DIR and the canister light: newbie questions

[Lorenzoid]

Not the greatest picture due to limitations of taking a hand-selfie, but here is a starting point for you. You can just see on the far side of the reel, two or three of the smaller fingers rest on the rim as a brake to keep the tension on the line. But do get someone who knows what they are doing to show you properly...

View attachment 214141

Cheers,
Huw

Thanks. This pic reveals part of why I was confused. Holding the Goodman handle and light that way results in the light being pointed about 45 degrees to the left of the trailing line rather than in the direction the line is being laid. If that is acceptable--and from others' replies I get the impression that it is--then that answers one of my original questions.

---------- Post added August 5th, 2015 at 09:35 AM ----------

John Kendall's advice to just work on my fundamental skills for the time being, and then, just before taking Cave 1 (which, by the way, could be well over a year from now at the rate I'm going), hire a GUE instructor for a few hours of reelwork, is of course the right way to go about it. Suspecting that this is the advice I would receive is why I was reluctant in my original post to reveal my training trajectory. Same for JohnnyC's advice to hire an instructor to work with me. In an ideal world, that's what I would do. But first, there is the expense, and second, it's difficult for my wife and me to schedule weekends away. We happen to have a free weekend this weekend, but we didn't know that until just a couple of weeks ago. I am already planning to spend another day with my original Cavern instructor at some point to complete the course requirements, and he's aware of that. Do I really need to be the only Cavern student who needed not one, not two, but THREE days of cavern diving with the instructor to earn a pass? That I need to return for a second session feels bad enough. I want to feel confident that when I return, I will be more comfortable with the gear and the expectations. I don't care about the card--I want to meet the expectations.

My wife and I went into the Cavern course feeling almost a little cocky with our fundamental skills. But the fact that we are pretty good with our propulsion techniques and hovering motionless inches off the bottom did not help me one bit from getting tangled in my reel line and generally feeling uncomfortable and task-loaded with the new gear and tasks. I'd like to spend time getting comfortable with just holding the light and reel, identifying what rock works well for a tie-off and what doesn't, etc. My thinking is that developing that level of comfort will just take time and practice, swimming over a rocky bottom, remembering to keep an eye on my teammate's light beam and to use mine effectively, doing and undoing the tie-offs, back and forth, again and again, all while keeping extra-vigilant for reaching my turn pressure/time. All this was new to me in Cavern class. It's a LOT. I'm accustomed to diving in clear, warm tropical water. I want to get accustomed to more cavern-like conditions.

I hope others can understand that I'm just trying to get the most out of my limited time and budget. Diving is already expensive and time-consuming enough. Sometimes the thought creeps into my head that just as I make it to Full Cave I'll come down with some age-related ailment and be unable to dive. So please excuse me for taking a circuitous path as I try to move things along.

 

[PfcAJ]

I'm concerned that you'll end up spending more money and time by taking classes that don't really fit your needs.

If you want to learn the gue way (not that there aren't other ways), it's tough to beat taking a gue class to learn it. The initial cost might seem high, but you won't have to go back and re-learn stuff.

 

[johnkendall]

John Kendall's advice to just work on my fundamental skills for the time being, and then, just before taking Cave 1 (which, by the way, could be well over a year from now at the rate I'm going), hire a GUE instructor for a few hours of reelwork, is of course the right way to go about it. Suspecting that this is the advice I would receive is why I was reluctant in my original post to reveal my training trajectory. Same for JohnnyC's advice to hire an instructor to work with me. In an ideal world, that's what I would do. But first, there is the expense, and second, it's difficult for my wife and me to schedule weekends away.

You're in Atlanta, you're only a few hours drive from High Springs. When you know you have a weekend available, phone up EE and talk to them about what you want to do. Or have a look at the GUE webpage, and phone each of the (many) GUE Instructors who base themselves in High springs and see if any of them are available and willing to do a dive or two with you. I'm certain that one of Doug, Kyle, Mer, Mark or Kirril would be able to help. And failing that, there are almost always visiting GUE instructors hanging around High Springs

Tell them that you want to work on improving your basic fundamentals skills but also want to start working with a Reel. Any of them will be able to give you a good value day of training.

