A couple of cenotes dives in Mexico last year and I was hooked on the beauty of caves. Although originally ScubaSam and I were planning on some warm water diving this past weekend, we decided to [-]punish ourselves[/-] try some cave training.
Short Story
After researching several cave instructors through emails, SB posts, PM's and cave diver recomendations we chose Rich Courtney. Based on work & travel, we wanted to complete Cavern and Intro in 3 LONG days and our schedule was the following: 2/4 - shake out dive on our own. 2/5 - classroom, reel work on land and gear review. 2/6 - 4 cavern dives at Ginnie Ballroom, OW line course, 2 dives at Devils Ear, 2/7 - 4 cave dives at Peacock, 2 each in Peanut and at P1 or Olsen line, with exams and debreifing at Luraville Country Store where we found out we passed
Long Story
When I look back on our class, I think about what we did right and wrong and decided to share our story so others may benefit. Also, I had not seen a class report for a while here. Bit of background: We had been out of the water since Nov and I had not been in my doubles since July. I just started diving doubles last year, maybe 40 dives in them, steel 100's. I looked up the buoyancy characteristics/difference between them and the LP85's and thought I would need weight, I misjudged however.
Our plan was to do a shake out dive on Feb 4, cavern and intro on 2/5, 6, and 7, play day on 8, return on 9th. Sounded reasonable. Left NY for Cave country at midnight on 2/2, arrived 3 pm the next day and went to bed pretty soon after arriving. Next morning, went to Cave Excursions to pick up 85's we were going to use for class so we could become familiar with them and headed up to Peacock for our practice dive. We had the great fortune of having a local tour guide to whom I will refer as Saint Perrone Ford (SPF) :daydreaming:
We went to Peacock and SPF showed us around, plan was to dive Orange Grove, sort out weight with new tanks, etc. We first walked down to the site and after swishing away an unknown and annoying substance, duck weed, we see great viz! We gear up, which takes forever because we are not in our usual setup routine in a new location and immediately start having multiple gear issues, leaky this, incorrectly mounted that, the list went on. Finally we are ready and head down, take a giant very left stride off and quickly discover I am overweighted and wing inflator connector is leaking at the elbow. So back to the rock pile I go at the entrance to try to sort out. After turtling and flailing about for a bit (I am told water level was good for this but I am sure they were just trying to make me feel better) I finally get righted and decide to try to fix with rig off but on the rocks at the bottom of the stairs. I takes forever and by the time I am done I have a slight attitude, Sam has become one with the duck weed and SPF has been wet in his shorty for a long time. FINALLY we all get in and SPF gives command to descend to 15. You might have thought he gave the command to yo yo from bottom to surface at opposing time invervals, because that is exactly what happened. He just sat patiently waiting at 15 feet, while we did everything BUT hang with him. After additional communication confusion we ended the dive. Somehow Sam gracefully hopped out and again, I flailed around on those effing rocks, with SPF assisting while I clawed my way up his legs. I believe I permanently scarred him, in more ways than one. I was physically and mentally beaten from our little practice dive. It was the worst dive EVER with Sam AND there was a witness, not just any freakin witness, but one whose posts I used to gush over on SB. He barely said a word all day, but I was confident had made a mental note or 2. And I was right, at dinner, and to try to make a long story short, he said there were 3 areas we needed to improve upon: prep, focus, and buddy awareness and we might want to reconsider doing intro. And for some reason, he worded it just the right way that I did not feel compelled to commit a violent act, despite the fact that he used the word trainwreck somewhere in his description.
Day 1 - 8:30 am - Sam and I drag our sorry butts into class and explain that the practice dive was a disaster and we were not sure we were ready for Intro. He addressed our concerns and started in on the classroom info which finished about 5pm, then we went over to Ginnie and did reel excercises and did an equipment review til about 8:30 pm. Sam and I wanted another practice dive, and after suiting up in the dark, we jump into the OW water area at Ginnie and it went muuuuch better, SPF thought there was some hope for us after all. At this point I discover my drysuit is permanently leaking . . . grabbed a bite to eat and crashed at midnight.
