GUE Cave 1 with Meredith Tanguay -- early December 2020, High Springs, FL
The GUE Cave 1 course that my wife and I experienced was likely little different than all the other Cave 1 courses for which others have written course reports. For us, what stands out is that it took us over four years from passing our original Fundies course to getting the “tech upgrade” endorsement that (if you’re a GUE diver you know) is the prerequisite for taking any GUE tech-level course. I’m reluctant to write up a report on that four-year tech upgrade saga, as it will reveal just how untalented a diver I am. Ha ha. But I digress. Aside from that, the most significant difference between our course and what had been the norm is probably that ours was in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. For that reason, the classroom portion was done remotely via Zoom in five sessions of roughly 1-2 hours each during the week preceding the diving portion. Most of the classroom sessions were also available in prerecorded form, but although we watched a couple of the prerecorded sessions we opted to participate in them all live. I guess we wanted our money’s worth, but moreover, I think I learn better in an interactive environment. The online classroom part was actually very good. I suspect classroom lectures for a cave course could be tedious if done in the evening after one is worn out from a day of diving. Instead, as we were fresh and focused, in the comfort of our own home, and didn’t have to prepare for diving the next day, we were better able to absorb--and sometimes even enjoy--the material. But enough about that. The other Covid-related considerations were whether we wanted Mer to try to find us a third teammate and whether we wanted to share lodging with other divers. We were open to the idea of a third teammate, even though it would have meant having to do S-drills and air-sharing using the goofy “covid protocol” modification instead of what we had been practicing for years. But no third teammate materialized. We decided no on shared lodging, and got an Airbnb. While not having to walk around our “home for the week” wearing a mask was the main goal, there is also something to be said for having exclusive access to laundry machines, kitchen, a garage where we could hang drysuits, etc. Anyway, we arrived a day early, settled into the house, and as is generally recommended, got in a practice session / equipment check at one of the springs the day before the course began.
The first day began with a briefing by Zoom, then meeting up in the field behind Extreme Exposure for field drills on running a primary reel, following a line in touch contact, manifold failures, etc. Anytime we were not in the water, we practiced the generally accepted (though not so much among the locals of north Florida) Covid-19 precaution of wearing a mask. Then the swim test. A cold front had brought us a high of 63F, which is 9 degrees cooler than the water at Gilchrist Blue Spring. Getting back OUT of the water was the more uncomfortable part. Another effect of the cold front was that on some mornings when we loaded the car it was really cold--as low as 28F one day--and we hadn’t brought warm enough clothes. Isn’t this supposed to be Florida?
The second day was Blue Grotto day. First, in the open-water area of Blue Grotto, there was a review of Fundies skills, introduction to the blackout mask, introduction to the air bubble gun, trying to repeat in the water what we had done in the field drills the day before, and then lots of time in the cavern. We handled the reel okay enough, but I found myself thinking it might be an ominous sign of things to come that in running the reel both of us reached a spot where we didn’t know in what direction to proceed and just kind of froze in frustration. Even though we were still in the benign environment of Blue Grotto, I felt this was the most intense and most frustrating day--so many things to remember. Just about everything is (potentially) new, and there is a lot piled on. My impression is that the idea is to nearly overwhelm you to show you what’s coming, and then back off and gradually build it back up over the coming days.
We left Blue Grotto after 5 pm. For the debrief, instead of huddling around a laptop to watch ourselves mess up on the GoPro footage as was common pre-Covid, Mer had a large-screen arm-mounted monitor extended out of her van. The debriefings felt familiar in a way--the same GUE style we had experienced before. Mer didn’t just hit the major issues but also gave due attention to the refinements--the little things that might not make a difference until someday, when the snowball effect has begun, they just might. I wished we could have spent a second day in the cavern environment, repeating all of it, as it had gone by so fast, and there were so many things we could have done better had we more time to digest them. I found myself feeling that way almost every day--wanting to repeat the day to fix those mistakes before moving on. Even though GUE’s Cave 1 is a relatively (compared with most others’ courses) lavish six days, I think the amount of material in our course could comfortably fit a month-long “cave camp” format. Each night I furiously brain-dumped into my journal all the procedures, tips, realizations and thoughts from that day I could remember. I rarely had time to read them again during the course.
