pdoege
Contributor
Hey guys -
Starry Skies and I took our NSS-CDS cavern course this weekend.
We had been practising for a very long time. Our final pool run and gear setup was Thursday. Starry Skies assembled her BP/W and dove it. Good trim and bouyancy. I was in my doubles, but decided to use singles as I hadn't cleared the doubles with the instructor. We laid some line, did some OOA drills and everything was go for the weekend.
Our instructor was Jill Heinerth. She is a great instructor. Laid back and demanding at the same time. We met her at Ginnie and proceeded to learn and dive.
The actual classroom stuff was pretty dry. We had studied the NSS-CDS cave manual, Sheck's "BluePrint...", the NSS-CDS cavern manual, and other books. So we had the academic portion pretty much nailed.
We then went through a gear review. She was happy enough with our BP/Ws. No real suggestions that I can think of.
Next we did reel practice on land. We had done it in the water, so the land drills weren't all that bad.
Jill explained the finer points of arrow decorum and use. Neat!
Time for the first dive then.
We dove the ballroom. The dive plan called for 2 OW reel sessions apiece, some OOA, and some eyes-closed line drills. Afterwards, we would recalculate turn pressures and enter the ballroom.
All of the drills went well. I managed to reverse the sharer-sharee positions during the OOA drill. Oh, the hilarity!
I was selected as the reel man for the ballroom and in we went. We descended to the grill when Starry started flashing her light. Jill had disappeared while I was concentrating on the reel. After a short search, Starry found Jill in the little cubby off of the main room. Tricky!
I was about to hit turn pressure, so I turned the dive and out we went. I managed to completely jam the reel, and resorted to wrapping the line around the reel. I also lost my primary light. In the middle of wrapping and activating the secondary light, I neglected to dump my dry suit and soon was bumping along the ceiling.
Right, dumped and went. Great dive. I couldn't have asked for more gear problems.
Jill gave us some pointers, some constructive criticism, and then it was time to get wet again. We made our plan. This time we were going to do the Devil's Eye. Starry reeling, I was following. The cavern of the eye is very nice indeed. Beautiful. We got in just fine. All too soon it was time to leave.
Jill made us do some drills, mask replacements, etc. Then she told us to exit without masks. Off they came. I found the line and then waited for Starry to bump into me and tell me to go. Turns out that Starry was waiting for me to get the hell out of her way. True comedy folks! Finally she grabbed my arm and we were off.
Jill sent Starry back for the reel when we got to the exit. I chased Starry down (She can Move folks) and smacked my head on the ceiling. Ow. As hard as my head is, the limestone is harder.
We got out and got more tips from Jill. We had quite a bit of air left. The next plan was a very quick survey of Devil's ear.
We calculated 3rds and in we went. Starry was having a very hard time clearing. After several tries I called the dive. As soon as we hit the surface her ears cleared.
New 3rds calc and we try again. This time all goes well. With its high flow, the ear is quite the challenge to penetrate. We made it ok. I did not have much air left till 3rds, so we left sort of early.
Oh well!
2 great dives. Tomorrow we were going to dive Peacock! Yay! We had to leave Peacock the last time we were there because it was not open to OW divers. So now we get to go!
We did a quick dive at Royal. The idea was to watch the lunar eclipse from the bottom of the pool. There was a group leaving when we arrived. They claimed to have silted the entire spring out doing "line drills". They had been out of the water for about 2 hours. I did not believe them. Really, how do you silt the entire spring during line drills? Preposterous. Well, the vis would have cleared up in 2 hours....
Well, they had not been lying. The vis was about 10'. The entire spring was silted out. We tied off a reel on the platform and started swimming around. Lots of catfish, no snakes, no flounder. We found the overhead and looked at the rocks for a bit.
Not much to see in that crappy vis. We returned to the platform (thanks to the reel, no way to actually see it from any distance) and exited the spring.
Not what we wanted to do, but any dive is a good dive.
We overnighted at Dive Outpost. The bunkhouses/cabins are very nice and very cheap, considering. I slept like a log. Starry made friends with the resident white cat. A very nice and soft animal. DO is a great place to stay. They have a full range of cool techie stuff to buy too.
We filled up our tanks in the morning and met Jill at the corner store for breakfast.
Then it was off to Peacock. We geared up and went into Orange Grove. I was the reel guy. In we went. Very, very nice! We got to the main line and then turned.
I jammed the reel about 5 times on the way out. I cleared the jam each time. Starry managed to completely jam her reel as well. Quite the dive for jamming reels! I had another primary light failure. The EO connector on my Halcyon seems to be departing the pattern. I need to get another cable rigged before doing any serious diving....
I managed to flood my suit a little while craning my neck around. Lesson learned. In the mean time, I was coldish. So we took a break, had lunch, and completed the exam.
The exam went well. The only questioin that Starry and I both missed was "What is the golden rule of cave diving?". Turns out that it is not "Don't do stupid sh*t" It is "Anyone can turn the dive for any reason at any time." How we both managed to miss that is beyond me. Jill had brought it up many times and it is scattered throughout the books and workbook.
Ah, well. Time for the last dive. We went into Peacock III. Starry was reeling and I was following. After a quick thirds calculation we dove in. Very nice dive. Starry's reel cooperated and all went well. This is a very nice system. We visited the lines and then turned when I got close to thirds.
Cool dives!
We said goodbye to Jill. She did a great job and I hated to see her go
We packed and then headed for home. I managed to leave my eyeglasses somewhere in the Peacock parking lot. I found that out this morning
A big thanks to Jill for taking time out to teach us. Big thanks to Wendy for recommending Jill! Big thanks to Starry for practicing with me, putting up with my BS, and of course, for successfully completing the training.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
Starry Skies and I took our NSS-CDS cavern course this weekend.
