Hopping my way to full cave...

[JohnnyC]

Thanks, Chris really put be through the wringer so he would be glad that I passed it.



For me it wasn't until he shook my hand that I felt that I had actually done it. The lost line drill was the final drill and they decided to throw the wrong ways arrows on me, so I got a little confused.

Ah, the old "wrong way arrows" trick. I'd write the briefing down in my wetnotes and would update while swimming if we changed the plan for whatever reason (another team that had taken our jump, etc.). I whipped my notes out so fast, added an "addendum" for effect, and showed the instructor the correct arrow direction. He laughed, fixed the arrow, and we exited. Apparently I'm the only student he'd ever had that had written the plan like that, or taken the time to write, "stop switching arrows you f*cking limey c*nt" in my wetnotes.

It's a good lesson in making sure you're prepared for the dive, because my "buddy" was quite insistent that the arrow pointed to the proper exit. The instructor was happy to play the "impartial" arbiter as a teaching moment. If i hadn't been judicious in making sure the plan was well laid out, I would have gotten out voted.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Training Day 6 and 7:
A little late on this, this is from two weeks ago. With the passing of Reggie, I had to switch to Chris Brock. I had met Chris once before but never dove with him. So I met up with him to continue my training. There were some issues due to small differences in training styles. Probably the biggest difference is that Reggie lead most of the dives I did with him, so I didn't have much experience as leader. So to quote Chris "You are an open water diver in a cave." I didn't have awareness of the buddy, line, or the cave. Though there were some improvements on the second day, but it wasn't good enough. Very disappointing, we planned to meet up two weeks later, and take a step back as he was doing apprentice plus level skills, instead we would step back and concentrate on the apprentice skills.

Dive Profile on Day 6:
Dive Time: 79 minutes
Bottom Time: 69 minutes
Average Depth: 56ffw
Max Depth: 98ffw

Went down the mainline as far as we could on thirds with a set of LP85s, which is some point after the mud flats which I confirmed by sticking a finger in it as it looks a lot like rocks. No drills just a pure penetration dive, entry into the ear, exit through the eye with deco. Renee Power was diving as an instructor intern today and tomorrow.

Dive Profile on Day 7:
Dive Time: 2 hours 13 minutes
Bottom Time: 1 hour 44 minutes
Average Depth: 55ffw
Max Depth: 94ffw

Very busy day at Ginnie, on my first entry into the ear, I found the not so unusual of a reel tied off in the chimney cutting off almost the entire cave (literally watched a guy wander around the entrance looking for a tie off). I tried my best to lay my line without crossing their line, but apparently I should have crossed under so we exited I would educated on this and eventually we made it in. Plan for this dive was to swim to the Hill 400 jump, place a jump, and penetrate to thirds or 1,000 ft turn and do drills. Well we made it to the jump, just like in the ear there were a bunch of reels there, all the good places were taken. But with much work we finally got the reel placed. And we start heading down the hill 400 line. This would be my first time off the gold line, and it showed as at the July spring jump (which is a siphon) there was an orange line crossing the passage, and my brain still wired to "Gold = good" started following it. Renee immediately called the dive.

Now we got to the drill, first was primary light failure, that went well. Next was I was out of air, that was a bit of an issue. Reggie never really required the "Out of air signal" he just said you are out of air and handed you the reg. Chris wanted me to give the signal and refused to give me the reg until that was the case. After much prompting I finally gave the signal and he gave me the reg. Now we started an air share exit, which after some struggling to switch my hands to get my flashlight in my off hand went fine until we got to the jump. He started turning the wrong way, I struggled to signal with light, but he didn't see it or chose not to. And he continued down the mainline further in the cave. A short distance later he stopped and signaled question and I pointed back toward the exit. Sometime before park bench, he ended the drill and I handed back his reg. Signal ok at the Keyhole, made it through and now we moved to do the lost line drill, well the less said about the drill the better. After cleaning up the horrible lost line, we proceeded through the Lips into the gallery. In the gallery I noticed my buddy's light was gone. Well I knew the basics of lay a cookie, and then an arrow and deploy your safety reel after calculating how much search gas you have. Well I didn't really remember that you don't deploy that until you find the likely place that your buddy disappeared into, which in this case was a good ways up the main line. Drill is called. Pick up deco bottles, pick up the reel, and exit through the eye for deco.

