasn’t shut them down utterly

would be a mystery, except that

he’s a product of their

(presumably) boundary-

challenged home.

Re: Puppy: I’d love to hear, here

or in the comments, from the

dog people who truly think this

is okay. Why do you think it’s

acceptable to force your pet on

people who have said no? It’s so

common.

— I JUST DON’T GET IT

I JUST DON’T GET IT: I don’t

get it either and I am very

attached to my dogs. Who, by the

way, are getting more handsome

right now as I type this.

I keep hearing about people

who refuse to take no-dogs for

an answer — but I don’t really

hear from them. Anyone care to

own up? Service dogs excepted,

obviously.

Write to Carolyn Hax at

[email protected]. Get her

column delivered to your inbox each

morning at wapo.st/gethax.

 Join the discussion live at noon

Fridays at washingtonpost.com/live-

chats.

They said no to hosting a sick dog,

and mother-in-law is barking mad

Carolyn

Hax

NICK GALIFIANAKIS/ILLUSTRATION FOR THE WASHINGTON POST