Doing cave training in flordia and Mexico?

[UCFKnightDiver]

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.

Plenty of low/no flow caves in FL too, not everything's like Ginnie

 

[Whitrzac]

What are peoples thoughts on doing cavern and intro to cave in Florida. Then spending some time practicing and diving there. Then going to Mexico to do full cave? I like the idea of get a variety of flordia and Mexico caves. I want to dive both. Would people do it the other way around sense flordia has the deeper and higher flow caves. Which sound more challenging but I know Mexico caves will have there own challenges. Especially sense I think it would be easier to silt up a lower flow cave.

Why not do a cavern/intro class in WI? Learn/work on the skills in drygloves and bulky undergarments, makes FL feel like a cakewalk.

 

[tbone1004]

@oya I think the gear configuration is one that you touched on, but also worth mentioning how much more difficult it is to move around with the big heavy tanks due to inertia and size of the bubble in the BC/drysuit.

I'll disagree on the low flow stuff though, there are plenty of near 0 flow caves in Florida that will kick your butt if you aren't careful.

 

[Marie13]

Why not do a cavern/intro class in WI? Learn/work on the skills in drygloves and bulky undergarments, makes FL feel like a cakewalk.

And the additional plus of doing cavern/intro in WI is that you then have access to the mine to dive after class. Divers who haven’t trained with this instructor usually don’t have access to the mine. Very nice having a dive site several hours from you instead of having to go to FL or MX.

 

[rjack321]

And the additional plus of doing cavern/intro in WI is that you then have access to the mine to dive after class. Divers who haven’t trained with this instructor usually don’t have access to the mine. Very nice having a dive site several hours from you instead of having to go to FL or MX.

Plus she isn't a hack instructor

(there are some un-recommend-able instructors in FL and MX, Marie's instructor in WI is the real deal)

 

[Marie13]

Plus she isn't a hack instructor

She certainly isn’t!

 

[MichaelMc]

And the additional plus of doing cavern/intro in WI is that you then have access to the mine to dive after class. Divers who haven’t trained with this instructor usually don’t have access to the mine. Very nice having a dive site several hours from you instead of having to go to FL or MX.

What is the WI water temp? Asking for a friend.... 50s I'm used to. Just checking though.

ETA:
My bad, one page back (of three). 48-50.

 

[Josh the diver]

What is the water temp? Asking for a friend... 50s I'm used to. Just checking though.

I believe I have heard the mines are in the low 50s. they do the training In the winter months when the visibility is better.

 

[Marie13]

Note: the cave classes at the WI mine are almost always on weekends. The instructor has a full time job elsewhere. As much as I love the instructor, she’s not really a good option for people from far out of town, due to classes being on weekends.

ETA: cavern/intro is two full weekends. I believe full cave is two full weekends, as well. I did cavern/intro over the three day Thanksgiving weekend (three days is minimum for cavern/intro combo). Man, was that intense. Like drinking from a firehose. I was exhausted afterwards. If staying in the Midwest for full cave, it seems doing one weekend diving the MO caves is usual.

 

[scubadada]

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.

Would you get on a plane to go to Florida?