Cavern Course with Johnny Richards

[FireInMyBones]

The Test:

With the sky in turmoil, we made our way to Devil's Ear. Thunder rolled fiercely and with tremendous might.

Should we call the dive? Not without lightening was the agreement we made. We walked down to the Eye for our predive briefing and check...[red][sm]I have been asked to skip this part[/sm][/red]...

And for those who have taken the class and want to know:

Spoiler

I died. I know which way only because I have seen the maps.

We returned to the classroom and completed the bookwork just as huge amounts of rain and lightening came down around us. We had won out. We ultimately cheated death.

I have passed the test and now hold the NACD ranking of Cavern Diver.

 

[FireInMyBones]

You are beginning to really spill the beans!

Any diver, myself include, should expect the potential for any one or more of these things to wrong at anytime. These are what went wrong on my dives. I am not intentionally trying to give anything away. I can not even give a proper ending to the story, other than I passed and Highly recommend Johnny as an instructor.

 

[vshearer]

I learned two very important lessons in this class.

1.) The most important piece of equipment on any dive is my brain. I left it at home.

2.) Don't take a cavern class while only on my 6th drysuit dive. Especially one that floods.

Yep, I flunked cavern. A good reality check was apparently needed. I did really enjoy it otherwise, it was great meeting Jeremy and everyone else, seeing Ginnie for the first time was good, and JR was excellent.

I went in to this only wanting to be "adequate" at this level so that I could have additional options when diving, and figured I would just go ahead and jump and figure it out on the way down. Refine my technique later.


Bad plan with easily anticipated consequences.

 

[FireInMyBones]

It was a pleasure to meet you at the class, Vance.

 

[PfcAJ]

Did you do the whole class at Ginnie/Devils?

 

[Tug]

Fire: I believe we met, I was in the fundies class the previous few days and Strech was one of my team mates. Thanks for the class report, it's always nice to read the reports.

 

[Crush]

Did you do the whole class at Ginnie/Devils?

I did the same class a few weeks before Jeremy. It is done at Ginnie - Ballroom and Devils. You likely already know this, but the NACD training for cavern is classroom-intensive and many initial drills and familiarization are done out of the water - when you hit the water, it is time to perform rather than have things explained again. If/when you move on to NACD apprentice cave and cave the classroom portions are proportionately smaller, and more time is spent in the water.

 

[Crush]

Yep, I flunked cavern. A good reality check was apparently needed.

I found the course to be very humbling and feel fortunate to have passed.

Have a good one!

 

[TSandM]

vshearer, I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. This is the reason why I so strongly recommend that people intending to cave dive do Fundies, or Essentials, or an Intro to Tech class beforehand. All of these things can be practiced in open water, until they are solid and don't present a problem when you are faced with all the OTHER things involved in overhead diving.

I'm sure, having seen what you need to be able to do, that you will go off and master those skills.

As somebody who has now failed two classes, I can tell you I never failed a class I didn't learn something from!

 

[FireInMyBones]

The class was great. Yes, we did all the dives at Ginnie.

Vance tried hard. I enjoyed his company and know that as he works on what our instructor pointed out, he will continue to improve.

No one gets out of a cave class unscathed. I have technique to work on.

By the way: The Great Outdoors Restaurant was great.