Cavern Class Review - Natalie Gibb, Under the Jungle, Mexico

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sea_otter

Contributor
Messages
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Location
Pacific Grove, CA
# of dives
500 - 999
I just spent a fantastic week cavern diving in Mexico with Natalie Gibb, and I wanted to share my experience with the community.

I emailed her about a month ago looking to use some frequent flyer miles burning a hole in my pocket. She responded immediately with some dates, and before I knew it we were set to go! I had plane tickets to Mexico and was ready to see the cenotes for the first time.

She asked about my previous dive experience, as she requires her intro to tech class or similar experience as a prerequisite for her cavern class. I had taken fundies last summer and been diving doubles for several months, so that met the qualification. We setup a private class, her preference unless divers are known to have similar experience or come together. This ended up working out really well.

My goal of this trip was just to see what cave diving was all about, see if it is something I wanted to pursue (spoiler: YES!), and have an awesome vacation. I planned six days of diving.

She recommended starting the class on the second day, so we had a day zero with a guided cavern tour in the morning. We setup our gear and she gave a very detailed introduction to cavern diving and dive site briefing. She used sidemount and I used my doubles rig. The dive passed through rooms of amazing formations with beautiful light effects through small holes in the ceiling, and the site was simply incredible. We swam our way out around most of the cavern line (which forms a circuit), turned based upon the gas plan, and came back the way we came. I was already hooked.

In the afternoon she offered me the opportunity to demo a Razor sidemount rig. I spent a few hours in mostly open water playing with it, which I really enjoyed for the environment where the ceilings are so pretty. Though I was tempted to use it for the week, I decided I was already comfortable in backmount doubles and would rather have a couple days of fun dives than spend that time learning sidemount basics. Still tempting, though. Maybe next time.

Day one of cavern training began with bit of time in the classroom and a visit to Chikin Ha Cenote. We focused heavily on dive planning, line following, communication, and finding and noting reference points in the cavern. She briefed me on the site in the shop and I drew the map in my wet notes. In the water I lead us through an equipment check/match and reviewed the plan and expectations for the site. We dropped, each did an S-drill, surfaced to recalculate gas and began our dive. This became our standard pre-dive procedure for every dive. I noticed and pointed out several reference points on the way in, wrote them down, and ensured I knew what to expect on the way out. We finished the dive with a valve drill (as we’d do on every dive) and she quizzed me on the environment. Unfortunately I had to thumb the second dive of the day before we started on account of a badly flooded drysuit, but thanks to shallow depths we still had 80 minutes underwater on dive one. Not bad! We spent the evening discussing navigation and accident prevention.

Day two began reel work. We started with practice on dry land in the air conditioned shop with some convenient portable rock formations. We ensured we always had a continuous line to the coffee machine. ;-) Before heading to the dive site, I made notes in my wetnotes from a map of Ponderosa Cenote. My task was to find my way to each of four cave lines, tie in, turn around, and pull my reel. The cenote was a zoo on a Mexican holiday, swimmers screaming and diving from the highest trees. I ran through the dive plan under the overhang so they wouldn’t jump on top of us. As we made our way towards the first cave entry, we looked down and noticed 5 teams already inside. Trial by fire on my first attempt at running a reel. Attempt one wasn’t so pretty. There wasn’t a huge amount of silt there, but I still managed to make a bit of a mess. Having switched to a borrowed wetsuit with what was now a poorly fitted and awkwardly trimmed harness didn’t help. :( Though I could tell Nat was slightly annoyed, she never stopped smiling, and after listening to her helpful tips on how to improve, I managed to run a line to her standards. Finally it was time for our cavern dive. I got lazy running my reel to the cavern line, and knowing that I had a straight shot I tied off to a rock well beyond the one I was planning to use. She told me later that was failing and not to do it again. I didn’t. :) The cavern dive itself was more practice of yesterday’s skills as well as some light failures and air shares on the exit. We debriefed and returned to the shop for more lecture.

