Hopping my way to full cave...

[Manatee Diver]

Signed up for cave DPV in December.

I want to order the vacuum bulkhead for my BT, and then get it all trimmed out in October. I am also thinking about picking up a third stage bottle, not 100% sure on that.

I am a little nervous. He mentioned among the class dives would be Henkel and Well Casing are pretty far. Certainly well beyond my plans for at least the first year of scootering, which is to get me to the 1,000ft marker to I can explore on foo... errr fin.

 

[rddvet]

Signed up for cave DPV in December.

I want to order the vacuum bulkhead for my BT, and then get it all trimmed out in October. I am also thinking about picking up a third stage bottle, not 100% sure on that.

I am a little nervous. He mentioned among the class dives would be Henkel and Well Casing are pretty far. Certainly well beyond my plans for at least the first year of scootering, which is to get me to the 1,000ft marker to I can explore on foo... errr fin.

I don't know who your instructor is (and don't need to know), so I'm just going to give you my 2cents on it. We have a ton of instructors in cave country teaching cave dpv. There are huge differences in dpv instruction. For instance, how Edd teaches towing and air share is very different than others. I actually like his method, the problem is not everyone is taught his method and you need to be able to discuss it with your buddy predive so there's no confusion in an emergency. I won't go into a bunch of details in the differences. I did discuss with Edd all of the different views on towing and air share and he actually had us do it his way and the various other ways. I really appreciated that.
But I digress back to the original point. We have ALOT of instructors in cave country who teach a cave class by taking you really far back in the cave and that's about it. Henkel is a classic example of a spot. These instructors I'm referring to are basically just taking you on long scooter rides and giving you some experience, but not teaching a whole lot. Thes instructors also more often than not teach the class with one student and the instructor becomes your buddy. That's why alot of these classes are basicallly "hey lets go scooter to XXX", and that's the class. IMO a good instructor is going to teach it with another student so they can sit back and observe your emergency procedures from afar. I think the instructor can't really fine tune these skills when they're your buddy.
More importantly, a scooter class is about gas management and emergency management. You don't need to go to the Henkel to teach either. I think having a "goal" as to where to take a student is a bad idea and most good instructors are teaching us not to be "goal oriented". You really don't need 3 stages for the class. Hell I don't even think you need 2. 85% of my class didn't even include a stage and I feel no worse off for it. In fact I think it was beneficial because Edd could really focus on our basic skills with the dpv before jumping to adding stages which can add some stress early in the class.
My goal with a dpv personally is probably very similar to yours. I don't really care about getting way far back in the cave. I want to be able to get to an interesting area with more gas in less time so I can hang out there and really take it all in. I am not trying to be offensive or overstep by commenting on your medical condition, but I woud think for you in particular getting really far back in the cave isn't necessarily what you'd want to focus on anyway. I know you dive solo alot and assume like me, you'd likely scooter solo too. The swim back from the Henkel without a scooter is a really long, not so much fun swim. I would think with you having a prosthetic that swim would be even less fun. So if my assumptions are correct (and again not trying to offend you in any way) you may want to discuss with your instructor that far back in the cave isn't your goal.
But that's all just my opinion based on what I see in cave country on a regualar basis as well as what I've heard from friends who took the class, and was meant to be a generalization since I have no idea who will be teaching you. People who actually teach cave dpv like @kensuf may have a different opinion.

 

[Manatee Diver]

My goal with a dpv personally is probably very similar to yours. I don't really care about getting way far back in the cave. I want to be able to get to an interesting area with more gas in less time so I can hang out there and really take it all in. I am not trying to be offensive or overstep by commenting on your medical condition, but I woud think for you in particular getting really far back in the cave isn't necessarily what you'd want to focus on anyway. I know you dive solo alot and assume like me, you'd likely scooter solo too. The swim back from the Henkel without a scooter is a really long, not so much fun swim. I would think with you having a prosthetic that swim would be even less fun. So if my assumptions are correct (and again not trying to offend you in any way) you may want to discuss with your instructor that far back in the cave isn't your goal.

The swim back is something I've considered. Right now thinking about it I would say that 2k would likely be my max scooter distance limit for now. As you are talking about 45 minutes to an hour swim back, that is a long time. That might change with with more experience, but I am willing to take my time. It spent the last three years since stage cave swimming, so I'm not in a rush.

Chris Brock with be my instructor once again. He normally gets a local or an intern to stand in as the buddy/instructor. I'm not sure what type of gas sharing method he prefers. I've heard that there is one where you each ride your own scooter, and there is also where you get towed on the air share. As an outsider looking in the towing air share seems like it has fewer things that could go wrong. But that is something I am sure he will go over, in stage cave he went over the various stage gas planning strategies with the pros and cons of each, along with what he believes works best and why.