Even six days, with as many as four dives in a day, is not enough time to re-hash everything every day as I might have wished, but it was just enough time that no detail went ignored. We were not allowed to forget about the smaller things in a rush to learn the mechanics of a new skill. Developing finesse is encouraged. Each day built on the previous day, and all of it built on a foundation of the “fundamentals.” Now we could really see the utility of all that fundamentals practice. As I mentioned above, my wife and I spent seemingly forever just getting qualified to take Cave 1. At the end of the first day, back at the house, I pondered how one could do all this without having the basics of it all down cold. By "it all," I mean not just the diving but even the logistics. It was helpful that my wife and I had this kind of dive trip on autopilot. We had done dozens of trips to north Florida where we had packed the car with this gear, brought and cooked our food, and had the evening routine of cleaning p-valves, recharging lights, drying undergarments, etc. My wife and I have gotten into a routine where we have our respective duties, and upon arriving back at the house we get to work. At least we didn’t need to think consciously about any of the logistics. As I was engaged in this evening routine, I cast my mind back about 100 dive-hours to the first coaching session we had with an instructor as we learned to dive in the GUE doubles and drysuit configuration. I thought about how in the middle of the night in a motel room I had awakened in a realization I had not charged our primary lights. We have also had our share of forgetting to bring some needed item of equipment. Now, it had been years since the last such lapse. We could focus on learning to cave dive.
The remainder of our days with Mer were packed, rewarding, and fairly uneventful. I wouldn’t say it got easier each day--certainly not, as more things got piled on. But perhaps we gradually learned to calm down, expect the unexpected, and uh, go with the flow.
GUE-EDGE and debriefings on the surface were done with my wife and I floating at a distance of something like six feet from Mer, and again I’m thankful we didn’t have a third teammate to distance from as well. I might also mention we had opted for the Triox upgrade option (one might call it a “try helium” sub-course) because it seemed like a good opportunity to see what helium feels like. All this meant was that on two deeper dives at Ginnie we used 30/30 and a rented inflation bottle, and on the last day took a short written exam. The clarity a little helium brings really is amazing.
The days were long, and I found them quite physically demanding (and it would have been more so had we had to squeeze in the classroom portion in those six days). I’m in my late 50s and not what I’d call athletic. By the end of the last day, when we had the written exam and then the final debriefing, my body and brain were pretty much toast. I know my wife couldn’t think straight, either, as she somewhat blanked on the written exam. I’m not used to getting up at 5 or 5:30AM, having a physically and mentally draining 10-hour day, doing the evening routine of tank filling, gear maintenance, dinner scarfing, journal writing, and finally collapsing in bed, repeating this for several days. I wish for a time machine so I could take up cave diving when I am in my 20s.
The GUE Cave 1 course that my wife and I experienced was likely little different than all the other Cave 1 courses for which others have written course reports. For us, what stands out is that it took us over four years from passing our original Fundies course to getting the “tech upgrade” endorsement that (if you’re a GUE diver you know) is the prerequisite for taking any GUE tech-level course. I’m reluctant to write up a report on that four-year tech upgrade saga, as it will reveal just how untalented a diver I am. Ha ha. But I digress. Aside from that, the most significant difference between our course and what had been the norm is probably that ours was in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. For that reason, the classroom portion was done remotely via Zoom in five sessions of roughly 1-2 hours each during the week preceding the diving portion. Most of the classroom sessions were also available in prerecorded form, but although we watched a couple of the prerecorded sessions we opted to participate in them all live. I guess we wanted our money’s worth, but moreover, I think I learn better in an interactive environment. The online classroom part was actually very good. I suspect classroom lectures for a cave course could be tedious if done in the evening after one is worn out from a day of diving. Instead, as we were fresh and focused, in the comfort of our own home, and didn’t have to prepare for diving the next day, we were better able to absorb--and sometimes even enjoy--the material. But enough about that. The other Covid-related considerations were whether we wanted Mer to try to find us a third teammate and whether we wanted to share lodging with other divers. We were open to the idea of a third teammate, even though it would have meant having to do S-drills and air-sharing using the goofy “covid protocol” modification instead of what we had been practicing for years. But no third teammate materialized. We decided no on shared lodging, and got an Airbnb. While not having to walk around our “home for the week” wearing a mask was the main goal, there is also something to be said for having exclusive access to laundry machines, kitchen, a garage where we could hang drysuits, etc. Anyway, we arrived a day early, settled into the house, and as is generally recommended, got in a practice session / equipment check at one of the springs the day before the course began.
The first day began with a briefing by Zoom, then meeting up in the field behind Extreme Exposure for field drills on running a primary reel, following a line in touch contact, manifold failures, etc. Anytime we were not in the water, we practiced the generally accepted (though not so much among the locals of north Florida) Covid-19 precaution of wearing a mask. Then the swim test. A cold front had brought us a high of 63F, which is 9 degrees cooler than the water at Gilchrist Blue Spring. Getting back OUT of the water was the more uncomfortable part. Another effect of the cold front was that on some mornings when we loaded the car it was really cold--as low as 28F one day--and we hadn’t brought warm enough clothes. Isn’t this supposed to be Florida?
