Doing cave training in flordia and Mexico?

[tbone1004]

Have you talked with him? I believe he’s largely been teaching cave ccr, sidewinder, and cave dpv and leaving earlier training to Dene, but maybe that’s not the case.

I have not yet. Just been looking around. That could be.

I was about to say the same, getting Edd for an intro class is extremely rare. I'm friends with Dene, but given the depth limitations of that area, I would recommend trying to find instruction in Lake City area

 

[helodriver87]

I did all my cave training in FL. You're going to be very limited at the C1/Intro/Apprentice level thanks to the depth. That said, FL caves are hard work and it's great experience. MX is going to be far more complicated from a navigational perspective, but that won't matter as much at the intro level, since you'll be limited in what you can do. I don't think you can go wrong mixing it up in either direction or going all FL, but I'd advise against all MX unless you never intend to dive in FL. I've seen the flow humiliate very experienced cave divers. Work that into your training progression at some point.

 

[Jack Hammer]

It really depends on where you are going to be able to make dives to gain experience between intro/C1 and full/C2. If your diving at the intro /c1 is mostly going to be in Missouri and Florida then taking that course in Florida with its deeper depths and higher flow will be a better option than Mexico. Likewise, if you plan to gain most your experience in Mexico than that may be a better starting point.

 

[Omisson]

Couldn’t do any better than Edd... he and his staff are top notch!

 

[rjack321]

pros and cons to each. Mexico the more complex navigation, but learning to dive in the cold, with deco, and in the flow is an a$$ kicker and there is nothing in Mexico that can prepare you for that. If you do it in Florida, I would make sure that you take it with someone who does most of the intro level in Peacock if at all possible to maximize dive time as Marianna and Ginnie are not conducive to intro level dives given the depth.

This is making me laugh - NOTHING about FL is cold.
Anyplace with bare hands is warm.

You want a cold cave go get trained in Plura, that is bloody cold (3C)

 

[kensuf]

I think doing the first half of cave training in Florida and the second half in Mexico has some advantages.

The first half of cave training is about learning how to handle a reel, tie into the line, perfecting techniques (buoyancy, kicks) and get in and out of the cave safely. You don't need to log 80 minute dives at this level, ~30-40 minute dives are more than ample to develop the skills necessary to progress, and you can easily do that while staying within NDL's even in our deeper systems. Florida will challenge your reel/line work due to the flow in ways you'll never get in Mexico, if you can learn to run a reel in Florida, you'll be good in most other places.

The second half of cave training is about perfecting your skills while adding navigation, complex gas planning, circuits and traverses. Longer bottom times at this level are really really important, so are opportunities to experience navigation. Mexico is the place for this.

 

[tbone1004]

This is making me laugh - NOTHING about FL is cold.
Anyplace with bare hands is warm.

You want a cold cave go get trained in Plura, that is bloody cold (3C)

oh I'm not saying it's that cold, but it's significantly colder than Mexico where you don't need hoods or 7mm suits/drysuits to be able to do any length of dives. Granted, OP is from Wisconsin, but the difference between 70 and 77 is surprisingly significant at some point.

 

[Marie13]

This is making me laugh - NOTHING about FL is cold.
Anyplace with bare hands is warm.

You want a cold cave go get trained in Plura, that is bloody cold (3C)

I had 48-50F water when I did cavern/intro at a mine in WI. Sort of midway between FL and Plura. Definitely more challenging handling a reel with dry gloves and thick liners. I hope to split full between WI and FL next winter (depending on vacation time/schedules as I’m at a new job). Otherwise, WI and MO. Same instructor for both parts.

 

[oya]

Skills to be learned as a cave diver:

Buoyancy & Stability
Clear winner: Mexico.
There's little-to-no flow, so you don't need to kick. Constantly kicking can hide buoyancy and stability issues, whereas holding completely still in placcid water exposes all.

Flow
Clear winner: Florida.
There's only a small handful of places in Mexico where there is appreciable flow. And even there it makes Ginnie on the calmest day feel like a firehose. To learn to read the cave and position yourself to deal with flow Florida is the place to do it.

Linework
Mexico by a nose
In Florida you learn to deal with a reel in your hand while dealing with flow. In Mexico you learn to do it holding completely still. There are some nuanced differences to the line-running philosophy in either place, but essentially you're going to learn how to not make a mess of string in either.
Thing is, if you can do it holding still you can learn flow. If you only know how to do it in flow you'll be bouncing off the floor like a rubber ball when the flow is taken away.

Navigation
Clear winner: Mexico
In Florida there's usually one way in and one way out. All the arrows point there. In Mexico there are thousands of feet of line per acre and the arrows could be pointing at an ant-filled hole in the middle of nowhere.

Time in the water
Clear winner: Mexico
As noted above, the depths in Mexico are significantly more shallow, so there is potentially a lot more time in the water. I find this is incredibly useful as divers learn skills like backreferencing, remembering landmarks over the course of a dive, and learning to calculate gas planning and management. Whereas in Florida there is a good deal of, "We're going to swim in for 15 minutes and then come back out."

Gas planning
Clear winner: Florida
No one uses the same tanks. So dissimilar gas matching is a thing that you'll do on every dive. In Mexico, with little exception, everyone dives AL80s. That makes figuring turn pressures pretty easy.

Deco planning
Clear winner: Florida
After even some of the longest dives in Mexico it's barely worth the bother of gas-switching to O2 to clear your 5 minutes of deco.

Teamwork
Toss-up
Team dynamics in single file vs. being able to get together in a circle (dictated by the flow) are a little different and both useful skills.

Yeah, exclusively Mexican-trained divers tend to get their asses handed to them by flow, tend to be timid when they're first introduced to pull-and-glide propulsion (or pull-and-pull-and-pull-and-pull-etc), and the first time you show them a set of backmounted 104s they pass out like a victorian matron. However, generally {puts on helmet and ducks behind couch} in my experience Mexican-trained divers tend to have a lot more control and be more adaptable.

In the end:
There are great instructors and awesome caves in both venues. One way or the other first or second, exposed to them both you're going to be in good shape.

 

[LiteWeight]

I think doing the first half of cave training in Florida and the second half in Mexico has some advantages.

The first half of cave training is about learning how to handle a reel, tie into the line, perfecting techniques (buoyancy, kicks) and get in and out of the cave safely. You don't need to log 80 minute dives at this level, ~30-40 minute dives are more than ample to develop the skills necessary to progress, and you can easily do that while staying within NDL's even in our deeper systems. Florida will challenge your reel/line work due to the flow in ways you'll never get in Mexico, if you can learn to run a reel in Florida, you'll be good in most other places.

The second half of cave training is about perfecting your skills while adding navigation, complex gas planning, circuits and traverses. Longer bottom times at this level are really really important, so are opportunities to experience navigation. Mexico is the place for this.

This is how I did mine, and I liked it. Did to Apprentice in FL, running reel in flow, O2 bottle handling for Deco Procedures, how to deal with the yokels at Ginnie. Then went to Mexico a year later to finish Full Cave. Navigation, circuits, precision buoyancy, 2 hr fun dives, usually never got to thirds.