And failing all that, I'll be out there in November. If you've still not got sorted by then, get in touch.

HTH
John

 

[Lorenzoid]

Thanks, John. Actually, my wife's and my next brush with GUE will be a drysuit-and-doubles primer. According to the timeline we had roughly mapped out, we anticipated doing a drysuit-and-doubles primer around Sept-Oct this year, and then going for the Tech upgrade a few months later, but our drysuit delivery dates got pushed back (but that's another story). When we do get around to doing drysuit-and-doubles, I will inquire about tacking on some reelwork. An excellent idea--thanks.

We know we have a long road ahead. We're not really in a hurry to achieve a certain goal by a certain date, but we do want to keep our practice up, gradually add new things, and get comfortable with them. Slow and steady.

 

[Patoux01]

This doesn't look slow and steady to me... Far from it in fact.

I strongly encourage divers to train, and get better, but you're pushing it way too far.

 

[Lorenzoid]

This doesn't look slow and steady to me... Far from it in fact.

I strongly encourage divers to train, and get better, but you're pushing it way too far.

Huh? Please reassure me you have neglected to update the dive count on your SB profile and that you've been certified more than a year at this point. I have been oh-so-slowly gaining diving experience for 17 years and have well over 300 dives in my log. I feel ready to take my diving to the next level. It's not like I just got my OW cert and want to be a "tech diver" six months later.

I started down this particular road in diving by taking GUE Primer in July 2013, then a year later I did Fundies. Since then, I've spent a year gaining experience diving in single-tank rec configuration, during which time I got to know a few cave divers and got the idea that I just might want to see what all the fuss is with those caves that they rave about. Until recent years, I had no idea that those holes in the ground in northern Florida are world-class attractions. Living just a 5-hour drive away, I have a good opportunity to pursue this. I have a drysuit on order at this point. Although my first inclination was to get accustomed to using the drysuit before doing anything else, I was advised to consider taking the drysuit and doubles courses together, since that's the configuration I ultimately will be using. Due to scheduling, I won't be taking that until maybe January 2016. After that, I suppose I would get at least a couple of months of practice in--the fundamentals, but with the full gear configuration--before seeking a Tech upgrade to my Fundies pass. Then I'd no doubt want to get still more practice in. (It's been said here on SB that the best way to prepare for Cave 1 is to practice the fundamentals.) Assuming (big assumption here) that there are no hiccups and I feel good about my progress, then at a minimum I might just be ready to take Cave 1 toward the end of 2016. Over three years to get to the point where I feel ready to take Cave 1 seems reasonably slow and steady to me. Since life has a way of derailing the best laid plans, it very well may not happen until 2017.

To get back to the topic of my original post, all I really want to accomplish this summer is to add a traditional primary light to my normal gear configuration, and get comfortable with handling the light while doing all of the normal tasks, such as S-drills, shooting a DSMB, etc. As I mentioned, I got a wild hair and decided to take a Cavern course in the meantime, just to see what a North Florida cavern feels like and get a chance to use a primary light in that environment, and that gave me the idea to add using a reel to the list of tasks I might as well learn to do in conjunction with the light. I think that's a pretty modest goal for the summer.

 

[huwporter]

Thanks. This pic reveals part of why I was confused. Holding the Goodman handle and light that way results in the light being pointed about 45 degrees to the left of the trailing line rather than in the direction the line is being laid. If that is acceptable--and from others' replies I get the impression that it is--then that answers one of my original questions.

Ummm, no - the perspective of the pic obviously isn't as clear as I had hoped. The light is pointing forwards, parallel to the trailing line. The handle of the reel is at very roughly 45 degrees to the Goodman, and the line is coming out of the gate very roughly 45 degrees from the line of the handle of the reel. But it is flexible - you can aim the light left, right, up down as you go looking for tie-offs - and you have your team's lights to illuminate things as well. I think to break it down to the level that you want you really will be best off seeking to hire an instructor for some one-on-one time.

