wheelietaco:
Im wanting to take the cavern and intro class together, sometime this summer or fall. I was just wanting to shop around for an instructor. Shop and compare before I buy right? I am wanting to do this in North florida around Ginnie springs. Anyone know of an instructor, or you are an instructor interested.
Since you are asking about instructors I can reccomend
GDI. He was my instructor for...
Advanced Nitrox (TDI)
Decompression Procedures (TDI)
Cavern thru Full Cave (TDI and NACD)
I have also taken some diver related medical classes such as DAN O2 provider, CPR and the like.
I have found his teaching style to be direct without being confrontational. He is patient and when I was not getting a concept he was right there to go over it again. I am not a math wiz so this was always where I had problems, he was able to describe how to solve the problems a couple of different ways and this helped. What I am trying to say is that a mathematical problem may have only one way of determining the answer but the english language allows the use of different words to express the same idea, and Rick was able to use different ways to describe the same equation.
In the water his style is clear and concise, he is able to demonstrate the skills in ways that make them very clear. He is uncompromising on the skills, if you need to know how to do somthing you will either learn how, try again, or not pass the class.
You will find at this level of instruction the risk of failing the class is very real. I took my cavern thru full cave classes in a single two week time period. I had initially tried to schedule the entire thing in a single one week period, but with some unavoidable scheduling conflicts two weeks made more sense. I asked Rick how many students that try to take the entire course in just one week pass and how many fail. If my memory serves me he said the numbers were somthing like 40% pass and get Full Cave while 60% fail. Of the failures some attain Cavern, some Intro, others Apprentice, while some may not even pass Cavern.
Rick lives closer to Tampa but in my case the entire class was conducted in the High Springs, Fort White area, this is of course the area around Ginnie and many other cave systems.
There are lots of good instructors and others will post in this thread or contact you via PM's in the post linked earlier in this thread to Jim Wyatt he makes many really good points.
best of luck,
Mark Vlahos
...with an instructor that is...
