......
Two different kinds of caves. It's good to know how to dive both.
I couldn't agree more, Lynne and your other points were noted.
I would being disservice to Doug if I did not mention that he brought up the caves in Mexico quite a few times to stress the importance of learning the environment. He also made a point to tell us how unhappy some might be, including ourselves, if we floated a little high to the ceiling, or inadvertently brought a fin tip too high and destroyed a delicate, super old formation. The point was then driven home on running failures in the cave. You fix the issue while holding buoyancy and control. In a high flow situation, it is way too easy to just work your way up to the ceiling (or floor) as you are dealing with a failure so that you can shield yourself from some of the flow. We became more worried about dealing with the problem in the flow than just "going with the flow" (pun intended) and sorting the situation out. Doug solved that problem very quickly not only in telling us that he didn't want to see that, but he brought up the ornate ceilings in Mexico in relation to going up and the possibility of being in a cave system and having the issue occur at say, 70' but the bottom of the section of the cave where you are located is 200' deep, etc.
He also drove home the point to take snapshots on every dive. He would ask us, not only gas questions, but time questions and where is the line in a specific section of the cave....and I could go on, but again I am purposely trying to avoid giving out a lot of the details of the class.
---------- Post added April 22nd, 2014 at 03:06 PM ----------
Great report, thanks. We're doing Fundies with Doug next week. I saw that he had a Cave 1 scheduled when we were down in the area with the idea of getting the cobwebs out, and we opted to do it at Ginnie rather than Blue Grotto because we suspected you guys would be hogging the platforms that day.
The finer details of your class are lost on me, but it's still a kick to read. We did Primer with Doug last July, and I can picture him teaching. I recall reading your Fundies report, too.
Congrats!
First, you are going to have a great time....albeit tiring, in your Fundies class. I went through Fundies, Tech Upgrade and helped video another Fundies class with Doug. There will be lots of water time. And I also see that your class has 4 students in it. A full load. That's good to see. Good luck!
As to Blue Grotto, we were only there one day (Saturday) and only used the platform for kicks (about 15 mins). Most of our time was spent in the cavern zone running the reel or working on swimming the line drills (touch contact, no vis, etc). But you were wise to go to Ginnie instead as the platforms certainly had their share of classes!
If you want to bounce any questions off of me, please feel free to contact me via PM and I'll send you my contact info. Take care.
---------- Post added April 22nd, 2014 at 03:08 PM ----------
doug is a great instructor. not surprised you enjoyed your class
Yes sir, he is....and he's also a great friend!
To say he will bend over backward to help his students is an understatement.
The park caves are more the exception rather than the rule around these parts.
