Well I just got back from a week of cavern and cave diving in the Bahamas and wanted to share my experience with everyone. I’ve been diving locally in the Northeast now for almost a year. I have about 100 dives and dive with doubles and a drysuit. Anyway I planned my spring break to the Bahamas a while ago (im 20 years old in college), and just recently found out there was a cave diving instructor on Grand Bahama Island so I jumped on the opportunity and signed up for the cavern and intro cave class.
I flew down from La Guardia to Freeport, Grand Bahama on Saturday march 11 and just hung out Saturday and Sunday because I wasn’t starting my class till Monday. I stayed at Club Fortuna which is about 5 minutes outside of lucaya. I also came down with all my gear that I normally dive with up here, expect for tanks. The class started morning at 830 am. I got a taxi into lucaya to go to UNEXSO where I’d be taking the class with Cristina Zenato. Honestly, I didn’t really know what to expect from the class and what she’d be like. It turns out Cristina is very nice and actually very much like what I envisioned from a cave diving instructor. Anyway we began immediately by going to a class room and reviewing the NSS-CDS workbook. Also another UNEXSO instructor joined me to take the cavern class. So we pretty much went over everything in the workbook till about lunch when we took a break. After lunch we went over gear configuration. My gear didn’t need any modification what so ever because I pretty much had a standard DIR setup. However, we did spend some time modifying the instructor’s open water gear for the cavern environment. After looking at the gear for a while and going over everything we began line drills on land. She showed us how to do tie offs, placements, and all that fun stuff. Then she had us do it our selves. After this we did some simulated touch contact air sharing drills where we would follow the line. After going over all this and some other stuff about lines we called it a day at about 5.
The second day we began by getting right into the diving. We got all our gear together and packed up the car. Cristina and I were diving in doubles while the other instructor dove in a single alum 80. We then headed out to bens cave. Once there we suited up and headed into the water. The water was crystal clear with some fish in it. For this dive Cristina had the primary reel and we carefully watched her do the tie offs and lay the line. We then did various drills in the cavern and did various propulsion techniques. We did two dives here which went pretty smoothly. After these dives we went to a different location called mermaids. The hole was a swampy hole in the middle of the jungle basically but the cavern was AMAZING. There were two haloclines and the rock was a white ish blue with stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. We did two more dives here including more drills including air sharing exit, lost buddy, lost line, running the reel, and all sorts of other stuff.
For the next three days it was just me and Cristina doing intro cave dives. My first cave dive was to be at Mermaids again. This time I would run the reel, tie into the main line, and then continue on till I hit sixths or half way to our NDL. I have to admit I was somewhat tense and it showed. I fumbled a little with the reel during the tie ins. Once we hit the main line things got better but in retrospect I should have looked around a little more. I was glued to that line. Anyway we continued on till there was a spot where the line shot up from about 70’ to 60 something. At this point everything pretty much hit the fan for me. I lost my buoyancy and just didn’t feel totally comfortable so I called the dive (not before almost causing a total silt out). After debriefing and changing tanks we did another dive where I felt much more relaxed and did MUCH better. The cave was absolutely amazing, all sorts of decorations everywhere. Very very nice. After doing the penetration on both dives we did all sorts of drills and that was it for day 3.
On the fourth day we went to a new site called owl hole. It was a nice little hole with a 50 foot ladder down to the water. We suited up then hopped in the water. For this dive I ran the reel and tied off to the mainline before we began our penetration in. Once inside the cave it was very dark, almost black. The dive didn’t go particularly great, I had a buoyancy issue at one point because my drysuit exhaust got rolled closed. Anyway we did a air share lights out on exit. We then recalculated sixths and did a second dive into the cave. This time things went much more smoothly. It was again a no flow system with decorations everywhere. A very nice cave. We exited and did some drills. Day 4 was over.
For the last day we did a dive in a canal in ocean water. Up until this point all the dives had been in holes were it started out fresh then hit a halocline and went to salt. Also all the dives up until this point had been in no flow systems. This dive however, was definitely not no flow. We got to the dive site suited up and did the short swim on the surface to the entrance. I ran the reel in and we began the dive. Immediately I could feel the flow coming out from the cave and the intensity of it. I also noticed that the main line was fairly beat up (I learned late she had laid it only 2 months before). We did a fairly long penetration and I felt very good on this dive. After completing this dive we did more drills on the way out. After exiting the cave the fun part began. We went back in to get the reel from the mainline and I had a fun time reeling it in. I was definitely struggling to maintain control in the very high flow. Anyway I semi recovered and made a not so graceful exit. We then went back to UNEXSO where I took the test which was pretty easy and passed!!
Overall my experience was awesome. Cristina is a great instructor and cave diver and you can definitely tell. You can tell she loves to cave dive and does it all the time just for fun. It was a very personalized experience with 5 full days of diving and instruction. We also had much more bottom time then was required and she drilled me hard. I feel like I’m so much of a better diver now than I was before. Whether its basics like buoyancy, trim, and communication between your team, or actual skills like lost line, lost buddy, etc. I just feel overall much more comfortable. Furthermore the Bahamas was an awesome location to take the course because of the variety of cave systems that aren’t frequently visited. Some of the caves we dove like mermaids were virtually on the beach which made for a nice surface interval. And hey when your not diving you go back to the resort and hang out. I can’t wait till I go cave diving again, its pretty awesome.
