down4fun
Contributor
I started a cavern class about 4 years ago with barely 100 dives under my belt all in a jacket bc, single tank, etc. I showed up for class in my new BP/W, borrowed doubles, long hose, borrowed can light. Needless to say I had trouble with bouyancy and trim. I needed a few more dives before the instructor would pass me. Life showed up and I moved away before finishing class. Well 4 years later, a couple of hundred dives later all in BP/W, with 10-15 in my own doubles, my own can light and I was ready to finish what I had started.
We did the theory portion two weeks ago and then headed down to Key Largo to Jules lodge for some skills. I was comfortable in the doubles thanks to my practice dives. I ran almost 400 feet of line all over that place, practice tie offs, wrap, zero vix touch contact drills, helicopter turns, backward frog kick, accents 1 foot at a time, shooting a bag then accending 1 foot at a time. It all went real well. Both the instructor and I were pleased at my progress.
So this weekend we headed to the caves
Day 1 dive1: Ginnie Springs the Ballroom. Gear check, bubble check, OOA drill (little shaky on the bouyancy). Then I ran the reeel all over the basin, at different elevations per the instructors request, then she asked for my mask, I gave it to her and did my zero viz exit. Went pretty well, could feel myself getting light as I got shallower, let some air out, never lost contact with the line, I did manage to undo a wrap but not lose the line. I felt her pull the line tight and so I continued on. Feeling myself at the primary tie off I wait, she puts my mask in my hand I clear and get the ok sign...whew. We go up. She critiques my skill, but approves of how I did. Next reel in all but the primary tie off and go into the ballroom, make some tie offs, wraps, etc. She turns the dive. That went ok.
Dive 2 Devils Eye. Bubble check, gear check, OOA drill (little better) gas plan. I lead. My primary tie is pretty good, second one a little weak. I seem to have trouble finding great tie offs. We make it all the way to the cave entrance and turn. A little wobbly but not bad. I am suprised at the amount of flow coming from the cave. I guess I didn't think you would feel it. She says I am doing well.
Lunch and fills. Awe full tummy, full tanks I am happy.
Dive 3 Devils Ear. She informs me the flow is a lot stronger, get negative and make my ties and entrance. She also wants me to indicate when I think we have reached the end of the cavern zone. This dive there is no prompting and I lead us thru the gear check, bubbble check, OOA and then gas planning. We drop in and wow. It is a lot stronger I am shocked. But I manange to make my primary tie and get us into the cavern. Again the tie sites do not just pop out at me but I make my secondary and then proceed on. At one point I am struggling with the task loading, the flow, the light, the reel. I feel my frustration building for the first time. I stop and tell myself I am fine. I got tons of gas just take my time. I make the tie and continue on to where I think the cavern zone ends. She pushed us on a little bit further. We turn the dive and exit. Which goes pretty well considering the flow. Debrief. She says I picked some very hard tie off places, but did them well. We talk about the task loading and that I was a bit conservative on where the cavern zone ended. She informs me I have passed the class. WooHoo. I still need to practice the newly aquired skills but have met the competancy level needed for my cert.
Dive 4 FUN DIVE She will lead on a cavern dive into the eye. OMG what a difference to follow. I am completely relaxed and actually seeing the cavern. This is fun. Everything goes well, we turn and exit.
Day 2 she has agreed to take me on a cave dive
Dive 5 Devils Eye. We gear check, bubble check, OOA (much better) and then gas plan and discuss the dive. She will lead. We drop in and I feel my heart pounding. This is it, I am doing a cave dive. Holy crap. She had told me she would go high in the cave to avoid some of the flow and I follow. I feel myself start to relax. And soon I am enjoying the cave as I follow her lead. As we get to the lips I recognize it from her discription earlier, and then the keyhole. Somewhere around this point I am checking my gas and the bolt snap comes off in my hand. The cave line had broke. I am can make a temporary tie, but am thinking to myself "I hope this doesn't count as a gear failure because I am not ready to turn the dive". She sees me fixing the snap gives me the okay and we continue on. We get to the Hill 400 jump she shows me the jump and we turn. I have done well on my gas consuption and still have 300# before thirds. We exit with my leading out. Goes pretty good for my first ever cave dive. We debrief. She was happy with my ability to solve the spg issue without being all over the place. It was an amazing dive, I was thrilled.
