Ginnie dive

[fgray1]

This is for the guys I've dove with in the caverns and caves.
To boring for the full cave guys.
Went to Ginnie last Sat. Learned some good lessons.
Me and Rick decided to go for a short cave dive. We entered at the eye. Bad choice. There was a intro class entering the cave at the bottom of the eye. Took for ever for them to get in. Mean while I'm burning my gas. I filled my LP 112 to 3000 psi so I had 127 cu. ft. in a single tank so no problem. They finally got to the main gold line and out of the way. I burned 500 psi to get there. Me and Rick dicided to go throught he catacombs. Had to run a line. There's no gold line through there. Was kinda like the peanut tunnel at Peacock. Not very tall or wide but lots of clay and silt on the floor. Had to keep bouyancy under control and I did. Low flow through there too. Saw some big cat fish hiding in there. Didn't have any problems getting through. Exited the catacombs at the lips tied off at the gold line. gas used to this point was 700 psi, not bad, headed through the lips and entered the keyhole. High flow through the lips. Last 300 psi gone I'm sitting at 80 ft. Time to turn the dive. Headed back through the lips to the entrance to the catacolms and went in with Rick behind me. Heading back was alot easier then heading in. Swimming with the flow GOOD. VERY GOOD. Entered the catacolms and guided line for Rick. Came to a tight spot that I made it through on the way in with no problem but this time I hit the floor , as well as stirring up the bottom with a fin kick. I turned around and all I could see was a nice glow from Ricks light. (thought to my self he'll never let me live this one down)
Exited the colms and headed back to the eye had to hang on for a ride with the flow. Did a 5 min saftey stop in the eye and exited the water. The group that held us up was already out they called the dive 50 ft up the gold line for some reason. Total dive time 38 min, total gas used 1700 psi. Not a bad dive.

Hope this makes you hungry Pat.
Wish you could have been there.
Fred

 

[StarrySkies]

Hey Fred!

I had a most interesting set of dives this weekend, too. Went through my Intro class with Mike O’Leary – what a blast!!! We started at Peacock and went towards Pothole (he wanted us to feel comfortable with the concept of double arrows pointing in opposite directions firsthand – glad he did)! Then we took the Peanut Tunnel to the Breakdown room – Wow! The next day we hit Little River (finally!!!) in the morning and then finished up our drills at Cow Springs. We had Cow to ourselves – very nice to have some space whilst running drills in the dark – and very beautiful dives to boot.

I have to say that every time I thought that my surroundings could not look more amazing and otherworldly underwater I was absolutely astounded by the beauty that surrounded me on every side. What an incredible world.

So now I am an official neophyte-stay on the main line-do not exceed 35 cubic feet-Intro to Cave diver!! My doubles were great and I have gotten very comfortable with them. I won’t even mention what all hurts today after lugging them around for two days (many thanks to my dive buddy who helped me more than once after I managed to wrench my back pulling them out of the car…)

So when are we going for a dive?

 

[StarrySkies]

Cool - just noticed that I have progressed to "Regular Member" status!

 

[jviehe]

Hey Fred!


So now I am an official neophyte-stay on the main line-do not exceed 35 cubic feet-Intro to Cave diver!! My doubles were great and I have gotten very comfortable with them. I won’t even mention what all hurts today after lugging them around for two days (many thanks to my dive buddy who helped me more than once after I managed to wrench my back pulling them out of the car…)

So when are we going for a dive?

Damn, guess I need to go do my intro class then. I dove with a friend on Sunday, who is only OW, but we tried for Ginnie. She had brought her pet however, so we couldnt get in, and went to Blue Grotto instead. Viz was low, but it was a fun dive anyway, as I hadnt been there since my first 10 dives.

 

[OneBrightGator]

I went to Peacock on Sunday, we went up the mainline through the Peanut Tunnel and the Breakdown Room to the Waterhole jump, verified the jump then turned around and exited. After a short S.I. we walked over to Waterhole 3, had an interesting time getting in (note, agility and double 104s do NOT go together) then an even more interesting time getting into the cave. Waterhole is pretty small and has lots of lumber in it, you kinda have to get in and go or you blow out the vis really easy, but I have having serious equalization problems and got held up right at the cave entrance, which blew out the vis in the first, say, 20-30 ft. The Waterhole tunnel is SWEET, ups and downs, twists and turns and some sweet near-vertical riffs. We hit the end of the line, jumped to the mainline and exited out through Peacock 1 (first traverse, oh yeah!).

