DocWong
Contributor
Hi,
This was the most fun workshop! So many thanks to Danny Riordan and Christophe Le Maillot at: (http://www.dir-mexico.com/bios.htm) who volunteered their time for BAUE (Bay Area Underwater Explorers)!
This workshop was not only loads of fun but helped reinforce and improved what I learned in Fundies along with some new skills. This was not an official GUE course but served as an intro to cave diving for BAUE members in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Thursday we met at the pool where Danny and Chris did a detailed workshop on 3 aspects of cave diving. One was the importance of various kicks, trim and buoyancy in the cave environment. Two was communication underwater using both passive and active communication. Passive includes just seeing your buddie's light to know he or she is there and ok. When I could see my buddie's light, I don't have to constantly ask for an "OK" light signal, what a relief. Then there was Active Communication which included hand signals, light signals, touch and of course my favorite, wet notes! Chris and Danny went over this area in great detail!
Then we were off to the park, being shown how to do our Primary and Secondary Tieoffs and the other various tieoffs after that. It was quite a sight with all the reel line strung about the park. Passerbys would stop and ask questions on what we were doing. The on land Blind Silt Out Procedures were especially educational and fun!
Then back from lunch it was pool time. First it was practicing tieing our reel to the various cones at the bottom of the pool, then doing our Silt-Out Drills. Of course all this was caught on video thanks to Susan's efforts. Oh the shame of it! ;-) Hopefully you'll get a chance to see the "three blind mice", Doc Wong's 1000 tries at clipping his double ender on his right chest D ring and Ted's many tries at doing a Primary Tie on a smooth round object (it was impossible).
BAUE's funniest pool videos would sell big time!
By the day's end, we had a full day and then the night's presentation at a local dive shop, Aquan on Mexico Cave diving was awesome!
Friday at Point Lobos, just south of Monterey, started out with gas fills at a local dive shop with a workshop on how to use and get compass headings and when doing a survey, what to do, Depth, Direction and Distace.
Some of us tied knots on our reel lines every 10 feet in preparation.
The plan was to be in 3 teams, running 3 relatively parallel lines.
So we swam out to the Middle Reef, descended and my team with Clinton and Ryan started. Clinton took the first reeling shift and did his Primary and Secondary Tie off and after awhile, Ryan took over with my doing the last third of the reel. We went in various directions but mainly paralleling Middle Reef to the North tieing off on rocks, and on the bottom of kelp stalks.
Coming back was the task of reeling back the line and taking the survey data so we could duplicate our lines on paper later. Ryan took the reel with Clinton as #2 and me taking the survey data. On our furtherest point out, I took the compass reading and depth and recorded coming back in. Quite fun to be juggling a pencil, wetnotes and a compass, taking readings ect, staying trim and staying at depth in the surge. All three of us made pretty quick work of the survey back to our point of origin and and the end Clinton even pointed out nudibranch for me to see since I don't seem to see many of them. He said I'll show you a nudi or you get your money back! So of course we find on in about 40 seconds.
That evening at dinner we retraced our path on paper and I can see how it would be possible to survey a cave system using this method and how we can use this for future project.
All in all, I gained a much deeper understanding of cave diving and a much deeper understanding of the advantages of diving with the skills we've all learned! It was a long 2 days that was incredibly rewarding!
For us in "cave deficient" California, this was quite a treat and a teaser leaving many of us deciding to take Cave 1 in the near future!
Doc Wong
This was the most fun workshop! So many thanks to Danny Riordan and Christophe Le Maillot at: (http://www.dir-mexico.com/bios.htm) who volunteered their time for BAUE (Bay Area Underwater Explorers)!
This workshop was not only loads of fun but helped reinforce and improved what I learned in Fundies along with some new skills. This was not an official GUE course but served as an intro to cave diving for BAUE members in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Thursday we met at the pool where Danny and Chris did a detailed workshop on 3 aspects of cave diving. One was the importance of various kicks, trim and buoyancy in the cave environment. Two was communication underwater using both passive and active communication. Passive includes just seeing your buddie's light to know he or she is there and ok. When I could see my buddie's light, I don't have to constantly ask for an "OK" light signal, what a relief. Then there was Active Communication which included hand signals, light signals, touch and of course my favorite, wet notes! Chris and Danny went over this area in great detail!
Then we were off to the park, being shown how to do our Primary and Secondary Tieoffs and the other various tieoffs after that. It was quite a sight with all the reel line strung about the park. Passerbys would stop and ask questions on what we were doing. The on land Blind Silt Out Procedures were especially educational and fun!
Then back from lunch it was pool time. First it was practicing tieing our reel to the various cones at the bottom of the pool, then doing our Silt-Out Drills. Of course all this was caught on video thanks to Susan's efforts. Oh the shame of it! ;-) Hopefully you'll get a chance to see the "three blind mice", Doc Wong's 1000 tries at clipping his double ender on his right chest D ring and Ted's many tries at doing a Primary Tie on a smooth round object (it was impossible).
BAUE's funniest pool videos would sell big time!
By the day's end, we had a full day and then the night's presentation at a local dive shop, Aquan on Mexico Cave diving was awesome!
Friday at Point Lobos, just south of Monterey, started out with gas fills at a local dive shop with a workshop on how to use and get compass headings and when doing a survey, what to do, Depth, Direction and Distace.
Some of us tied knots on our reel lines every 10 feet in preparation.
The plan was to be in 3 teams, running 3 relatively parallel lines.
So we swam out to the Middle Reef, descended and my team with Clinton and Ryan started. Clinton took the first reeling shift and did his Primary and Secondary Tie off and after awhile, Ryan took over with my doing the last third of the reel. We went in various directions but mainly paralleling Middle Reef to the North tieing off on rocks, and on the bottom of kelp stalks.
Coming back was the task of reeling back the line and taking the survey data so we could duplicate our lines on paper later. Ryan took the reel with Clinton as #2 and me taking the survey data. On our furtherest point out, I took the compass reading and depth and recorded coming back in. Quite fun to be juggling a pencil, wetnotes and a compass, taking readings ect, staying trim and staying at depth in the surge. All three of us made pretty quick work of the survey back to our point of origin and and the end Clinton even pointed out nudibranch for me to see since I don't seem to see many of them. He said I'll show you a nudi or you get your money back! So of course we find on in about 40 seconds.
That evening at dinner we retraced our path on paper and I can see how it would be possible to survey a cave system using this method and how we can use this for future project.
All in all, I gained a much deeper understanding of cave diving and a much deeper understanding of the advantages of diving with the skills we've all learned! It was a long 2 days that was incredibly rewarding!
For us in "cave deficient" California, this was quite a treat and a teaser leaving many of us deciding to take Cave 1 in the near future!
Doc Wong