The summary of the dive wasn't "What did you do wrong, but what did you do right?" which the answer to that was "Well your gas switch to your deco bottle was fine."

Day 8 and 9 where I lost my prosthetic fin in the cave and the skills finally comes together somewhat to come.

 

[rjack321]

You should pretty flustered/stressed on days 6 and 7? Or is that inaccurate?

 

[Manatee Diver]

You should pretty flustered/stressed on days 6 and 7? Or is that inaccurate?

Flustered would be right, not sure about stressed. But it was very different from my previous training where it was "We are going to X turn, and then do drills A, B, and C." This was the first time in a cave (but not the last) that I was thrown not just successive problems, but unknowns ones so I wasn't mentally prepared for each one ahead of time.

 

[rjack321]

This was the first time in a cave (but not the last) that I was thrown not just successive problems, but unknowns ones so I wasn't mentally prepared for each one ahead of time.

I don't want to denigrate Reggie but this new way is preparing you much better for "real life" - although an actual surprise OOA or lost line in the gallery doesn't exactly happen either. Light failures, screwed up arrows, extra lines doing crazy things (even gold or various colors), divers getting distracted and not being close behind you, these are all much more true to my experience. Basically small lapses of attention can totally snowball into a massive CF - like getting on the wrong line is a doozy.

You'll get the hang of it as your experience broadens and your awareness then is able to expand beyond immediate tasks.

 

[helodriver87]

The second method, in my opinion, is critical. There's nothing wrong with introducing emergencies and failures with forewarning. It's a good way to build familiarity and practice the motions.

But you have to transition from knowledge to application. Even minor emergencies are jarring when they happen for real. Blowing a DIN o ring, for example, is loud and sudden. If all you've ever seen in the way of drills is "hey, your reg is broken", you're gonna be totally unprepared to deal with the real thing. Introducing unexpected emergencies and then compounding them is stressful (especially with that f*****g air gun), but it forces you to use that knowledge in a time sensitive, realistic scenario. It also inoculates you to the experience to a certain extent. You'll be much better prepared when it actually happens. And it absolutely will.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

I have a couple of thoughts on the process, which I think may be useful for the discussion. For context, @Manatee Diver and I are training siblings - I did the bulk of my training to date with Reggie, but began working with Chris in September on days that Reggie wasn't well enough to dive.

1. New Buddy Relationship
I always thought of Reggie and me as a buddy pair, even if we were a student-instructor pair. We had about fifteen dives together and we were getting better at observing one another, communicating, anticipating each other's movements, and perhaps even a bit of mind-reading. I feel that good buddy connection is critical in a high-stakes environment like a cave, especially when one buddy is a learner. We're still learning Chris and Chris is still learning us - this will take some time, but that's expected.


2. Different Teaching Style
Chris is one of Reggie's most accomplished students and mentees. When I work with Chris, I can still hear and feel Reggie's training coming through -- but Chris was also a teacher for many years and has a distinct pedagogical style. Reggie and Chris take different approaches to complexity.

Reggie liked to introduce problems one at a time and see the student respond correctly several times, with increasing mastery. Once Reggie felt confident that the base skill was solid, then he would integrate it into a simulated cascade failure. Without knowing Reggie's exact stance on the matter, I would chalk this up to one or both things:

(a) Reggie cared very deeply about each dive being a safe experience and did not want to have someone biting off more than they could chew and creating extra risk;
(b) Reggie seemed to prefer evaluating skills separately (i.e., I was a Basic Lost-Line Drill Diver and a post-Apprentice Blackout Air Share Diver for a while), which were part of the whole picture. Once a student succeeded at all individual skills and with the proper level of mastery, he'd certify for the next level.
​

My experience with Chris is much more brief (one day of training at Ginnie, one day of fun diving at Madison Blue). However, my early impression is that Chris values a holistic approach where demonstrating skills in novel circumstances and combinations shows mastery, rather than iterative improvement. During our training day, Chris "killed" me (or attempted to kill me) with navigational/other mistakes that would need to be handled correctly, without prior discussion. These moments were super-instructive for me in understanding where I had gaps in my skills and awareness.

