I live in St. Louis. Any suggestions for a good cave instructor?
Cave training in Missouri
- Thread starter divermasterB
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Go to....
www.cavediver.net
and then do an open post to "Slim" to email you his suggestions (Slim is from MO). He has ideas for you. Don't post the question for other than email responses as it's a forum violation.
www.cavediver.net
and then do an open post to "Slim" to email you his suggestions (Slim is from MO). He has ideas for you. Don't post the question for other than email responses as it's a forum violation.
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Content deleted because I can no longer, in good consience, recommend either the shop or the instructor from the previous post.
JohnF
Guest
I've dived with Slimmy. He's a good guy & I'd trust him in a cave. Be prepared to look up, wa-a-a-a-ay up, when you meet him. I've heard a rumour he asks his cave team to wear 8' primary hoses. 8)
JohnF
OP
I heard that Midwest Divers closed up shop. That was the one in the back of a barber shop, right?
I know the guys at TGADC. I think they are going to be pushing the PADI tec curriculum a lot more. Being an instructor myself I disagree with a lot of things about the PADI way of doing things, so I tend to avoid the PADI mindset alltogether.
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That's the one. Kindof low budget and might be a turn off to some, but I find that he has the best prices in town and doesn't play that MSRP game the other shop's do. Probably has somthing to do with low overhead
. He was open as of a month ago, I dropped about $800 on him then.If you want DIR he's about the only choice in town. His cave instructor is a DIR diver. I was impressed to see their open water class using bungied octo's.
Unfortunatly there are not a lot of options around here other than PADI, at least for rec. West End is SSI but they are only interested in running the mine so training opportunities are slim to none with them. Y-KiKi is YMCA but they are a joke. Everyone else is PADI that I know of. The guy is looking for a cave course which PADI doesn't offer. TGADC uses NACD for their cave stuff. What's more important than the agency is the instructor. Steve Olfe and Darren Stross are both excellent.
Not sure about the "other" Midwest in St. Charles. They ticked me off the first time I was in there.
OP
Watch it now. I am an instructor for Y-kiki. A very good group of people there. The shop has it's problems, but very good people. Plus, they have a lot better prices on most items.
OP
Another thing about Y-kiki is that there training program is very comprehensive. They have developed a great system that includes 14 hours of pool time and 14 hours of lecture.
I used to use TGADC to have my tanks O2 cleaned. They got a weird pair in there that came from Hawaii. They really gave me a weird feeling. I mean I got a really strange vibe off of both of them. So bad, I started going up to Midwest for my Nitrox fills, etc. I was in TGADC the other day and there was no sign of the odd couple and I had a nice visit with Dianne Jugan.
The other Midwest has a great facility, and I haven't felt mistreated any time I was in there.
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I used them for my OW training and yes, they have a good program for that. But a more conservative instructor I've never found. I mean over the top conservative. I would not use them for continuing education. Also whenever I go in there there is only a young kid sitting behind the register. He doesn't inspire confidence. Sorry, though, didn't mean to offend...
First time I went in I had been calling around looking for a convienant pool session to test dive some new gear. They said they had one on Saturday moring and to meet the class there at 8:30. At 9:30 someone finally showed up to open the store and said "No there's no pool class this morning, everyone is in Rolla, I'm the only one in town." Getting up and driving to Saint Charles just to waste an entire morning is not a way to give a good first impression.
There are three easily accesable caves in Missouri that I know of. Roubidoux is a GREAT cave but you can't go that far unless you're going deep. For training purposes you can't do a circuit or traverse there but it would be a great place to do the cavern dives and some of the intro dives. The cavern is one of the coolest.
Mine Lammote has all the circuits and traverses you could ask for but the vis is ften bad near the entrances. It gets good further in but when the entrance vis isn't up to par there might be a standards issue with doing training dives there.
I haven't dived Cannonball yet so I don't know how suitable it is for training.
I know a few people who have completed full cave in Missouri caves. For some one who lives in the area it might not be a bad idea to get used to them up front. They don't use gloves for cave diving in Florida but we do it in dry gloves in Missouri.
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