We go to lunch and get fills.
Dive 6 Devils eye. Same dive this time I will lead. We gear check, bubble check, OOA (nailed it), and gas planning. We discuss the dive and that on the exit we may tie the reel at the lips bypass so she can show it to me. We drop in. My heart is pounding I feel the stress level has gone up now that I am in the lead. I remember to go up in the cave to avoid most of the flow. Relaxing a little. I see lights. I move to the side and see a group of three exiting. 2 are doing an airshare exit. Probably the students I saw topside earlier. It was cool to see divers actually doing what I have read and learned about. We continue on thru the lips, next set of lights. A couple of scooter divers. I think to myself I am a long way off from being able to manage a scooter in a cave. The good thing is there is no rush (and no money for a scooter right now LOL). We continue on. Thru the key hole, past Hill 400. I monitoring my gas. Next set of light a group of three making there exit. I move to the side. But somewhere in watching them managed to let me feet drop and kick up a little silt. My instructor points it out, I get my butt back up where it is supposed to be and hope that I haven't looked like a complete idiot student in front of the other divers that I know she knows. We continue on. The deeper we get into the cave the more I am checking my gas. I can feel I am getting more anxious the farther in we get. We are at 700ft, I am 100# from thirds and I turn the dive. Immediately I fell a bit more relaxed to know we are exiting. Again I remind myself I have gas, the exit I already know goes much quicker than the entry, and try to get myself to relax a bit more. When we get back to the keyhole I am feeling much more relaxed. We reach the lips bypass and my instructor ties off her reel and we go a little ways to view the jump lines. Back to the main line and finish our exit. We debrief in water and I am physically and mentally tired. I would like to steel a tube from one of the college kids and just sleep right here in the water. But we get out and go get something to eat and discuss the weekend.
Overall I am pretty happy with how things went. I was not perfect, but did not expect to be. On the positive side I made no serious errors. My instructor is quite please with how I did and this just makes me smile inside from ear to ear.
I will in the future take Naui Cave 1 from her. I am sure this was not my last cave dive. But for now the next class on the schedule is Naui Tech 1 with the same instructor.
We did the theory portion two weeks ago and then headed down to Key Largo to Jules lodge for some skills. I was comfortable in the doubles thanks to my practice dives. I ran almost 400 feet of line all over that place, practice tie offs, wrap, zero vix touch contact drills, helicopter turns, backward frog kick, accents 1 foot at a time, shooting a bag then accending 1 foot at a time. It all went real well. Both the instructor and I were pleased at my progress.
So this weekend we headed to the caves
Day 1 dive1: Ginnie Springs the Ballroom. Gear check, bubble check, OOA drill (little shaky on the bouyancy). Then I ran the reeel all over the basin, at different elevations per the instructors request, then she asked for my mask, I gave it to her and did my zero viz exit. Went pretty well, could feel myself getting light as I got shallower, let some air out, never lost contact with the line, I did manage to undo a wrap but not lose the line. I felt her pull the line tight and so I continued on. Feeling myself at the primary tie off I wait, she puts my mask in my hand I clear and get the ok sign...whew. We go up. She critiques my skill, but approves of how I did. Next reel in all but the primary tie off and go into the ballroom, make some tie offs, wraps, etc. She turns the dive. That went ok.
Dive 2 Devils Eye. Bubble check, gear check, OOA drill (little better) gas plan. I lead. My primary tie is pretty good, second one a little weak. I seem to have trouble finding great tie offs. We make it all the way to the cave entrance and turn. A little wobbly but not bad. I am suprised at the amount of flow coming from the cave. I guess I didn't think you would feel it. She says I am doing well.
Lunch and fills. Awe full tummy, full tanks I am happy.
