Touch contact navigation procedures in low-zero viz

[Trace Malinowski]

It depends upon the situation.

Shallow water diving is easier without a buddy. If you are planning to dive in zero visibility in shallow water such as when collecting golf balls, looking for a lost item, installing a portable coffer dam, etc., a buddy just gets in the way.

When a buddy is required, standard cave diving touch contact signals are what I use. @Danseur and I started a dive in zero visibility in a cave he named Malcolm's Nightmare in the Turks & Caicos. We ran line through a zero visibility sulfur basin into the overhead until we found clear water farther inside. He ran line while leading. I had one hand on his upper arm and another okaying the guideline.

I use cave touch contact signals when visibility becomes temporarily lost as well. The strangest situation in which I've ever had near zero visibility was a "fish out" in North Carolina on the Shurz. Three of us were diving as a team. A mate from the Gypsy Blood, my GUE Tech 1 buddy, and myself found ourselves surrounded by so many fish we couldn't see anything, but a shimmering wall. The mate deployed his reel and we navigated the wreck in touch contact trying to find our way out of the school of fish so we could see the shipwreck. I recall only seeing a few pieces of wood when the fish separated a bit. I remember the movement of the fish made me seasick.

 

[Landlocked123]

I would love to get Cave certified. Sounds to me like all those touch contact / zero viz communication skills would carry over to the type of diving I do. Unfortunately wifey aint having it. Trace at which stage of Cave certification does the touch contract navigation get covered? Isn't Cave broken out into 4 sections? Right now the cost and time off work is a challenge as it would probably mean traveling to FL and spending some considerable time there. Do folks that get Cave certified do portions of the cert over time or do you discourage doing this? It would seem to me that it would not be ideal as you would start to lose some of the skills learned as there is really no cave diving here in MD. So not sure if doing this over 2-3 years in small sections makes sesne. Do you have students that do this? Is there information available out there on these Cave techniques readily available to the general public?

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Touch contact gets covered in cavern class. The student learns to properly run a guideline and how to return on that guideline while sharing gas, in touch contact in zero visibility, and sharing gas in touch contact are learned from day one.

There are four basic levels of cave training.

• Cavern Diver (2 days) in the daylight zone of the overhead.
• Intro to Cave Diver (2 - 3 days) takes you beyond the daylight zone using 1/6 of starting gas supply for penetration on the main line only.
• Apprentice Cave Diver (2 days) where the student begins to dive 1/3 of the starting gas supply for penetration and learns simple jumps and gaps.
• Cave Diver (4 or more days) where the student uses 1/3 of the starting gas supply for penetration and learns complex navigation such as circuits and traverses.

If a diver has a high level of trim, buoyancy, and propulsion control it is possible to do a "complete overhead course" also known as "zero to hero" in 7 - 10 days of training from cavern through full cave. That way you don't produce a half-trained cave diver and the student learns all of the information for safe cave diving and can then begin to build experience slowly, but with the all of the knowledge and skills. Most students do cavern and intro then get some experience and complete apprentice and full later. That was the path I did myself.

If someone doesn't want to do overhead diving, I teach use of a guideline and touch contact in my intro to tech class as well. Intro to Tech combines 3 days of buoyancy trim, propulsion, S-Drills, Valve Drills, Basic 5, light failures, primary reel, and DSMB with 2 days of twinset (doubles) training practicing dealing with 9 failures and removing and replacing twin tanks. The intro to tech is also a great pairing with cavern for a week of great education.

What I often recommend to students who have never taken a tech course is that we block off a week for training in FL and begin with intro to tech, move into the cavern zone and then see how far down the rabbit hole of cave training we get.

 

[-JD-]

Do you have a picture of the quarry before it flooded? Is it deep in the middle with access roads at the sides? Maybe surface swim to the middle and both of you drop down one SMB line?

was up till 1:00AM last night on google looking up just what you stated Ken. I cant find jack. All I know is it was owned by the Portland Cement Company. We have anecdotal information regarding a road that snakes its way down all the way to 220 in a spiral type fashion but imagine trying to find a winding road in zero viz. This layer of near zero viz is everywhere that we can tell. Hit 70 and its there. This last dive on Sunday was towards the furthest end of the quarry where apparently the spring is feeding in so we were hoping to find better viz but no go.

Google Earth Pro has historical imagery for the site going back to 1983.
In the 4/2007 & 9/2007 images there is a little water in the very deepest parts, but it otherwise seems dry (but fairly badly shadowed with earlyish-morning shots).
There is yearly imagery following, showing the full flooding over the next few years.

GEImage-JuturnaSprings-2007-04

• -JD-
• Aug 16, 2018

Google Earth imagery of Juturna Springs quarry circa 4/2007

Probably worth downloading Google Earth Pro. It also allows you to select azimuth/elevation viewpoints to better understand the contours.

 

[Landlocked123]

Thanks JD.. this is awesome. I will try to stitch to current layout to figure out the orientation of the entry point and go from there. Cannot thank you enough sir. Looks to me like a wall dive off the opposite end is the ticket. We can avoid the really deep stuff at 200+ and should be able to find that 100-120 range we are looking for. The entry point is right around where the right arrow is. I am going to post this on their facebook page. You just made a lot of divers happy and having a map makes diving safer I think.

 

[Landlocked123]

Thanks for the feedback Trace. I am going to start banking money. The reasons for doing the jump are adding up.

 

[-JD-]

Thanks JD.. this is awesome. I will try to stitch to current layout to figure out the orientation of the entry point and go from there. Cannot thank you enough sir. Looks to me like a wall dive off the opposite end is the ticket. We can avoid the really deep stuff at 200+ and should be able to find that 100-120 range we are looking for. The entry point is right around where the right arrow is. I am going to post this on their facebook page. You just made a lot of divers happy and having a map makes diving safer I think.

Happy to help! I've been using it to research potential local dive sites in SE PA.

It is probably worth playing with it in Google Earth. You can do stuff like this:

which can give you a better sense of the magnitude of the vertical contour steps

 

[Landlocked123]

Super. I just downloaded Google Pro...

 

[aquacat8]

I’m loving watching how this helpful thread unfolds... Divers helping divers, Scubaboard at it’s best. I was wondering, what about a fishing boat depth gauge on a kayak or float or something. Do they even make portable depth gauges like that?

 

[Landlocked123]

Its been an incredible community. I don't think I have ever either started or commented on a thread and not come out the other end either learning one or many things or at least getting great ideas from those with more experience. Depth finder would be awesome. I have never seen a kayak in there but I think they allow it. Talk about making things even easier.