Reggie's approach helps to build a solid foundation of puzzle pieces so that you know what to put together; Chris's approach focuses on getting the puzzle assembled, even if you don't know what the puzzle will look like when it's done.

I think that both approaches have a place in a training progression.


3. Leveling Up
As an almost-too-obvious-to-mention issue, @Manatee Diver and I are both leveling up from Basic to Apprentice content. We're performing more complex tasks in more challenging conditions and need to demonstrate a higher level of mastery.

Speaking for myself, I find that roughly every other day feels significantly harder than the day before. I think what's really happening is that the previous day went well, the next day involves harder content, and now I'm actively working to close a skill gap towards the next level of mastery.

 

[rddvet]

The report has been interesting to follow. A couple of comments/notes, none of which are meant to be derogatory to you or Reggie. I think you're learning a couple of things I think are very important. One is don't use the same instructor for alot of classes. Use an instructor for some courses, then finish up with another. It's amazing the different things you'll learn. Secondly, I really frown on single student/instructor courses. Even more so, I'm shocked that Reggie led most of your dives. You being the second diver means you can't develop proficient buddy awareness, and I guess I agree with Chris' comment that it makes you an OW diver in a cave. New dive buddies often have crap light skills. Meaning they often aren't good at picking up their buddy's signals, but even more so when they're in the back they don't have good awareness of what their light is telling the person in front. I've dove with people from the cavern level all the way to advanced cave courses that the entire dive I thought a disco ball was going off behind me, because they just were never taught light discipline. An instructor is not likely going to have horrible light awareness. Diving with other people of a similar training level to you in a class, in my opinion, is very important for this reason. They won't have perfect light discipline yet, so you will have to learn to be aware of what is and isn't a light signal.

Lastly, I'm pretty surprised you're running a reel into the ear and then exiting the eye. I'm not insinuating that it's a training violation, but I'm surprised it's allowed. Maybe because you're moving up to full cave it's allowed? After the recent death in Manatee, unless it's properly taught, you really shouldn't be entering one and exiting the other (in my opinion). We all know that a collapse in the exit portion between the ear and eye is unlikely and that a complete silt out is as well. And in every day diving, it's a perfectly safe traverse. In all honesty, in my diving we always enter the ear and exit the eye. But in order to truly enter the ear and exit the eye completely safely you're supposed to be verifying your exit prior to doing the traverse. Otherwise, it's a blind traverse and I don't believe that should be allowed in training. I know not one of my instructors in any of my cave or cave specialty courses would allow us to enter and exit from different entrances. I'm sure it's absolutely fine at any of the training sites, but the instructor should be teaching that an exit must be verified before doing a traverse. Others may disagree and have valid points why it's ok. I'm sure it absolutely is, but with the recent death, the proper way should be taught.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

Lastly, I'm pretty surprised you're running a reel into the ear and then exiting the eye. I'm not insinuating that it's a training violation, but I'm surprised it's allowed. Maybe because you're moving up to full cave it's allowed? After the recent death in Manatee, unless it's properly taught, you really shouldn't be entering one and exiting the other (in my opinion).

This was actually a hot topic of discussion after Reggie's memorial service when the divers went out to raise a beer in his memory. The discussion included a number of the living legends and most prominent instructors in the field. I was mostly in another conversation, but what I was catching what that (1) they agree that it's a philosophical problem with the rules, but (2) it seems to be a well-established exception.

It seems possible to rules-lawyer the issue by thinking of the dive in legs. Leg #1 is going in through the Ear, dropping bottles, heading out, and returning to the same spot - you're now at a verified exit. You check your gas consumption and recalculate thirds for a linear/reciprocal trip. You now embark on Leg #2 prepared to return to the Ear if need be, but can also exercise the option to exit at the Eye.

 

[rjack321]

It seems possible to rules-lawyer the issue by thinking of the dive in legs. Leg #1 is going in through the Ear, dropping bottles, heading out, and returning to the same spot - you're now at a verified exit. You check your gas consumption and recalculate thirds for a linear/reciprocal trip. You now embark on Leg #2 prepared to return to the Ear if need be, but can also exercise the option to exit at the Eye.

Who's pulling your reel out of the ear?
And who's line are you following out the eye?