Hopping my way to full cave...

[Wstern5]

Since Jet Fins don’t have any holes in the foot pocket, they can be filled with water and used to wash off your boots.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Does this butt plate make my butt look big?

Yeah something to that effect. Though I also don't need as much room back there, as outside of my safety reel and my primary I will be keeping most of my jump spools in my drysuit pocket.

@Manatee Diver its very busy here right now. Surprisingly busy. I just moved to a dry suit with attached booties as opposed to using rock boots like I have for 10 years. I still haven’t perfected not getting everything dirty but it was easier to stay clean with rock boots.

Yeah and traffic is pretty bad too. I was really pampered by 2020.

Me, too. I just wrap my boots in plastic grocery bags until I can get home and rinse them off.

I'll have to try that.

Since Jet Fins don’t have any holes in the foot pocket, they can be filled with water and used to wash off your boots.

I noticed that. I bring one of those pesticide sprayers (that I bought new) that you pump a few times and they spray. That seems to be a decent job, but I find it hard to spray the bottom of my prosthetic foot side. Also controlling all the seals so they don't get dirty by falling on the ground.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Well expensive dive today. I broke down and bought another Ginnie annual pass. I’ve already gone 5 times this year, so might as well buy one before I continue to fund the Wray family without knowing if I am going pay more than the annual pass.

Went to Ginnie again, ran a reel around the basin. I intended to use my GoPro to get some video. When I went to pull it out I found it flooded, I checked the battery door before I took it in the water. Apparently it wasn’t set right, going to have to order another one, and probably another case, as I went without it because I didn’t want to take the case off my tray with lights.

I also brought a deco bottle and found that with my super short leashes I am not able to move my tanks at all, at I need to be able to move them with my elbow to in order to reach the d-ring to hook up deco and stage bottles. But I feel that my tanks are where I want them, so I am thinking about moving the band up an inch and then lengthen the leash, I think will keep my tanks about where I want them, while still being able to elbow them out of the way to get to my d-rings.

 

[Scuba Client]

Background that I left out, with Reggie becoming the training director of the NSS-CDS, with approval of the board he implemented a number of changes to the NSS's diving curriculum. The details of which would be probably be best for another thread, but instead of the curriculum that we know today my path to full cave will be a little different. First I would have to pass NSS Basics, which is a gate keeper course to see if people who don't have a tech rating from another agency are ready for cave diving, I was told that I was the first student. Next instead of basic cave my first NSS cave card would the new apprentice cave. So when I use apprentice I mean it in that context, not in the context that many know now.

D-Day + 1 (Training Day 2): Again I meet Hubie and Reggie CCDS to get fills. We discuss today's training objectives, work on my swim techniques, demonstrate the requires skills needed before I am allowed to go beyond the day light zone. To do this we head to Ginnie, being Monday it would be fairly quiet and the basin is a great area to do training.

In the last post I forgot to mention that we decided that the best thing to do would be to switch from regulators down, like I was taught at Cave Adventurers to regulators up. I reconfigured the rigging and regulators the night before. So Reggie and Hubie check over my setup at the table before we head to the water. Once in the water Hubie demonstrates the one footed modified flutter kick, and I do a few laps, come up get critique and do a few more laps. Next we move on to doing an line drill into the ballroom, followed by a cavern level lost line drill. As I've only run a reel twice since cavern it was like a monkey humping a football, my placements were too high, and I forget how to do a secondary tie off. I also found that I don't like hard goodman handles, they impede running reels so much that I switched to one of my back up lights.

Next up was the line circuit drill, with this you go around the circuit five times. All times with your eyes closed. First circuit on your own, second circuit is in touch contact as the follower, third circuit you are sharing air as the donor, fourth circuit you are the receiving air, and the final circuit is alone with your mask turned around on your head. The first three went ok, but the fourth circuit was a cluster, I didn't hold my arm out long enough, taking too long to switch sides on the lines. We did it a second time and I did better. The fifth circuit was uneventful, so I was tasked with pulling the reel, which of course I screwed up by reeling it all on to one side, as penance I had to fix it. Once dry and gear was put away we settled into the pavilion was some remedial line drills and an AAR.

Conclusions:
1. I need to use my pool to practice the modified flutter and if possible working the line.
2. My long NATO bands for my Teric need to be shortened or replaced with bungees, which I ordered the bungee mounts from DRIS.
3. My lollipops need to go, since I am using transmitters I can get away with the same setup as Hubie, using button gauges as a back up to my transmitter.
4. When I get a water compatible prosthetic a neoprene dry suit and replacing it every couple of years would probably best, as in his experience the prosthetic tends to tear up dry suits.
5. Once I get said dry suit I need to head up to Canada to spend some time with Hubie working on a frog kick.