Day 2 - 8:30 am at Ginnie - 50 degrees and pouring rain, all day . . . Rich does a land briefing, we do an equip match,etc, get in and fin over to Rich and the first thing he says is that he likes our trim. WELL, you would have thought we won the lottery, all grins, we actually did something right. Our doom and gloom mood was immediately improved. 4 dives into the ballroom where we practice running reel, doing primary and secondary tieoffs, primary light failure and air sharing drills. The way he set it up, he let us look around on the way in and we knew as soon as the dive was turned he was going to muck with us the entire way out. After each dive he asked us how we thought it went then added his opinions. Afterwards, Rich set up an OW line course where we practice mask off/air sharing, line following. Quick meal/air fill followed by 2 Devils Ear dives. He gave us a good briefing, get negative, etc. BUT, when I saw the grass near the entrance blowing parallel to the bottom, I thought, oh yeah, this is gonna be interesting. Rich was first, I was next and Sam was last. Some dingbat was hanging out in the middle halfway down, I wouldnt say blocking the path, but definitely making it more challenging for us noobs I utilized the pull and not glide method to make it down. As Rich was tying off, I couldn't wait to get where he was because I could see his reg free flowing in the current, yay. I finally make it to the entrance and immediately noticed a quiet spot to the right of the entrance to hide out while I wait for Sam to peek her head around the corner. I am not a very patient person and when this does not happen according to my time line, I gestured in a less than calm fashion for Rich to go up and get her and bring her down here. What is the sign for that you might ask? I made it up, but he seemed to get my drift. Of course he did not do what I wanted, the nerve of some instructors, lol. After reviewing everything we did, we decided to do a repeat dive which we turned pretty quickly, we were tired. It was an early night, we got back to the room about 10:30pm after dinner, with enough time to dry my drenched undies.
sidebar: Jill Heinerth bebopped into Cave Excursions while we were eating lunch. Rich asked if we wanted to be introduced and we immediately grinned in a glassy-eyed groupie sort of way and dropped our food, I repeat, dropped our food and ran outside. I remember shaking her hand and stuttering, but thats about it, hopefully Sam remembers more. To us outsiders it seemed like there were rock stars hanging out all over cave country.
Day 3 - Met at Peacock at 8:30, again 50 degrees and pouring rain all day - geared up and more primary and secondary tieoffs, reel running, lights out air sharing with lost diver and lost line drills added in. On the last set of dives, we were tired and tension seemed to be mounting as I mouth off to Sam and she volleys back, not sure what Rich was thinking, probably something along the lines of "holy crap, I am about to see 2 dive chicks start throwing doubles at each other."
But we are easily distracted by lunch and all is well in 32 seconds, gotta love those frisbees For the last 2 dives I am in my 100's and Sam is in AL80's for the first time this class because we dont want to wait for fills and we wanted to keep it challenging 
After we complete the last 2 dives and are all loaded up, I looked at her and said "do you think Rich will let us loose on the gold line?" she says "I dont know" and I agreed, no clue. We both felt like we did everything he asked pretty well, but weren't perfect and we knew what we needed to improve upon. We went back to Luraville Country Store to eat, debrief, take exams, and concluded with congratulating us on passing.
Lessons learned
A shake out dive day pre class is worth its weight in gold. There is gear prep and then there is gear prep. Attitude counts. Double rainbows and unicorns can be found on the other side of trainwrecks. Local experienced tour guide and land support are priceless.
And on this last bit, I would like to thank Saint Perrone Ford and John, Cave Diver. From the minute our original plans for a tropical winter getaway turned into a trip to cave country, they answered an endless stream of questions from Sam and I.
SPF :worship: was our local guide and without his patience and brutally honest feedback, I really dont believe we would have been able to finish the dives with Rich in the time we allotted or do as well as we did. One of the things that impressed me the most in my time with him was how quiet and humble he is. I learned quickly that he doesn't say much at first, so I better pay attention to the 5 words he does say. How he survived with a couple of pushy Yankee broads is completely beyond me. He seemed to spend a lot of time smiling and shaking his head.
John was part of our land support team and provided counsel, encouragement, expertise, pics, and more encouragement when we needed it. Although it brings me great pain to say this, he was a total sweetheart. :kiss2:
Our very own DNY cheerleading squad was awesome also, you guys rock!!! :bounce4:
As for Rich, I think he was a great match for us as a cave instructor. I know Sam and I (especially Sam
) can be a handful, he got a pretty heavy dose and never flinched, well, that I saw anyway. He gave us fair and constructive feedback which we tried to incorporate into our future dives and we learned a ton. Anyone thinking of Cavern/Intro, feel free to shoot me a pm and I will gladly provide additional details on why I would highly recommend him as well as answer any other questions.
