First Dive Trip Without Instructor - Need to Rent Gear & Help Planning

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Back from my trip. Had a great time at both Vortex and Jackson Blue. Awesome experience meeting Edd and Jay down at Cave Adventurers. Can't wait to go back ASAP. Definitely will be pursuing more training at some point. For now I would like to get more diving experience practicing my buoyancy, propulsion, trim, etc...
Wonderful! How'd the conditions turn out?
 
Wonderful! How'd the conditions turn out?

Vortex basin was silted out until we got into the tunnel. Saw a couple of eels and a lot of garbage in there. Why are all those pipes and junk in there? Can we get together and clear it out? I would volunteer to help.

Jackson Blue was beautiful. A little silt in the basin but quickly cleared as we entered the cavern. Ran a guideline to the gold line and glad we did. Many places to get lost down there. In fact, there was another line along the top right of the cavern and I didn't know or trust it so I went down and to the left, found the long way around to the gold line. Followed the gold line down into an amazing room. So beautiful down there.

Turned around as I hit 1/3 gas consumption on all dives.

Apparently I need to get cave certified ASAP. Also I want to start doing side-mount doubles ASAP. Hoping Edd will take me under his wing. :)
 
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Did you take your new light?

I took my two new Big Blue lights and they were both great. I also purchased a new GoPro Hero 6 and found a way to mount it to the top of the light securely. The video quality is impressive. I don't dare to show it here for fear that I would get torn a new you know what about diving technique. Let me get some more experience under my belt and I will post some vids one of these days.

My one critique about the VTL6300P is that the spot mode creates too concentrated a spot, so the video shot in spot mode is unusable as the center is completely overexposed.
 
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the spot mode creates too concentrated a spot,

You'll be glad of that when you do your cave course, signalling with a proper video light is a mammoth PITA.
 
You'll be glad of that when you do your cave course, signalling with a proper video light is a mammoth PITA.
IME, a video light is just as suitable as a dive light as a dive light can be used for video. IOW, not at all. The former requires a wide, diffuse beam, while the latter requires a focused, defined, narrow beam.

Which is why I've chosen a SOLA dive as my primary light. On narrow, it works pretty well as a dive light, and on wide it works good enough as a video light for my modest GoPro projects.
 
Jackson Blue was beautiful. A little silt in the basin but quickly cleared as we entered the cavern. Ran a guideline to the gold line and glad we did. Many places to get lost down there. In fact, there was another line along the top right of the cavern and I didn't know or trust it so I went down and to the left, found the long way around to the gold line. Followed the gold line down into an amazing room. So beautiful down there.

What was your max depth? If you tied in and followed it into a room, you were well beyond the limits of cavern.... IIRC PADI is still limited to 130ft total distance from the surface. The depth where you tie into gold is around 30ft and the top of the chimney is well beyond 100ft of penetration.... I would highly recommend following the limits of your training, especially this early in your diving career or it may well end before you get to see what is beyond
 
Max depth in that room was in the 90s.

Yes I know we went further than we should have. Edd also admonished me. I’m signed up for intro to cave with Edd in August. Will be practicing basics till then!
 
Max depth in that room was in the 90s.

Yes I know we went further than we should have. Edd also admonished me. I’m signed up for intro to cave with Edd in August. Will be practicing basics till then!
as an FYI I believe that is about 500ft of linear penetration, on top of near 100ft of depth penetration with no light way back there. That was definitely an intro level cave dive....

Swing up to Jocassee before then....
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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