I flew down from La Guardia to Freeport, Grand Bahama on Saturday march 11 and just hung out Saturday and Sunday because I wasn’t starting my class till Monday. I stayed at Club Fortuna which is about 5 minutes outside of lucaya. I also came down with all my gear that I normally dive with up here, expect for tanks. The class started morning at 830 am. I got a taxi into lucaya to go to UNEXSO where I’d be taking the class with Cristina Zenato. Honestly, I didn’t really know what to expect from the class and what she’d be like. It turns out Cristina is very nice and actually very much like what I envisioned from a cave diving instructor. Anyway we began immediately by going to a class room and reviewing the NSS-CDS workbook. Also another UNEXSO instructor joined me to take the cavern class. So we pretty much went over everything in the workbook till about lunch when we took a break. After lunch we went over gear configuration. My gear didn’t need any modification what so ever because I pretty much had a standard DIR setup. However, we did spend some time modifying the instructor’s open water gear for the cavern environment. After looking at the gear for a while and going over everything we began line drills on land. She showed us how to do tie offs, placements, and all that fun stuff. Then she had us do it our selves. After this we did some simulated touch contact air sharing drills where we would follow the line. After going over all this and some other stuff about lines we called it a day at about 5.
The second day we began by getting right into the diving. We got all our gear together and packed up the car. Cristina and I were diving in doubles while the other instructor dove in a single alum 80. We then headed out to bens cave. Once there we suited up and headed into the water. The water was crystal clear with some fish in it. For this dive Cristina had the primary reel and we carefully watched her do the tie offs and lay the line. We then did various drills in the cavern and did various propulsion techniques. We did two dives here which went pretty smoothly. After these dives we went to a different location called mermaids. The hole was a swampy hole in the middle of the jungle basically but the cavern was AMAZING. There were two haloclines and the rock was a white ish blue with stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. We did two more dives here including more drills including air sharing exit, lost buddy, lost line, running the reel, and all sorts of other stuff.
For the next three days it was just me and Cristina doing intro cave dives. My first cave dive was to be at Mermaids again. This time I would run the reel, tie into the main line, and then continue on till I hit sixths or half way to our NDL. I have to admit I was somewhat tense and it showed. I fumbled a little with the reel during the tie ins. Once we hit the main line things got better but in retrospect I should have looked around a little more. I was glued to that line. Anyway we continued on till there was a spot where the line shot up from about 70’ to 60 something. At this point everything pretty much hit the fan for me. I lost my buoyancy and just didn’t feel totally comfortable so I called the dive (not before almost causing a total silt out). After debriefing and changing tanks we did another dive where I felt much more relaxed and did MUCH better. The cave was absolutely amazing, all sorts of decorations everywhere. Very very nice. After doing the penetration on both dives we did all sorts of drills and that was it for day 3.
On the fourth day we went to a new site called owl hole. It was a nice little hole with a 50 foot ladder down to the water. We suited up then hopped in the water. For this dive I ran the reel and tied off to the mainline before we began our penetration in. Once inside the cave it was very dark, almost black. The dive didn’t go particularly great, I had a buoyancy issue at one point because my drysuit exhaust got rolled closed. Anyway we did a air share lights out on exit. We then recalculated sixths and did a second dive into the cave. This time things went much more smoothly. It was again a no flow system with decorations everywhere. A very nice cave. We exited and did some drills. Day 4 was over.
For the last day we did a dive in a canal in ocean water. Up until this point all the dives had been in holes were it started out fresh then hit a halocline and went to salt. Also all the dives up until this point had been in no flow systems. This dive however, was definitely not no flow. We got to the dive site suited up and did the short swim on the surface to the entrance. I ran the reel in and we began the dive. Immediately I could feel the flow coming out from the cave and the intensity of it. I also noticed that the main line was fairly beat up (I learned late she had laid it only 2 months before). We did a fairly long penetration and I felt very good on this dive. After completing this dive we did more drills on the way out. After exiting the cave the fun part began. We went back in to get the reel from the mainline and I had a fun time reeling it in. I was definitely struggling to maintain control in the very high flow. Anyway I semi recovered and made a not so graceful exit. We then went back to UNEXSO where I took the test which was pretty easy and passed!!
Overall my experience was awesome. Cristina is a great instructor and cave diver and you can definitely tell. You can tell she loves to cave dive and does it all the time just for fun. It was a very personalized experience with 5 full days of diving and instruction. We also had much more bottom time then was required and she drilled me hard. I feel like I’m so much of a better diver now than I was before. Whether its basics like buoyancy, trim, and communication between your team, or actual skills like lost line, lost buddy, etc. I just feel overall much more comfortable. Furthermore the Bahamas was an awesome location to take the course because of the variety of cave systems that aren’t frequently visited. Some of the caves we dove like mermaids were virtually on the beach which made for a nice surface interval. And hey when your not diving you go back to the resort and hang out. I can’t wait till I go cave diving again, its pretty awesome.
