Cave practice, why it's needed

I am IANTD Cavern certified and working on Intro to Cave. I am not able to cave dive often enough, and felt I needed some practice with my gear. Today, I met my buddy Mike for some cave practice. We met at the Scuba Park where he was getting air and proceeded to the Rock Pit down the road. It was my first dive with my Faber 95's doubled up. Putting them on felt pretty unwieldy, and I almost fell over sideways sitting on my tailgate. I had also just gotten some new weight pockets, and when I put them on, I didn't put any D rings behind them. Since we were just diving in the pit (no overheads), I snapped my reels to my Scooter ring and got in the water. A lot of relief, to be in the water, cause all that weight is off your shoulders. Put on fins, and submerged, following the 30' depth to find some rocks where Mike's lines are tied off. They were in very bad shape, broken, wadded up, slipped off rocks, sunk in the silt, and generally about as screwed up as possible. With the new tanks, and the change in weight and weight distribution, I was fooling with my bouancy, bouncing off the bottom and generally silting things up, but to my relief, Mike was also generating some silt of his own. Of course, I got the snarled line trapped in the reels on my scooter ring, twice. The second time, I got Mike's help in getting unsnarled. We lost the line a few times, not because of not following it, but because it sunk in the silt and then was broken. We both felt pretty clumsy and not very smooth. The silting and entanglement would be totally unacceptable in a cave, of course. Mike pointed out that if we got into a cave with that bad of a line, we'd be out of there in minutes, anyway.
Well, that's why we practice, eh? I'm going back out tommorow to swim around at the Scuba Park and pretending to be in Peacock. I need the down time in my drysuit and new doubles. The doubles appear to work just fine.

Dave

Good points there. And for much the same reasons why I prefer diving in the "simpler" open water of CSSP or similar many times after I change gear configs before I head off on a "deep water" trip.

Also, we might need to recruit you for a project that Tom Vyles and I are doing for CSSP. PM me with your email address.

and may I become a charter member of the BWDC?

Tanks and Dive Safe.

Brock

Are you sure you need weights? Remember that you are in fresh water and don't need as much weight, plus you are wearing double 95's. You may want to try it without weights and see how your bouyancy is then. Also instead of clipping of your reel to your scooter d-ring you may want to clip it off onto your butt ring on your crotch strap, bacl there it won't get in the way, and althought it feels weird hitting you in the butt when you are on shore, in the water, you don't know its there.

Who are you doing your intro class with?

Wendy

Wendy,

I second all your suggestions. One of the principal suggestions for cave diving is that the front of your body should be clean -- no danglies whatsoever. If you always cross over lines (as you're supposed to), and are clean, you won't have much of an entanglement hazard.

I also clip my reels to my butt D-ring, but I'll be damned if I "don't know they're there." Whenever I stop moving, the reel falls down between my legs, where it annoys the crap out of me. I end up cursing a lot and trying to make it sit patiently on the side of my thigh.

- Warren

Yeah, I know to put my reel on my butt D ring. I knew it then, but hadn't put a ring on my crotch strap yet, have now, done deal. I just illustrated WHY it's important to keep stuff off your front for myself, even though I already knew it.

I did need some weight, I 'd already tried it without. With my new FredT backplate, however, I don't need any weights.

So, actually, I was doing a couple of things I would never do in an overhead.

My instructor is Mike Ridgway, from Oklahoma City. We dive in Missouri mostly. I'm going to Fla in April. Since the above was posted, cave practice is going MUCH better.

find me a cave in California and i would be happy to get certified. I cant afford to do cave if i got to fly to Florida all the time.

I am aware of one cave within 3 hrs but its closed because to many people died there. Devils hole was its name. Discovery channel did a special on it.

Andy

I've been working on my Intro to Cave as well and we just did our first 4 dives at Roubidoux on the 16th & 17th.

Here is what I suggest. Carry a safety spool in your drysuit pocket and even a jump/gap spool in your other pocket. Clip the primary reel to any D-ring you want, because as soon as you start your dive you better have it in your hand anyway. If your not running the line all you need is a safety spool, unless your doing some serious exploration.

With all the spools you need in your pockets you are totally clean and don't have to worry about where to put your reel and if it will bother you where you put it.

Just a suggestion and no additional charge for it.

Steve

Andy,

You could always get trained to cave dive here in Florida and there are other places to cave dive int he world. I don't know how close you are to Mexico, but there is always the Cenotes there to dive in. But you can always just live thru our posts of cave diving stories.

Wendy

If I were you I would sell the 95s and go with the 104s. I had a set of OMS 98s and just thought I loved them. Then I dove the 104s and now I need absolutely no weight (I've breathed them down to 50 psi and could still stay at 6ft with no problem).

They are much heavier, but you get used to them.

Steve