Ginnie video

[OneBrightGator]

No offense, but being guided in a tourist cave in Mexico is alot different from cave diving in Florida where you have to run and handle your own line and there is no direct or indirect way to get to the surface except back the way you came.

You have the desire, grab yourself a reel, some lights and most importantly a good instructor and hop inside a cavern.

Ben

 

[Wendy]

I agree with OneBrightGator. I have always felt that the tourist guided cenote dives in Mexico can give an ow diver a false sense about cave diving, I don't want people to say well I did it in Mexico so I can do it here. Ok, down from my soapbox, and on with some info....

You can get a guided intro level cave dive with a cave instructor, however you need to be cavern cert to do so. The best you could get being an ow dive is a guided cavern dive by a cave instructor.

There is a lot of info that you learn in a cavern course, all of which will be used in a cave course, and the cave course obviously goes beyond cavern training. A cavern course can also make you a better ow diver because of the bouyancy and trim and finning styles that you learn. I would recommend a cavern course to anyone, even if they aren't interested in cave diving. I did meet a guy one time that was in acavern course and turns out he was claustiphobic (sp?), needless to say he couldn't finish the course.

If you are interested in taking a cavern course PM me and I can recommend some instructors for you. Also where in Florida are you located?

 

[Maya]

Plus...if I may add my two cents...taking a cavern diving course will make you a better diver overall...as well as being a fun and enjoyable way to spend a few days...

aside from that, you will most likely know, after the course, if you want to continue on with cave diving.

 

[barbara]

I'm wondering if anyone has ever heard of this tragic story and if it is actually true.

Over the weekend a friend told me this story because she does not want me to pursue cave diving because she feels it's too dangerous. I don't know if the story is true or not

Apparently,some years ago, some college kids, two couples, each boyfriend and girlfriend entered a cave system and stopped to take a photo. You could actually see the girl's pressure gage and it read 800 psi or something like that. Anyway the girl is smiling in the picture with her regulator out of her mouth. Tragically, all four of these young divers drowned in that cave that day. Experts recognized the part of the cave where that picture was taken and knew that she was doomed to drown at the very moment she was there smiling in that picture, because it was taken in a part of the cave where it would have required her to have over 800psi to get out. They found her body back in that area where the picture was taken without her scuba tank on her body. They found her boyfriend somewhere further back in the cave with her tank and his own tank empty. The other couple was found together with both their tanks emty.

I told my friend that obviously these young divers were not trained or prepared to be cave diving. But I wondered whether this actually happened or not. It sounds too morbid to have been fabricated.

 

[divebomb]

Barbara,

I don't know if that's true or not but I feel like I should have been sitting at a campfire when you told me. I'll probably dream about that one. I've had a fear about that scenario even before I started diving.

Beck

 

[Robinhood]

I'm not sure if the story is true, but it certainly is possible. If it is true, they certainly weren't following the thirds rule very well and I would imagine were not cave trained whatsoever or simply negligent. Check out Sheck Exley's 'Blue Print for Survival'...he covers many cave diving deaths from (if memory serves) the seventies. Many of the things you learn in the Cavern course and beyond are the result of Sheck's studies. There are many many cave diving death stories and most of the deaths resulted because of not following one or many of Sheck's guidelines.

Oftentimes, depending on your abilities etc, your cavern instructor MAY (at their discretion) take you just a bit further than the cavern limitiations...possibly a little bit up the mainline. I agree with the others that a Cavern course will give you a real good indication if you want to pursue caving. I dove many caverns around Fl etc before I took my Cavern course. After taking my cavern course I realized how much I DIDN'T know and needed to know to continue my training!!

Once cavern certified, you can take a guided Intro level cave dive. Either way, if you want to become a safe cave diver, all the agencies require that you receive the cavern cert first.

 

[Maya]

back in the 70's and early 80's there were several multiple drownings in caves...one or two of these incidents, as I remember, involved college students. I believe it was after 1 such incident, involving 3 or 4 college students, that the grate was installed at Ginnie Springs...

The incidents I am referring to did not involve divers who had any cave diving training.

 

[manretto79]

It was not till recently that I have completed my cave diving course, but in the process it was my apprentice course that showed me how little I know about caves, and how easy it is to get in serious trouble w/o even knowing it. I have worked hard on the last few courses and know there is so much more for me to learn. Knowing what I have learned recently I would never enter a care even with a certified cave diver w/o having taken the proper courses to refine my skills to know how to keep things from going wrong. I would never suggest to anyone to enter any overhead enviroment w/o studying in detail every aspect of it. It is a vey rewarding course to take that will make you more aware of things you dont even know exist.