Training Day 3 to come.

You may want to get in touch with this cave diver.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJFDPby_wLz6LtJ_qywQaww/null

 

[Manatee Diver]

You may want to get in touch with this cave diver.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJFDPby_wLz6LtJ_qywQaww/null

That is my Youtube channel.

 

[Scuba Client]

Good to know.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Back at Ginnie today, before I got here I adjusted my tank bands again up an inch and returning to the original leash length so I got some spare room to push the tanks out of the way with my elbow.

I also adjusted the rigging on my oxygen bottle with Protec DIR style adjustable rigging. I'm not completely happy with the storage position for the second stage, will have to work on it.

Finally in an unrelated change I recently saw a picture where someone fixed my complaint with the Razor reg QD, the fact it slips down the hose. A simple zip tie holds it against the end of the hose where you want it.

Anyways I think I got this figured out mostly. I need to strengthen my prosthetic side as it is tiring to hold it and the ankle weights up. But I think I got a good portion of my stability back and I have a good handle of the buoyancy out. I am confident enough that I think I can handle some easy no deco cave dives down the mainline in Peacock. Along with a starting point for weighting.

Video from today:

 

[ginti]

Finally in an unrelated change I recently saw a picture where someone fixed my complaint with the Razor reg QD, the fact it slips down the hose. A simple zip tie holds it against the end of the hose where you want it.

First of all, amazing threads congrats

Pay attention with the zip ties, they are not very torsion resistant... with the right movement, you should be able to brake it using just your hands. This is one reason why often people prefer nylon ropes.

Just check that yours is resistant enough, if you haven't done it yet.

Good luck with your progression!

 

[DiveClimbRide]

First of all, amazing threads congrats

Pay attention with the zip ties, they are not very torsion resistant... with the right movement, you should be able to brake it using just your hands. This is one reason why often people prefer nylon ropes.

Just check that yours is resistant enough, if you haven't done it yet.

Good luck with your progression!

The zip tie isn't connected to the boltsnap. The zip tie is around the hose alone, acting as a ridge to stop the other black thing RAZOR Break Away Connector + RAZOR Black Bolt Snap - Razor Go Side Mount <- which is a break away connector for sidemount diving so the long hose can be donated in a hurry without having to unclip the boltsnap.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Well I thought I was ready to do a dive in Peacock, I was wrong.

After doing some time Friday and feeling pretty good about things, yesterday I went to Peacock Springs, thinking I would do a fairly sedate dive down the mainline. I arrived at 9am and started prepping my gear. The water was up to the fifth step, so no giant stride today. Gear up was great as the weather was a bit cooler so I wasn't sweating terribly while getting my drysuit on. Getting in the water and getting my tanks on went fairly smoothly, and after a dive brief we start the dive.

I went down the crack to the Olsen line much more carefully than I would with my wetsuit. Normally I just push over face down and bomb down before stopping my descent before I face plant into the rock at the bottom. On the way up the Olsen line it felt like my leg was hard to move, so I was adding air. I did notice that it was very cold when I was adding air. Things went well until just past the double arrows, we were at the little rock that they did a tie off through the rock and I felt I was just barely hanging on for control, and in fact I just barely lost it. So I signal the leader, time to turn the dive. I try to stabilize myself again, but that last only a hundred feet or so. And next thing I know my feet are dragging me up to the ceiling, and I am stuck there. Trying to kick my feet under me just doesn't work, I am pinned and I think briefly "So this is how I might die, pinned to the ceiling hundreds of feet into a cave STOP work the problem! I need to get my exhaust valve to the highest point of my body," so in what seemed like forever, but was probably 30 seconds to a minute (as any longer I am sure my buddies would've intervened) but with some pushing against the ceiling I was able to get the exhaust where it needed to be and I heard what was the most amazing sound at that time air bubbling out of it. Now I was terribly negative, so I used my BC, with a few puffs into the drysuit to arrest my descent before I ended up doing silt angels. On the rest of the way back, I let the suit squeeze a lot more than I did on the way up.

I got a lot more stuff to work on, I think I just need to spend time swimming around in the suit, going up and down mostly boring stuff. I really wish it wasn't the middle of summer, as I could perhaps do some normal OW dives with it. But it is way too hot.