Overall the dives were good, my buddy said I still had good form, but I sure was hoovering (he said something about "sphincter through the regulator", I dunno) and I did a great job of abusing my sinuses and ears. Although, I think a State Park Pass would be a good idea since in the past two weeks I've spent enough money to be halfway there, what do you guys think?

Ben

 

[fgray1]

Damn, guess I need to go do my intro class then. I dove with a friend on Sunday, who is only OW, but we tried for Ginnie. She had brought her pet however, so we couldnt get in, and went to Blue Grotto instead. Viz was low, but it was a fun dive anyway, as I hadnt been there since my first 10 dives.

Stop waiting around get it done.
Hey Pat kinda nice ain't it. Did you complete the course or do you have to go back again? Did you get the provitional intro card thats only good for a limited time with doubles? Most agencies are doing that now.
Don't know if I'll make it up there this weekend yet. I'll get back with you.
Fred

 

[fgray1]

I went to Peacock on Sunday, we went up the mainline through the Peanut Tunnel and the Breakdown Room to the Waterhole jump, verified the jump then turned around and exited. After a short S.I. we walked over to Waterhole 3, had an interesting time getting in (note, agility and double 104s do NOT go together) then an even more interesting time getting into the cave. Waterhole is pretty small and has lots of lumber in it, you kinda have to get in and go or you blow out the vis really easy, but I have having serious equalization problems and got held up right at the cave entrance, which blew out the vis in the first, say, 20-30 ft. The Waterhole tunnel is SWEET, ups and downs, twists and turns and some sweet near-vertical riffs. We hit the end of the line, jumped to the mainline and exited out through Peacock 1 (first traverse, oh yeah!).

Overall the dives were good, my buddy said I still had good form, but I sure was hoovering (he said something about "sphincter through the regulator", I dunno) and I did a great job of abusing my sinuses and ears. Although, I think a State Park Pass would be a good idea since in the past two weeks I've spent enough money to be halfway there, what do you guys think?

Ben

I bought my pass in Dec. I've dove the Springs several times and the pass has already paid for itself. Well worth the money since they doubled the price to dive and the pass is good at all the state parks. But not at the Fed. parks. like alexander.
Fred

 

[StarrySkies]

Stop waiting around get it done.
Hey Pat kinda nice ain't it. Did you complete the course or do you have to go back again? Did you get the provitional intro card thats only good for a limited time with doubles? Most agencies are doing that now.
Don't know if I'll make it up there this weekend yet. I'll get back with you.
Fred

Completed the course. Would I have heard the end of it from you and John had I not done so? Can’t wait to get back in there!

Enjoyed the whole experience immensely! (Will admit that I was nervous before some of the drills – that whole adversity to being tested thing…)

To the best of my knowledge my temp Intro NSS-CDS card will be replaced by a permanent Intro card – I am limited to 35 cf penetration regardless of whether I am on doubles or not. I could be mistaken…

I plan to take it slow and get very familiar with the mainlines in several of the larger systems around and work on skills before I go any further in the training. Kudo’s to Ben on his first traverse – very cool!

Glad to hear everyone had a great weekend.

Let me know when we can all get together again!!

 

[fgray1]

Did he make you do skills in all the systems?
ANd in differant volumes of flow.
Just courious what other instuctors do.
Rick makes me do skills in every type of system in prep for full cave. As well as the other skills we talked about. Rick figures your goig to have to do them sooner or later. May as well give you some practice. It's funny. The training never seems to stop.
Fred

 

[StarrySkies]

Did he make you do skills in all the systems?
ANd in differant volumes of flow.
Just courious what other instuctors do.
Rick makes me do skills in every type of system in prep for full cave. As well as the other skills we talked about. Rick figures your goig to have to do them sooner or later. May as well give you some practice. It's funny. The training never seems to stop.
Fred

That is a good thing!!

While I am sure it is wonderful to have a pleasant sightseeing dive - I hope to get to the point where I can handle anything that gets thrown at me at an instinctive level where the skill just kicks in as if it was a perfectly natural behavior - as opposed to experiencing anything else ranging from doubt to sheer unadulterated terror...

It would be great to dive with both you and Rick and practice - there is no question I need to work on some of my skills...the zero viz, follow my buddy out the cave whilst donating my air comes to mind - I think I could have done much better - need to work on my body placement and propulsion (alot...).

And, hey - last time we spoke you said you were stoppping at Intro - was there a recent change of mind?

At any rate - we practiced a different skill everywhere we went save for Little River where the instructor wanted us to experince the flow and depth. Interestingly enough the flow was nothing compared to what we had experienced at Blue the weekend before in prep for Intro.