Forbin's Descent
Contributor
and I'm sticking to it. TLDR
I've wanted to learn to dive for as long as I can remember but got into other things: rock climbing, paddling big whitewater, mountain biking. A few years ago I visited the Yucatan Peninsula and discovered the Cenotes and fell in love with them. Being a time where I was paddling pretty aggressive whitewater I was immediately drawn to the guys going down with all their tanks and reels and wanted to explore further myself. Upon returning home I researched my options in my area for dive training and for all intensive purposes there were two. I chose the one that got back to me first. This was fall 2020 during Covid. I told the guy what my goal was, exploring cenotes. Unfortunately, this was your typical PADI turn and burn trainer you hear so much about. I paid my deposits because he was always posting he had classes scheduled for any particular weekend, but not really, I had to chase him down and bug him until I finally got in the pool. Day 1 and he's talking to me about taking the IDC and becoming instructor. I'm like dude I don't even know how to set up this equipment yet and my goal is cenotes. Bear in mind I'm an industrial mechanic in manufacturing and deal with quite a bit of fluid dynamics so not exactly foreign to me either. I get through my open water and want to do my advanced since most of the accessible dives where I live require it. Luckily about this point I meet another local guy who's a tech diver he starts mentoring me. It's getting to be winter so I work out a deal for a dry suit from my trainers shop since I was familiar with them from kayaking. He goes ahead and gives me the cert as part of the deal with 0 training. I train myself in the pool with it. Being a lifelong waterman most of this stuff is not coming too difficult for me but this is obviously dangerous as hell. So next I pay my money for my advanced training and dude just gives me the cert because, "I know you've done the dives" as I was diving my ass off. I'm not completely at fault as I let it happen but I saw him using other folks that had just completed advanced doing the dives for his other advanced students so knew I wasn't going to get much training and just needed the card. I continue to dive my ass off, Pensacola, Florida Keys, North Florida caverns, quarry and then decide it's time to move to sidemount. My plan: master sidemount, cavern train, master cavern then cave train. I find a localish sidemount instructor in April 2021 and told him I wanted to be trained and could care less about a wallet card. Did my training with him and devoured the Steve Martin videos. Dived my ass off more in sidemount. Cozumel, Guided Cenote Cavern dives in sidemount and tons of quarry diving. After over a year of diving sidemount I decided I was good enough in sidemount diving that it was time to go for Cavern to prepare for my next visit to Mexico. By this time I know the drill of getting proper training so in January 2023 I went to North Florida and trained with a great instructor. Boy was I not ready for that. I got my ass whopped. I thought he was going to fail me. I knew how to set up the sidemount gear and swim around with it but I didn't know how to dive sidemount. I got my card for what those are worth but more importantly the best dive education I could have got. Went to Mexico right after that and did several guided cenote caverns in sidemount having the guys let me run run reels and such and some more Cozumel walls. Came home and decided for my own safety and to honor my cavern instructor for passing me to work my ass off on the skills needed for cave. Closet place to dive for me is and hour away and I have been going 3-4 days a week, after work, weekends and skilling and drilling. I got a frog kick that efficiently blasts me through water all the modifed kicks down, can helicopter turn on a dime and can do laps in the quarry with my back kick. I constantly do valve shutdown drills, long hose stows, free flow flutter drills and run reels and then follow my line with eyes closed. Not being near caves we actually have a pretty good cave diving community and they are wonderful resources. Scheduled for intro to cave next month.
After my experience, I wonder why there aren't more fatalities than there are. Being dropped off the back of a boat and flying down a wall in Cozumel with somebody who can barley set their equipment up, single tank novice divers deep in cenotes, cert cards instead of training or poor training, filling suspect tanks with pure oxygen to make nitrox, improper cylinder handling, junk rental gear that is not serviced. I guess it goes to show how safe scuba diving really is. This industry is whack but I love it and everybody in it!
I've wanted to learn to dive for as long as I can remember but got into other things: rock climbing, paddling big whitewater, mountain biking. A few years ago I visited the Yucatan Peninsula and discovered the Cenotes and fell in love with them. Being a time where I was paddling pretty aggressive whitewater I was immediately drawn to the guys going down with all their tanks and reels and wanted to explore further myself. Upon returning home I researched my options in my area for dive training and for all intensive purposes there were two. I chose the one that got back to me first. This was fall 2020 during Covid. I told the guy what my goal was, exploring cenotes. Unfortunately, this was your typical PADI turn and burn trainer you hear so much about. I paid my deposits because he was always posting he had classes scheduled for any particular weekend, but not really, I had to chase him down and bug him until I finally got in the pool. Day 1 and he's talking to me about taking the IDC and becoming instructor. I'm like dude I don't even know how to set up this equipment yet and my goal is cenotes. Bear in mind I'm an industrial mechanic in manufacturing and deal with quite a bit of fluid dynamics so not exactly foreign to me either. I get through my open water and want to do my advanced since most of the accessible dives where I live require it. Luckily about this point I meet another local guy who's a tech diver he starts mentoring me. It's getting to be winter so I work out a deal for a dry suit from my trainers shop since I was familiar with them from kayaking. He goes ahead and gives me the cert as part of the deal with 0 training. I train myself in the pool with it. Being a lifelong waterman most of this stuff is not coming too difficult for me but this is obviously dangerous as hell. So next I pay my money for my advanced training and dude just gives me the cert because, "I know you've done the dives" as I was diving my ass off. I'm not completely at fault as I let it happen but I saw him using other folks that had just completed advanced doing the dives for his other advanced students so knew I wasn't going to get much training and just needed the card. I continue to dive my ass off, Pensacola, Florida Keys, North Florida caverns, quarry and then decide it's time to move to sidemount. My plan: master sidemount, cavern train, master cavern then cave train. I find a localish sidemount instructor in April 2021 and told him I wanted to be trained and could care less about a wallet card. Did my training with him and devoured the Steve Martin videos. Dived my ass off more in sidemount. Cozumel, Guided Cenote Cavern dives in sidemount and tons of quarry diving. After over a year of diving sidemount I decided I was good enough in sidemount diving that it was time to go for Cavern to prepare for my next visit to Mexico. By this time I know the drill of getting proper training so in January 2023 I went to North Florida and trained with a great instructor. Boy was I not ready for that. I got my ass whopped. I thought he was going to fail me. I knew how to set up the sidemount gear and swim around with it but I didn't know how to dive sidemount. I got my card for what those are worth but more importantly the best dive education I could have got. Went to Mexico right after that and did several guided cenote caverns in sidemount having the guys let me run run reels and such and some more Cozumel walls. Came home and decided for my own safety and to honor my cavern instructor for passing me to work my ass off on the skills needed for cave. Closet place to dive for me is and hour away and I have been going 3-4 days a week, after work, weekends and skilling and drilling. I got a frog kick that efficiently blasts me through water all the modifed kicks down, can helicopter turn on a dime and can do laps in the quarry with my back kick. I constantly do valve shutdown drills, long hose stows, free flow flutter drills and run reels and then follow my line with eyes closed. Not being near caves we actually have a pretty good cave diving community and they are wonderful resources. Scheduled for intro to cave next month.
After my experience, I wonder why there aren't more fatalities than there are. Being dropped off the back of a boat and flying down a wall in Cozumel with somebody who can barley set their equipment up, single tank novice divers deep in cenotes, cert cards instead of training or poor training, filling suspect tanks with pure oxygen to make nitrox, improper cylinder handling, junk rental gear that is not serviced. I guess it goes to show how safe scuba diving really is. This industry is whack but I love it and everybody in it!
