Recommendation for cave course in mexico?

[T_Dub]

Can anyone recommend an instructor/outfit to do an intro to caves with in Mexico? Me and my buddy are thinking of doing this. Is it even feasible on a ten day trip? We are both Padi Advanced open water divers who did our advanced courses on wrecks and dive wrecks whenever we can. Not trained in penetration though.

Looking for guidance more than anything, and a recommendation to the right place if its a good idea. Obviously not interested in stretching whats possible and being unsafe.

 

[tbone1004]

in ten days it is certainly possible, but it all depends on how good you are. This is a tough pill to swallow, but in MX you're likely going to be in sidemount, so if you have no experience there it will be difficult to finish sidemount + intro if you want to do anything else while there. I would read through some of the instructors and talk to them. In no particular order, Bil Phillips, Steve Martin, Steve Bogaerts, bunch of others I'm not familiar with. I'm sure GUE will have an instructor down there but you'll have to pass fundies with a tech pass first which is not easy and fundies+cave 1 is not possible in 10 days.

 

[gearhound]

Umm...you can do your course in back mount or sidemount. It's only been a recent trend that people have been taking their cave training in sidemount.

Lots of different instructors to you can use. I will put in a plug for ProtecPlaya and ProtecTulum. Fantastic operations with fantastic instructors. You'll get a thorough education. Patrick Widmann operates out of ProtecPlaya. He developed the Stealth 2.0, so you'll get a thorough sidemount education if you want. He's also GUE trained, so you'll get a thorough education in back mount if that is what you want. If you're staying in Tulum, try to get Kim Davidsson at ProtecTulum.

Cavern and intro will be a minimum of 5 days. That's if you go down with your buoyancy and trim squared away. I think that would be true of Florida or Mexico. Otherwise, the instructor will have to spend time covering basic dive skills rather than cave specific dive skills.

 

[rongoodman]

Ten days should be plenty of time for cavern/intro, even if you want to add a couple of days for a sidemount intro first. I'm a big Protec fan too, and love my Stealth 2. (I actually did my sidemount course immediately after Full Cave, and haven't been in BM doubles since then.)

 

[decompression]

I'm hoping that at your experience level your skills are superior. Moving to cavern/intro to cave and then full cave will be a harsh learning curve from ADV/OW. The drawback being you'll be more focused on personal skills instead of techniques which will detract from the experience. I would recommend just taking Cavern/intro as that will give you time to work on individual skills while exposing you to the cave environment. And time to practice afterwards. My recommendations for Cave instructors are;
Ella Bertoni (independant)
Bil Phillips (Speleotec)
Adam Korytko (Cave Heaven)

Good luck, dive safe.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gearhound]

Decompression, what's the protocol for taking the course with Ella or Adam? I know they were UTD instructors. So, does one need to do the whole UTD curriculum from the start? Or can they just do a Cavern/Intro course with them?
Bil Phillips is an excellent recommendation too. And a fellow Canadian. You'll see his name on many of the maps in Mexico. And he's got such a rich history to tell about cave diving in Mexico.

T Dub, what are the rest of the plans for this vacation? Keep in mind that training days are full days. You'll be heading to the shop in the early morning and sometimes not returning until it is dark. Your spouse/significant other might not like that. On the other hand, every student that I've taken down there has said that it is the best training that they have ever done (I don't know whether to take that as an insult or not ) . They felt their skills improved and they felt more confident about dealing with any problems that may arise in the water. It's good training. Feel free to PM me with questions or if you need help arranging things.

 

[alewar]

These guys did up to full cave (?) in 8 days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQyekjC5URY

 

[karstdvr]

. This is a tough pill to swallow, but in MX you're likely going to be in sidemount,.

They have been diving backmount for years in Mexico, with the preferred choice being al80s. Sidemount has been really pushed,not out of necessity of the sites being dove,but it is partially being driven because it is actively being sold for gear and training.

To the OP one consideration is that living in Canada will you have a chance to dive caves and keep skills up. If you have a genuine curiosity and want to learn some skills to advance your OW diving, then cavern/intro can be a good course. Have you tried a cenote tour to see if this is what you'd like to do?

 

[loquat149]

Contact Bil Phillips at Speleotech in Tulum. He trains students in BM and SM. Based on your skills and progression through the course, He'll decide whether you deserve to move on to the next level, and when. You'll hate the UW drills he puts you through...and be forever in debt to him that he did.

Dave

 

[T_Dub]

Thanks for the tips everyone. Seems like cavern and intro would be the way to go. It'll just be me and my dive buddy, no worries about spouses.