Cheers,
Huw

 

[TSandM]

You know, you aren't alone in Atlanta. katepnatl is there, and DIR-Atlanta (although he doesn't post here much anymore). Can you get hold of one of them and go out and do some pool work or something to practice these skills with someone watching? One of the greatest things about the GUE world is the generosity of other folks in it with this kind of thing.

 

[PfcAJ]

OP you've got some tremendous resources just a few hrs away.

The gue cadre at extreme exposure is great, Mer Tanguay lives in high springs part of the year and is a great cave diver, John Kendall is in and out often, and a ton of active DIR cave divers live within a few hrs radius of high springs and make day trips up there on the regular. Further south there's a decent gue contingent out of Jupiter down to ft lauderdale that dives all the time.

Reach out out to those guys. You might be surprised. Not everything has to be taught in a course. I've probably learned the most outside of classes, really.

 

[Lorenzoid]

You know, you aren't alone in Atlanta. katepnatl is there, and DIR-Atlanta (although he doesn't post here much anymore). Can you get hold of one of them and go out and do some pool work or something to practice these skills with someone watching? One of the greatest things about the GUE world is the generosity of other folks in it with this kind of thing.

If not for the great Kate, I might not be GUE at all. She IS my mentor. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately for her), she spends more time these days in High Springs, where she bought and is renovating a house, than she does in Atlanta. A few months ago I pestered her with drysuit questions, which she patiently helped me with.

Some time ago I PM'd DIR-Atlanta, but never got any reply. I figured he/they were no longer active.

OP you've got some tremendous resources just a few hrs away.

The gue cadre at extreme exposure is great, Mer Tanguay lives in high springs part of the year and is a great cave diver, John Kendall is in and out often, and a ton of active DIR cave divers live within a few hrs radius of high springs and make day trips up there on the regular. Further south there's a decent gue contingent out of Jupiter down to ft lauderdale that dives all the time.

Reach out out to those guys. You might be surprised. Not everything has to be taught in a course. I've probably learned the most outside of classes, really.

I know they are there, and I very much look forward to working with them, whether as part of a course or independently. I know I could hire someone to show me the ropes of using a primary light and reel. One (minor?) consideration behind my reluctance is that I don't think they would show me this in an actual cavern--they wouldn't take me into the overhead, maybe not even the Ginnie Ballroom. I took the Cavern course on the side just to see what it was like to do things in a real cavern. I found that a cavern indeed IS a very different environment from what I was familiar and comfortable with. I found it considerably more difficult to do things in a cavern than it was to do the same things in open water. It may sound like it, but honestly I am not trying to make excuses NOT to hire someone to help me. Rather, I'm just thinking how to get the most out of it if I were to hire someone. I can picture myself swimming around the platform at Blue Grotto, light and reel in hand, and while I know it would be good for me, the picture just isn't getting me very excited.

My wife and I will be up at the lake on Saturday (a mere 2-hr drive, as opposed to 5 hours to High Springs), playing with the light and practicing the basic skills. I think we'll hold off on trying to incorporate reelwork. Like FL caverns, the lake has a sloping, rocky bottom and less than perfect vis. I think it's a good place for us to practice. A day trip up there costs us next to nothing.

I dunno. It just seems like a trivial thing to hire a GUE instructor to help me with. After all, although this thread went beyond my original questions (and I'm glad it did), my original questions did for the most part get answered here. To quote myself:

To get back to the topic of my original post, all I really want to accomplish this summer is to add a traditional primary light to my normal gear configuration, and get comfortable with handling the light while doing all of the normal tasks, such as S-drills, shooting a DSMB, etc. . . .

I have to believe I can do that much without having to hire an instructor and spend a weekend in High Springs.