Sammie, as Rich said, we are like yin and yang, I am sooooo glad you were my buddy.
Short Story
After researching several cave instructors through emails, SB posts, PM's and cave diver recomendations we chose Rich Courtney. Based on work & travel, we wanted to complete Cavern and Intro in 3 LONG days and our schedule was the following: 2/4 - shake out dive on our own. 2/5 - classroom, reel work on land and gear review. 2/6 - 4 cavern dives at Ginnie Ballroom, OW line course, 2 dives at Devils Ear, 2/7 - 4 cave dives at Peacock, 2 each in Peanut and at P1 or Olsen line, with exams and debreifing at Luraville Country Store where we found out we passed
Long Story
When I look back on our class, I think about what we did right and wrong and decided to share our story so others may benefit. Also, I had not seen a class report for a while here. Bit of background: We had been out of the water since Nov and I had not been in my doubles since July. I just started diving doubles last year, maybe 40 dives in them, steel 100's. I looked up the buoyancy characteristics/difference between them and the LP85's and thought I would need weight, I misjudged however.
Our plan was to do a shake out dive on Feb 4, cavern and intro on 2/5, 6, and 7, play day on 8, return on 9th. Sounded reasonable. Left NY for Cave country at midnight on 2/2, arrived 3 pm the next day and went to bed pretty soon after arriving. Next morning, went to Cave Excursions to pick up 85's we were going to use for class so we could become familiar with them and headed up to Peacock for our practice dive. We had the great fortune of having a local tour guide to whom I will refer as Saint Perrone Ford (SPF) :daydreaming:
We went to Peacock and SPF showed us around, plan was to dive Orange Grove, sort out weight with new tanks, etc. We first walked down to the site and after swishing away an unknown and annoying substance, duck weed, we see great viz! We gear up, which takes forever because we are not in our usual setup routine in a new location and immediately start having multiple gear issues, leaky this, incorrectly mounted that, the list went on. Finally we are ready and head down, take a giant very left stride off and quickly discover I am overweighted and wing inflator connector is leaking at the elbow. So back to the rock pile I go at the entrance to try to sort out. After turtling and flailing about for a bit (I am told water level was good for this but I am sure they were just trying to make me feel better) I finally get righted and decide to try to fix with rig off but on the rocks at the bottom of the stairs. I takes forever and by the time I am done I have a slight attitude, Sam has become one with the duck weed and SPF has been wet in his shorty for a long time. FINALLY we all get in and SPF gives command to descend to 15. You might have thought he gave the command to yo yo from bottom to surface at opposing time invervals, because that is exactly what happened. He just sat patiently waiting at 15 feet, while we did everything BUT hang with him. After additional communication confusion we ended the dive. Somehow Sam gracefully hopped out and again, I flailed around on those effing rocks, with SPF assisting while I clawed my way up his legs. I believe I permanently scarred him, in more ways than one. I was physically and mentally beaten from our little practice dive. It was the worst dive EVER with Sam AND there was a witness, not just any freakin witness, but one whose posts I used to gush over on SB. He barely said a word all day, but I was confident had made a mental note or 2. And I was right, at dinner, and to try to make a long story short, he said there were 3 areas we needed to improve upon: prep, focus, and buddy awareness and we might want to reconsider doing intro. And for some reason, he worded it just the right way that I did not feel compelled to commit a violent act, despite the fact that he used the word trainwreck somewhere in his description.
Day 1 - 8:30 am - Sam and I drag our sorry butts into class and explain that the practice dive was a disaster and we were not sure we were ready for Intro. He addressed our concerns and started in on the classroom info which finished about 5pm, then we went over to Ginnie and did reel excercises and did an equipment review til about 8:30 pm. Sam and I wanted another practice dive, and after suiting up in the dark, we jump into the OW water area at Ginnie and it went muuuuch better, SPF thought there was some hope for us after all. At this point I discover my drysuit is permanently leaking . . . grabbed a bite to eat and crashed at midnight.