The second day was Blue Grotto day. First, in the open-water area of Blue Grotto, there was a review of Fundies skills, introduction to the blackout mask, introduction to the air bubble gun, trying to repeat in the water what we had done in the field drills the day before, and then lots of time in the cavern. We handled the reel okay enough, but I found myself thinking it might be an ominous sign of things to come that in running the reel both of us reached a spot where we didn’t know in what direction to proceed and just kind of froze in frustration. Even though we were still in the benign environment of Blue Grotto, I felt this was the most intense and most frustrating day--so many things to remember. Just about everything is (potentially) new, and there is a lot piled on. My impression is that the idea is to nearly overwhelm you to show you what’s coming, and then back off and gradually build it back up over the coming days.
We left Blue Grotto after 5 pm. For the debrief, instead of huddling around a laptop to watch ourselves mess up on the GoPro footage as was common pre-Covid, Mer had a large-screen arm-mounted monitor extended out of her van. The debriefings felt familiar in a way--the same GUE style we had experienced before. Mer didn’t just hit the major issues but also gave due attention to the refinements--the little things that might not make a difference until someday, when the snowball effect has begun, they just might. I wished we could have spent a second day in the cavern environment, repeating all of it, as it had gone by so fast, and there were so many things we could have done better had we more time to digest them. I found myself feeling that way almost every day--wanting to repeat the day to fix those mistakes before moving on. Even though GUE’s Cave 1 is a relatively (compared with most others’ courses) lavish six days, I think the amount of material in our course could comfortably fit a month-long “cave camp” format. Each night I furiously brain-dumped into my journal all the procedures, tips, realizations and thoughts from that day I could remember. I rarely had time to read them again during the course.
Even six days, with as many as four dives in a day, is not enough time to re-hash everything every day as I might have wished, but it was just enough time that no detail went ignored. We were not allowed to forget about the smaller things in a rush to learn the mechanics of a new skill. Developing finesse is encouraged. Each day built on the previous day, and all of it built on a foundation of the “fundamentals.” Now we could really see the utility of all that fundamentals practice. As I mentioned above, my wife and I spent seemingly forever just getting qualified to take Cave 1. At the end of the first day, back at the house, I pondered how one could do all this without having the basics of it all down cold. By "it all," I mean not just the diving but even the logistics. It was helpful that my wife and I had this kind of dive trip on autopilot. We had done dozens of trips to north Florida where we had packed the car with this gear, brought and cooked our food, and had the evening routine of cleaning p-valves, recharging lights, drying undergarments, etc. My wife and I have gotten into a routine where we have our respective duties, and upon arriving back at the house we get to work. At least we didn’t need to think consciously about any of the logistics. As I was engaged in this evening routine, I cast my mind back about 100 dive-hours to the first coaching session we had with an instructor as we learned to dive in the GUE doubles and drysuit configuration. I thought about how in the middle of the night in a motel room I had awakened in a realization I had not charged our primary lights. We have also had our share of forgetting to bring some needed item of equipment. Now, it had been years since the last such lapse. We could focus on learning to cave dive.
The remainder of our days with Mer were packed, rewarding, and fairly uneventful. I wouldn’t say it got easier each day--certainly not, as more things got piled on. But perhaps we gradually learned to calm down, expect the unexpected, and uh, go with the flow.
GUE-EDGE and debriefings on the surface were done with my wife and I floating at a distance of something like six feet from Mer, and again I’m thankful we didn’t have a third teammate to distance from as well. I might also mention we had opted for the Triox upgrade option (one might call it a “try helium” sub-course) because it seemed like a good opportunity to see what helium feels like. All this meant was that on two deeper dives at Ginnie we used 30/30 and a rented inflation bottle, and on the last day took a short written exam. The clarity a little helium brings really is amazing.
The days were long, and I found them quite physically demanding (and it would have been more so had we had to squeeze in the classroom portion in those six days). I’m in my late 50s and not what I’d call athletic. By the end of the last day, when we had the written exam and then the final debriefing, my body and brain were pretty much toast. I know my wife couldn’t think straight, either, as she somewhat blanked on the written exam. I’m not used to getting up at 5 or 5:30AM, having a physically and mentally draining 10-hour day, doing the evening routine of tank filling, gear maintenance, dinner scarfing, journal writing, and finally collapsing in bed, repeating this for several days. I wish for a time machine so I could take up cave diving when I am in my 20s.
