Underwater Tourist
Contributor
A couple of years ago when I was researching different places where to do my cave cert, I read a review about Protec (Tulum) which convinced me to do all of my training with them. Having completed it two weeks ago, I thought I would write one as well, as I am sure there are other people doing their own research right now.
Here is the original review I read for those interested: Full Cave Course Review - Protec Tulum. I did not re-read it when writing this review so pardon any duplication.
As for my training progression, I decided to split it into two trips, #1 was SM + cavern, #2 was intro + full cave. The trips also had different instructors, for the first one I was with Skanda, while the second one was with Kim. Although each had his own teaching style, both instructors were excellent and provided a good balance between why they prefer doing a certain procedure in an XYZ way, while mentioning other approaches and what their pros/cons might be. As for their teaching styles, if you prefer a slower, more chill approach, then Skanda is your man. You can drop a nuke next to the guy and he won’t twitch. But if you want something more active, then go with Kim; either way you will be in great hands.
Now about the training itself, the cavern course with Skanda was very rigorous and included pretty much all the skills you can think of. They were first practiced on dry land and/or in cenote OW, and then in the cave with and without viz. The skills included various failures (inflator, valves, free flows, etc) which would happen during no viz exits and so on. I don’t know how other dive centers/agencies do their cavern courses, but I liked Protec’s approach of going heavy on drills/skills. What ends up happening is that by the time you reach intro+full cave where you focus on more important stuff like navigation, any equipment or viz failure is nothing more than a nuisance.
Intro+full cave with Kim included a repeat of some of the cavern skills plus two new major ones (lost line & lost diver). For the lost line, Ms. Luck was on my side and I found the line in under 10min, 3 of which I spent trying to figure out how to open an unfamiliar pouch hehe. Another big part of the course was navigation including establishing my own marking routine. Besides that, the major objective of the course was to get as many cave hours as possible and to solidify all the new knowledge plus the cavern skills. Of course, Kim of all people also has a very long list of stories to draw on, and we had plenty of interesting accident analysis and cave diving philosophy discussions.
As for the caves we dove, I don’t exactly remember what I did with Skanda as that trip was a year ago (there was carwash, cristal, and mayan blue A tunnel for sure). But with Kim, this is what we ended up doing:
Day 1.
Cristal upstream mainline shake up dive
Day 2.
Carwash downstream left mainline (loved the very charcoal black silt and the pure white contrasting cave. It was my second favourite dive of the course, sucks that the mainline is so short.)
Carwash downstream right mainline. Lower white room. A very fun dive with some restrictions.
Day 3.
Luke’s Hope hidden jump left at the very beginning of the mainline to the Room of Tears and then onwards to the end of the line thru Aluxes Key (very beautiful dive also, enjoyed it a great deal, most favourite dive of the course).
Day 4.
Jailhouse is where we started doing more navigation. The freshwater beginning of the cave is pretty meh, but salt water passages were great.
dive 1 was to Swizz Siphon (T-left, T-right, T-right, J-left, T-right).
dive 2 was to Yax Be (T-left, J-right)
Day 5.
Taj Maha right mainline to cenote Sagrado
Taj Maha another mainline on the right (Jumna river)
Day 6.
Mayan Blue dive 1 set up the circuit from B tunnel to A tunnel, and dive 2 complete the circuit, which also completed my full cave course.
After the course was done, we also did one day of fun diving where Kim brought me to cenote Xulo. Needless to say it was the highlight of the trip. An absolutely stunning cave. I took an (almost) one-shot video of the cave mainly to have it as a memory of the trip. Raw footage only, no narration or music, just the cave. If you want to see it, its here: Cave Diving Cenote Xulo (raw)
Here is the original review I read for those interested: Full Cave Course Review - Protec Tulum. I did not re-read it when writing this review so pardon any duplication.
As for my training progression, I decided to split it into two trips, #1 was SM + cavern, #2 was intro + full cave. The trips also had different instructors, for the first one I was with Skanda, while the second one was with Kim. Although each had his own teaching style, both instructors were excellent and provided a good balance between why they prefer doing a certain procedure in an XYZ way, while mentioning other approaches and what their pros/cons might be. As for their teaching styles, if you prefer a slower, more chill approach, then Skanda is your man. You can drop a nuke next to the guy and he won’t twitch. But if you want something more active, then go with Kim; either way you will be in great hands.
Now about the training itself, the cavern course with Skanda was very rigorous and included pretty much all the skills you can think of. They were first practiced on dry land and/or in cenote OW, and then in the cave with and without viz. The skills included various failures (inflator, valves, free flows, etc) which would happen during no viz exits and so on. I don’t know how other dive centers/agencies do their cavern courses, but I liked Protec’s approach of going heavy on drills/skills. What ends up happening is that by the time you reach intro+full cave where you focus on more important stuff like navigation, any equipment or viz failure is nothing more than a nuisance.
Intro+full cave with Kim included a repeat of some of the cavern skills plus two new major ones (lost line & lost diver). For the lost line, Ms. Luck was on my side and I found the line in under 10min, 3 of which I spent trying to figure out how to open an unfamiliar pouch hehe. Another big part of the course was navigation including establishing my own marking routine. Besides that, the major objective of the course was to get as many cave hours as possible and to solidify all the new knowledge plus the cavern skills. Of course, Kim of all people also has a very long list of stories to draw on, and we had plenty of interesting accident analysis and cave diving philosophy discussions.
As for the caves we dove, I don’t exactly remember what I did with Skanda as that trip was a year ago (there was carwash, cristal, and mayan blue A tunnel for sure). But with Kim, this is what we ended up doing:
Day 1.
Cristal upstream mainline shake up dive
Day 2.
Carwash downstream left mainline (loved the very charcoal black silt and the pure white contrasting cave. It was my second favourite dive of the course, sucks that the mainline is so short.)
Carwash downstream right mainline. Lower white room. A very fun dive with some restrictions.
Day 3.
Luke’s Hope hidden jump left at the very beginning of the mainline to the Room of Tears and then onwards to the end of the line thru Aluxes Key (very beautiful dive also, enjoyed it a great deal, most favourite dive of the course).
Day 4.
Jailhouse is where we started doing more navigation. The freshwater beginning of the cave is pretty meh, but salt water passages were great.
dive 1 was to Swizz Siphon (T-left, T-right, T-right, J-left, T-right).
dive 2 was to Yax Be (T-left, J-right)
Day 5.
Taj Maha right mainline to cenote Sagrado
Taj Maha another mainline on the right (Jumna river)
Day 6.
Mayan Blue dive 1 set up the circuit from B tunnel to A tunnel, and dive 2 complete the circuit, which also completed my full cave course.
After the course was done, we also did one day of fun diving where Kim brought me to cenote Xulo. Needless to say it was the highlight of the trip. An absolutely stunning cave. I took an (almost) one-shot video of the cave mainly to have it as a memory of the trip. Raw footage only, no narration or music, just the cave. If you want to see it, its here: Cave Diving Cenote Xulo (raw)
