High Springs Intro Training Questions

[Adaptive Joe]

Hey all,

I’ve read through decades worth of threads here asking “what agency is best”, “what instructors are best”, and I understand the answers aren’t that clear cut.

But I’m going to ask some questions again for a more general introduction to cave diving in Florida, and with a selfish desire to get your tailored instructor recommendations.

I’ve been diving ~10 years, through the PADI/SSI professional/recreational pipeline (lotta C-cards, lotta focus on gear sales, for not a lot of training), contracted with a working dive team (maritime archaeology—ton of diving, ton of experience, many bad habits), and lately spending a lot of low-stakes time solo diving to have free-form fun and work on fundamentals.

I’ve dreamt of exploring caves for years, and I’m in a position now (time, money and proximity to High Springs), to get started.

I’ve spoken with a handful of instructors over the last five years, to get a better feel for the initial glide path, but I still have some observations and questions to work through.

1. The various agencies have different standards, but ultimately it’s the instructor*, not the agency, that teaches you. GUE produces a lot of high-budget media and marketing, has a good network, good training documents, and I see a lot about how they produce good divers too (albeit, similarly high budget). For some reason, my kool-aid detectors go off re GUE, though this could just be my bitter grapes about the generally inflated cost of their training and the fundamentals prerequisite. Would you say that GUE training (ie a GUE instructor) provides a legitimately better cave/tech diving practice? Or is there some amount of kool-aid in that cup?
2. Are there any external benefits of diving with a given agency? Such as professional/expeditionary opportunities?
3. I’ve interviewed instructors, and while this is often the top comment, I’ve also trained with someone I thought was legit after an interview, and then had mediocre experiences. With that said, who have you* completed training with for entry level tech/cave in the High Springs area that really knocked your socks off?
4. The general attitude I’ve seen in the cave community is that diving alone is stupid. I get it, and I understand the risk aversion, along with the safety considerations for someone who’d have to try and make a recovery if a fatal error were made. Is there any* level of risk mitigation that could be employed to make solo cave diving palatable, or is the answer “yes, a buddy”?

To close this out, the expenses involved here are enormous. I’m sorry to ask some redundant questions, but I wanted to ask them myself to have the best chance of getting relevant information in order to make these decisions re intro cave training. I’d appreciate any and all insight on one or more of the questions above or something that I’ve not considered that I should. There are always some things I don’t know that I don’t know.

Thanks for your help, everyone.

Joe

 

[crofrog]

Nobody thus has made the very common statement that your choice of your instructor is far more important than the agency. It’s a long term relationship which you will have as you use them for courses and for mentoring. Your instructor must have a wealth of experience and knowledge across all forms of diving, not just from teaching.

While establishing a good relationship with your instructors is very important, I don't think taking your entire training progression with one instructor is good. With the GUE standards and configuration, I can take different classes from different instructors in different environments without anyone telling me that I'm an idiot for doing it that way and "Who taught you that?"

The GUE instructors I've worked with have all encouraged me to work with other instructors. I took C1 in Florida and was recommended to do C2 in Mexico just to get more experience and exposure to different environments. This is the beauty of standardization.

The procedures you learn on day 1 in fundamentals carry through the different classes and get built upon.

Thus you need an instructor that is a very active diver for their own personal interests. They would probably organise trips to the good stuff in out of the way locations because they enjoy it, not just to make money selling spaces.

I agree, and the GUE instructor standards state they need to diving 25 non-training dives a year at the level of their highest instructional certification with GUE, but the instructors I want to learn Cave diving from, may not be the same ones that I want to learn technical diving from it's nice to find people with a passion for the specific domain.

 

[Wibble]

While establishing a good relationship with your instructors is very important, I don't think taking your entire training progression with one instructor is good...

... the instructors I want to learn Cave diving from, may not be the same ones that I want to learn technical diving from it's nice to find people with a passion for the specific domain.

A really good point.

Often "deep" technical sea diving instructors aren't cave divers thus a switch to another instructor is necessary. Again, selection of the right kind of instructor is vital.

 

[crofrog]

Seems I missed that. Wonder when it changed

Seems I missed that. Wonder when it changed

2018

 

[The Chairman]

I don't think taking your entire training progression with one instructor is good

This is incredibly true.