Dive 3 Devils Ear. She informs me the flow is a lot stronger, get negative and make my ties and entrance. She also wants me to indicate when I think we have reached the end of the cavern zone. This dive there is no prompting and I lead us thru the gear check, bubbble check, OOA and then gas planning. We drop in and wow. It is a lot stronger I am shocked. But I manange to make my primary tie and get us into the cavern. Again the tie sites do not just pop out at me but I make my secondary and then proceed on. At one point I am struggling with the task loading, the flow, the light, the reel. I feel my frustration building for the first time. I stop and tell myself I am fine. I got tons of gas just take my time. I make the tie and continue on to where I think the cavern zone ends. She pushed us on a little bit further. We turn the dive and exit. Which goes pretty well considering the flow. Debrief. She says I picked some very hard tie off places, but did them well. We talk about the task loading and that I was a bit conservative on where the cavern zone ended. She informs me I have passed the class. WooHoo. I still need to practice the newly aquired skills but have met the competancy level needed for my cert.
Dive 4 FUN DIVE
She will lead on a cavern dive into the eye. OMG what a difference to follow. I am completely relaxed and actually seeing the cavern. This is fun. Everything goes well, we turn and exit. Day 2 she has agreed to take me on a cave dive
Dive 5 Devils Eye. We gear check, bubble check, OOA (much better) and then gas plan and discuss the dive. She will lead. We drop in and I feel my heart pounding. This is it, I am doing a cave dive. Holy crap. She had told me she would go high in the cave to avoid some of the flow and I follow. I feel myself start to relax. And soon I am enjoying the cave as I follow her lead. As we get to the lips I recognize it from her discription earlier, and then the keyhole. Somewhere around this point I am checking my gas and the bolt snap comes off in my hand. The cave line had broke. I am can make a temporary tie, but am thinking to myself "I hope this doesn't count as a gear failure because I am not ready to turn the dive". She sees me fixing the snap gives me the okay and we continue on. We get to the Hill 400 jump she shows me the jump and we turn. I have done well on my gas consuption and still have 300# before thirds. We exit with my leading out. Goes pretty good for my first ever cave dive. We debrief. She was happy with my ability to solve the spg issue without being all over the place. It was an amazing dive, I was thrilled.
We go to lunch and get fills.
Dive 6 Devils eye. Same dive this time I will lead. We gear check, bubble check, OOA (nailed it), and gas planning. We discuss the dive and that on the exit we may tie the reel at the lips bypass so she can show it to me. We drop in. My heart is pounding I feel the stress level has gone up now that I am in the lead. I remember to go up in the cave to avoid most of the flow. Relaxing a little. I see lights. I move to the side and see a group of three exiting. 2 are doing an airshare exit. Probably the students I saw topside earlier. It was cool to see divers actually doing what I have read and learned about. We continue on thru the lips, next set of lights. A couple of scooter divers. I think to myself I am a long way off from being able to manage a scooter in a cave. The good thing is there is no rush (and no money for a scooter right now LOL). We continue on. Thru the key hole, past Hill 400. I monitoring my gas. Next set of light a group of three making there exit. I move to the side. But somewhere in watching them managed to let me feet drop and kick up a little silt. My instructor points it out, I get my butt back up where it is supposed to be and hope that I haven't looked like a complete idiot student in front of the other divers that I know she knows. We continue on. The deeper we get into the cave the more I am checking my gas. I can feel I am getting more anxious the farther in we get. We are at 700ft, I am 100# from thirds and I turn the dive. Immediately I fell a bit more relaxed to know we are exiting. Again I remind myself I have gas, the exit I already know goes much quicker than the entry, and try to get myself to relax a bit more. When we get back to the keyhole I am feeling much more relaxed. We reach the lips bypass and my instructor ties off her reel and we go a little ways to view the jump lines. Back to the main line and finish our exit. We debrief in water and I am physically and mentally tired. I would like to steel a tube from one of the college kids and just sleep right here in the water. But we get out and go get something to eat and discuss the weekend.
Overall I am pretty happy with how things went. I was not perfect, but did not expect to be. On the positive side I made no serious errors. My instructor is quite please with how I did and this just makes me smile inside from ear to ear.
I will in the future take Naui Cave 1 from her. I am sure this was not my last cave dive. But for now the next class on the schedule is Naui Tech 1 with the same instructor.
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