Cave instruction

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diver gadget

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Brampton, Ontario, Canada
I live in Toronto Canada. There are almost no caves around this area that I know of. I am though very interested in them. I did a snorkel trip in mexico of a cave. Ever since then I have been longing to explore these things further. Would it be worth it for me to go to Ginnie and take a course or two or would I just be wasting my time?? I have also been wondering if I take the course where should I take it?? Should I go to Mexico, or should I go to Ginnie??

Just wondering if anyone has any opinion on where and if I should take a cavern course and possibly intro to caves. Also if there is any caves closer to me??
 
If you start in Mexico, you will be spoiled.
Josh at Ginnie is a nice guy and dives for fun quite often.
 
I'm in Ginnie 4 days a week, so I'm not a good person to ask.
 
I find the both the caves in Mexico and Florida very pretty but vastly different. I'd expect most people would consider the Mexican caves prettier, though.

That said, I'd take your training in Florida. The Florida caves are both more challenging and more forgiving, which appears to be an oxymoron at first glance. :)

They're more challenging in that many have high flows, so you'll get to learn to deal with flow. They're more forgiving in that the high flow in many cases will clear out a silt-out faster than the low or no flow Mexican caves.

But most importantly under the more forgiving category, the Florida caves are more resilient to the mistakes of a beginner. I'm not saying feel free to bang your cylinders along the ceiling in Florida, but if you do, there's less to damage. Nothing would make me more sick to my stomach than to see million-year-old stalactites raining down around me because of a buoyancy mistake.

Learn where it's harder and everywhere else will seem easy.

There's already several notes on instructors under this subject, search for them, but still I'll suggest you look into GUE: http://www.gue.com/ and after your class, book a trip through Connie LoRe for Mexico: http://www.cavediving.com/connie/

Roak
 
Thanks again for the info there guys. I looked at the GUE site on the Cave 1 stuff. It looks like a great course but I might have problems convincing the wife who will be coming with me to take the course that we are going to spend the whole week in a course. I have read that the cavern course is more like the discover scuba course for caves, but If we go down and both really like the cavern course we can com back and take the cave 1 course with GUE.
 
The cavern course is a great introduction to the overhead environment. It's also a fun course. I'm not going to say anything bad about GUE, but their classes don't seem fun.
North Florida has great caverns to begin your exploration of the overhead world. Call Ginnie and set up a class. Josh or Rose are both excellent instructors as well as very nice people. They make diving fun, which it should be.
 
diver gadget,

Since you and your wife are going down on vacation. I would recommend Mexico. This will give you a chance to Travel, Ocean and Cave dive. I can tell you that coming from far away for cave diving is going to be tricky. It is very addictive and requires that you come back often. My girlfriend and I are up there once a month and that keeps us pretty current. We did take a 2 month vacation from cave diving and when going back up there the first day we spent 2 dives in open water practicing diving the gear and running reels. Neither one of us wants to start to go in if we are not 100% comfortable.

Unfortunately, north FL doesn't offer much to the bubble watcher or non diving buddy. If your wife is doing the class then that is much better. FYI At the end of the day, you are in a little town with a hand full of restaurants. We tend to drive about 30 mins to get some decent dinner at the end of our dive day...regardless wether we stay in high springs or Luraville.

I would recommend a cruise:

Our trip to Mexico was on a 5 day cruise. We started in Ft. Lauderdale, Grand Cayman tourist in the AM diving in the afternoon. and then to Mexico. We just went cave diving.

We contacted Nick at
http://www.akumaldircenter.com/

We were picked up at the dock and they had all of our gear filled and ready to go. After a 15 min ride we were at the site Aktun-Koh. 2 Amazing cave dives later. We got a ride back to the dock and loaded the boat. That left us with a little bit of time to do the tourist thing.

Total for the day including transportation, gear, fills, guide and gratuity..$50 each.

They also offer guided cavern dives for certified divers. They do not issue cavern cards however. If you would like some discover type training to see if you like it that is ideal. No pressures just diving.

Why no cavern cards?

A c card means that you completed the requirements to dive safely without an instructor. Some feel that to safely dive in an overhead enviroment requires more than streamlining gear, a couple of reels and 2 lights.

You are welcome to dive with them while under direct supervision as they are equiped with all the cave gear recommended for overhead diving.

As far as not having fun in GUE class:

I lived in Cave country for the past year and a half. The reasons I chose to take a couple of classes from them was from talking to the students and watching them train. I compared that to my cavern and intro class. I decided to take their cave 1 and it was a blast.

I also watched what the other instructors in the area were doing and decided not to take any training from a handful of them.

I would only recommend a GUE course to someone who is dedicated to diving as a sport(ie fitness, practice, active diver) and diving safety 100% on every dive.

The amount of energy, time and money invested into those courses is alot more than others. But like anything else in life "you get what you pay for" For me, I was happy with my investment on the second day of the five day class. I completely forgot they gave C cards at the end of the class. As I already had cave cards from before. It took me a month before I made it down with my pics for the C-card.

Divesherpa,

I read that you are there 4 times a week. At this time last year you could usually find me taking a nap in my red jeep after doing some late night dives. I had my annual pass and was there way too much. The diving was nice and always clear. Specially in the summer when the other springs were blown out.
 
divergadget, go to the www.scubaguys.com and watch some cave videos . . . Florida versus Mexico. That will definitely give you some information.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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