We had been practising for a very long time. Our final pool run and gear setup was Thursday. Starry Skies assembled her BP/W and dove it. Good trim and bouyancy. I was in my doubles, but decided to use singles as I hadn't cleared the doubles with the instructor. We laid some line, did some OOA drills and everything was go for the weekend.
Our instructor was Jill Heinerth. She is a great instructor. Laid back and demanding at the same time. We met her at Ginnie and proceeded to learn and dive.
The actual classroom stuff was pretty dry. We had studied the NSS-CDS cave manual, Sheck's "BluePrint...", the NSS-CDS cavern manual, and other books. So we had the academic portion pretty much nailed.
We then went through a gear review. She was happy enough with our BP/Ws. No real suggestions that I can think of.
Next we did reel practice on land. We had done it in the water, so the land drills weren't all that bad.
Jill explained the finer points of arrow decorum and use. Neat!
Time for the first dive then.
We dove the ballroom. The dive plan called for 2 OW reel sessions apiece, some OOA, and some eyes-closed line drills. Afterwards, we would recalculate turn pressures and enter the ballroom.
All of the drills went well. I managed to reverse the sharer-sharee positions during the OOA drill. Oh, the hilarity!
I was selected as the reel man for the ballroom and in we went. We descended to the grill when Starry started flashing her light. Jill had disappeared while I was concentrating on the reel. After a short search, Starry found Jill in the little cubby off of the main room. Tricky!
I was about to hit turn pressure, so I turned the dive and out we went. I managed to completely jam the reel, and resorted to wrapping the line around the reel. I also lost my primary light. In the middle of wrapping and activating the secondary light, I neglected to dump my dry suit and soon was bumping along the ceiling.
Right, dumped and went. Great dive. I couldn't have asked for more gear problems.
Jill gave us some pointers, some constructive criticism, and then it was time to get wet again. We made our plan. This time we were going to do the Devil's Eye. Starry reeling, I was following. The cavern of the eye is very nice indeed. Beautiful. We got in just fine. All too soon it was time to leave.
Jill made us do some drills, mask replacements, etc. Then she told us to exit without masks. Off they came. I found the line and then waited for Starry to bump into me and tell me to go. Turns out that Starry was waiting for me to get the hell out of her way. True comedy folks! Finally she grabbed my arm and we were off.
Jill sent Starry back for the reel when we got to the exit. I chased Starry down (She can Move folks) and smacked my head on the ceiling. Ow. As hard as my head is, the limestone is harder.
We got out and got more tips from Jill. We had quite a bit of air left. The next plan was a very quick survey of Devil's ear.
We calculated 3rds and in we went. Starry was having a very hard time clearing. After several tries I called the dive. As soon as we hit the surface her ears cleared.
New 3rds calc and we try again. This time all goes well. With its high flow, the ear is quite the challenge to penetrate. We made it ok. I did not have much air left till 3rds, so we left sort of early.
Oh well!
2 great dives. Tomorrow we were going to dive Peacock! Yay! We had to leave Peacock the last time we were there because it was not open to OW divers. So now we get to go!
We did a quick dive at Royal. The idea was to watch the lunar eclipse from the bottom of the pool. There was a group leaving when we arrived. They claimed to have silted the entire spring out doing "line drills". They had been out of the water for about 2 hours. I did not believe them. Really, how do you silt the entire spring during line drills? Preposterous. Well, the vis would have cleared up in 2 hours....
Well, they had not been lying. The vis was about 10'. The entire spring was silted out. We tied off a reel on the platform and started swimming around. Lots of catfish, no snakes, no flounder. We found the overhead and looked at the rocks for a bit.
Not much to see in that crappy vis. We returned to the platform (thanks to the reel, no way to actually see it from any distance) and exited the spring.
Not what we wanted to do, but any dive is a good dive.
We overnighted at Dive Outpost. The bunkhouses/cabins are very nice and very cheap, considering. I slept like a log. Starry made friends with the resident white cat. A very nice and soft animal. DO is a great place to stay. They have a full range of cool techie stuff to buy too.
We filled up our tanks in the morning and met Jill at the corner store for breakfast.
Then it was off to Peacock. We geared up and went into Orange Grove. I was the reel guy. In we went. Very, very nice! We got to the main line and then turned.
I jammed the reel about 5 times on the way out. I cleared the jam each time. Starry managed to completely jam her reel as well. Quite the dive for jamming reels! I had another primary light failure. The EO connector on my Halcyon seems to be departing the pattern. I need to get another cable rigged before doing any serious diving....
I managed to flood my suit a little while craning my neck around. Lesson learned. In the mean time, I was coldish. So we took a break, had lunch, and completed the exam.
The exam went well. The only questioin that Starry and I both missed was "What is the golden rule of cave diving?". Turns out that it is not "Don't do stupid sh*t" It is "Anyone can turn the dive for any reason at any time." How we both managed to miss that is beyond me. Jill had brought it up many times and it is scattered throughout the books and workbook.
Ah, well. Time for the last dive. We went into Peacock III. Starry was reeling and I was following. After a quick thirds calculation we dove in. Very nice dive. Starry's reel cooperated and all went well. This is a very nice system. We visited the lines and then turned when I got close to thirds.
Cool dives!
We said goodbye to Jill. She did a great job and I hated to see her go
We packed and then headed for home. I managed to leave my eyeglasses somewhere in the Peacock parking lot. I found that out this morning
A big thanks to Jill for taking time out to teach us. Big thanks to Wendy for recommending Jill! Big thanks to Starry for practicing with me, putting up with my BS, and of course, for successfully completing the training.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