Day 2 - 8:30 am at Ginnie - 50 degrees and pouring rain, all day . . . Rich does a land briefing, we do an equip match,etc, get in and fin over to Rich and the first thing he says is that he likes our trim. WELL, you would have thought we won the lottery, all grins, we actually did something right. Our doom and gloom mood was immediately improved. 4 dives into the ballroom where we practice running reel, doing primary and secondary tieoffs, primary light failure and air sharing drills. The way he set it up, he let us look around on the way in and we knew as soon as the dive was turned he was going to muck with us the entire way out. After each dive he asked us how we thought it went then added his opinions. Afterwards, Rich set up an OW line course where we practice mask off/air sharing, line following. Quick meal/air fill followed by 2 Devils Ear dives. He gave us a good briefing, get negative, etc. BUT, when I saw the grass near the entrance blowing parallel to the bottom, I thought, oh yeah, this is gonna be interesting. Rich was first, I was next and Sam was last. Some dingbat was hanging out in the middle halfway down, I wouldnt say blocking the path, but definitely making it more challenging for us noobs
I utilized the pull and not glide method to make it down. As Rich was tying off, I couldn't wait to get where he was because I could see his reg free flowing in the current, yay. I finally make it to the entrance and immediately noticed a quiet spot to the right of the entrance to hide out while I wait for Sam to peek her head around the corner. I am not a very patient person and when this does not happen according to my time line, I gestured in a less than calm fashion for Rich to go up and get her and bring her down here. What is the sign for that you might ask? I made it up, but he seemed to get my drift. Of course he did not do what I wanted, the nerve of some instructors, lol. After reviewing everything we did, we decided to do a repeat dive which we turned pretty quickly, we were tired. It was an early night, we got back to the room about 10:30pm after dinner, with enough time to dry my drenched undies. sidebar: Jill Heinerth bebopped into Cave Excursions while we were eating lunch. Rich asked if we wanted to be introduced and we immediately grinned in a glassy-eyed groupie sort of way and dropped our food, I repeat, dropped our food and ran outside. I remember shaking her hand and stuttering, but thats about it, hopefully Sam remembers more. To us outsiders it seemed like there were rock stars hanging out all over cave country.
Day 3 - Met at Peacock at 8:30, again 50 degrees and pouring rain all day - geared up and more primary and secondary tieoffs, reel running, lights out air sharing with lost diver and lost line drills added in. On the last set of dives, we were tired and tension seemed to be mounting as I mouth off to Sam and she volleys back, not sure what Rich was thinking, probably something along the lines of "holy crap, I am about to see 2 dive chicks start throwing doubles at each other."
But we are easily distracted by lunch and all is well in 32 seconds, gotta love those frisbees For the last 2 dives I am in my 100's and Sam is in AL80's for the first time this class because we dont want to wait for fills and we wanted to keep it challenging After we complete the last 2 dives and are all loaded up, I looked at her and said "do you think Rich will let us loose on the gold line?" she says "I dont know" and I agreed, no clue. We both felt like we did everything he asked pretty well, but weren't perfect and we knew what we needed to improve upon. We went back to Luraville Country Store to eat, debrief, take exams, and concluded with congratulating us on passing. Lessons learned
A shake out dive day pre class is worth its weight in gold. There is gear prep and then there is gear prep. Attitude counts. Double rainbows and unicorns can be found on the other side of trainwrecks. Local experienced tour guide and land support are priceless.
And on this last bit, I would like to thank Saint Perrone Ford and John, Cave Diver. From the minute our original plans for a tropical winter getaway turned into a trip to cave country, they answered an endless stream of questions from Sam and I.
SPF :worship: was our local guide and without his patience and brutally honest feedback, I really dont believe we would have been able to finish the dives with Rich in the time we allotted or do as well as we did. One of the things that impressed me the most in my time with him was how quiet and humble he is. I learned quickly that he doesn't say much at first, so I better pay attention to the 5 words he does say. How he survived with a couple of pushy Yankee broads is completely beyond me. He seemed to spend a lot of time smiling and shaking his head.
John was part of our land support team and provided counsel, encouragement, expertise, pics, and more encouragement when we needed it. Although it brings me great pain to say this, he was a total sweetheart. :kiss2:
Our very own DNY cheerleading squad was awesome also, you guys rock!!! :bounce4:
As for Rich, I think he was a great match for us as a cave instructor. I know Sam and I (especially Sam
) can be a handful, he got a pretty heavy dose and never flinched, well, that I saw anyway. He gave us fair and constructive feedback which we tried to incorporate into our future dives and we learned a ton. Anyone thinking of Cavern/Intro, feel free to shoot me a pm and I will gladly provide additional details on why I would highly recommend him as well as answer any other questions. Sammie, as Rich said, we are like yin and yang, I am sooooo glad you were my buddy.
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