Day three was time for failures and exploration! We did some practice in the shop following the line blind, and then we moved to open water. No site map today. Nat setup a circuit in open water, ensuring that we had plenty of obstacles and depth changes. I got to swim around it once with my eyes open and a couple times eyes closed with air sharing and other drills thrown into the mix. The final time around got even more fun. Nat took away my mask(s), ripped the line out of my hand (twice before I learned my lesson), tied her jump spool into the line, free-flowed my backup reg, and tangled my light head in the line. I managed to get through her obstacle course calmly. After our playing around in open water, we planned to enter the cavern in the Xtabay Cenote of Chikin Ha. There was no gold line here in the cavern zone, so it was up to me to run my own. She asked me to make notes as I went so that I could draw up a map at the end of the dive. Of course the expectation was that I’d only be able to enjoy the view on the way in. There was a team already in the cave, and I didn’t feel comfortable crossing under their line, so I stuck to one side of the cavern. I exited eyes closed, pausing along the way to have a little fun with a simulated bubble-gun first stage failure and some more gas sharing. I drew up a map of the cavern in my wet notes, and then we went for a second dive. The team in the cave had exited so I moved my line to the other side of the cavern to check out some new areas. I pulled the reel on the way back and finished drawing the other half of my map.

On day four my drysuit was again functional, hooray! We had finished the cavern class, and she asked if I was interested in any more training. I felt very well prepared to move onto intro, but since there is so much diving here at the cavern level, I saw no reason to rush. Besides, most of my friends have GUE cave training, so Cave 1 might be the more appropriate next step (except for the fact that going GUE means a different instructor). I did, however, want to get some idea of what came next, and I asked if she’d be willing to run through a lost line procedure with me. She agreed and had me sign the intro to cave liability paperwork. We did land drills and then swam in along the line for a planned 5 minute penetration. On the way out, she gave me the signal to put on a blindfold and let her get me lost. I did manage to run my spool back to the line and head out in the right direction, so we cleaned up and debriefed on what I could have done better.

That afternoon and the following day was all fun diving. She offered me the option of visiting common recreational sites or going on an adventure off the beaten path. Of course I was ready for adventure! Some of the entries/exits were a bit treacherous in backmount (hmm… that Razor rig is looking more and more appealing), but I managed to make it work, and we had a fantastic time. In a day and a half we ended up visiting a total of four very different cenotes and spending just over four hours underwater.

All in all it was a wonderful class, a great vacation, and good times spent with a phenomenal instructor. I learned quite a bit, and we both surfaced from every dive with ear to ear smiles. I cannot wait to go back! I think I’m hooked...
 
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That sounds fun. Can't wait! :)

Besides, most of my friends have GUE cave training, so Cave 1 might be the more appropriate next step (except for the fact that going GUE means a different instructor).

Zero Gravity is like 5 minutes down the road from Under the Jungle and does a lot of GUE C1 classes. I plan on doing C1 there. :)
 
Zero Gravity is an incredible dive shop. I stopped in while I was there. :) I don't yet have a tech pass for Fundies, so that'll need to happen first.
 
I get your thinking. I'm still working on my skills for a Fundies tech pass, but I got antsy and took a Cavern course. Fun stuff.
 
I get your thinking. I'm still working on my skills for a Fundies tech pass, but I got antsy and took a Cavern course. Fun stuff.

That is indeed part of it, but the other part was trying to see if it was really something of interest (especially since I live nowhere near any kind of underwater caves). It's a lot of effort, time, and money to spend to find out that I'd be just as happy looking at youtube videos and pictures on the internet. The trip surpassed even my wildest expectations, though. The damage is now done. ;-)
 
I wonder how many other closet GUE people took a Cavern course as a way to dip their toe in the water? I know that my mentor, who may very well see this thread :) did just that. My thinking is also that Cave 1 is darn expensive, and if I eventually take it, I AM going to be fully prepared to pass it.
 
If you're not good enough to get a tech pass does adding in an overhead environment really seem like the best thing to do?

You're putting the cart before the horse.
 
Natalie is an awesome guide and instructor. She won't put on airs, but she's not afraid to scold you for screwing up. She has definitely been the most detailed oriented guide I've ever had the pleasure of diving with.
 
I know, you've said it before AJ. As I understand it, that has been GUE's position in not offering a cavern course. Something along the lines of "a cavern can quickly turn into a cave." Still, I don't see any reports of cavern courses leading to any harm to anyone.* Oh, I'm sure there has been at least one person who got the cavern card and went out and got himself killed, but it seems to be exceedingly rare.

* It has been said that cavern courses may, if nothing else, help increase OW divers' awareness of dangers and even environmental issues. For those who live in cave country, it can serve as sort of a public awareness course.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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