I was thinking the third stage more as having one stage to use for each dive. Plus one to leave at the staging location. But I don't think it is required, I know he wanted me to have some double stage experience but the equipment list he sent me said one or two stages as I prefer.

But he has adjusted the classes based on my preference to not push limits too far too quickly. So the locations might change, I know finally seeing that damn whale bone was mentioned. And I think I would be just as happy visiting Double Domes and spending a bit of time there than a dash to Henkel and dashing back.

 

[Whitrzac]

Taking a BT to the hinkle is a long ride. Hopefully no one in the class has nice dpvs, they will leave you in their wake.
They work great, but the shortfalls are pretty evednt when diving with buddies with fancy dpvs.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Taking a BT to the hinkle is a long ride. Hopefully no one in the class has nice dpvs, they will leave you in their wake.
They work great, but the shortfalls are pretty evednt when diving with buddies with fancy dpvs.

My instructor uses Suex, but he is big on teams staying together so I doubt anywhere outside of a spring run scooter race will I be left behind.

But yeah I like the fact that the BT allows me to start DPV diving sooner, but I realize that it has limits. Eventually I will probably get an "expedition" grade scooter. I like the Genesis due to the replaceable cells and the ability to charge it without opening it. But it will probably be a couple of years before I see the need and have the cash to drop on one. But even then I think I will probably get the shorter one, I'm not sure I need a 17mile range on a scooter ever, heck 8 miles seems like overkill.

 

[rddvet]

Chris Brock with be my instructor once again. HMy instructor uses Suex, but he is big on teams staying together so I doubt anywhere outside of a spring run scooter race will I be left behind.

He's one of the instructors I never hear anything bad about. Alot of my commentary was meant to be a little general and not specifically to you just so anyone else that reads this thread hat's about to consider the class will have a little more knowledge. I had actually assumed Chris was likely your instructor.
I actually prefer Edd's system where divers are in tandem and you're basically attached to your buddy. I know it has its pros and cons. But when we tried side by side air share I hated it. It felt like too much can go wrong. But because I asked questions Edd taught us both ways. I think that was important because I can have a discussion with someone topside and if I find they prefer side by side I was taught the skill already and can adjust to them.

But yeah I like the fact that the BT allows me to start DPV diving sooner, but I realize that it has limits. Eventually I will probably get an "expedition" grade scooter. I like the Genesis due to the replaceable cells and the ability to charge it without opening it. But it will probably be a couple of years before I see the need and have the cash to drop on one. But even then I think I will probably get the shorter one, I'm not sure I need a 17mile range on a scooter ever, heck 8 miles seems like overkill.

The problem is that the better dpvs can be hard to slow down effectively to the pace of a slower dpv. My wife has an XJ37 and she likes to scooter slow, like on 4 max. I have an XK1 and for me to dial down to meet her I'm barely on 1. The issue is if she slows down even more I can't really slow my scooter down anymore and either have to make s pattern turns behind her or come on and off the trigger to slow down.
If you do decide to upgrade one secret is to talk to EE and Casey at D3 (who is the main importer) and ask if they have any demo scooters they're getting rid of. I got my XK1 used from a local guy and my wife got one of EE's rentals. They're probably 6 years old now, but haven't had any major dip in battery life that I can notice outside of a burn test.

 

[Manatee Diver]

He's one of the instructors I never hear anything bad about. Alot of my commentary was meant to be a little general and not specifically to you just so anyone else that reads this thread hat's about to consider the class will have a little more knowledge. I had actually assumed Chris was likely your instructor.

I think that a lot of the best instructors are ones that you don't hear about. They aren't producing bad students nor causing drama online but instead just keep their heads down diving and training.

I actually prefer Edd's system where divers are in tandem and you're basically attached to your buddy. I know it has its pros and cons. But when we tried side by side air share I hated it. It felt like too much can go wrong. But because I asked questions Edd taught us both ways. I think that was important because I can have a discussion with someone topside and if I find they prefer side by side I was taught the skill already and can adjust to them.

Yeah I would imagine that it would be good to learn both. Though this is one of the areas that GUE's standardization is nice you know what to expect.

On a related note to the earlier topic about swimming out, Chris sent me the required reading for the class. It has some stuff on burn testing batteries and how to calculate SAC, but the biggest part was @kensuf NSS-CDS article on realistic DPV gas planning and swimming out. Sure you might have enough gas to swim out, but are you physically capable of doing a multi-hour swim out.

 

[kensuf]

That @kensuf guy is a jackass.

The article is online in a number of places, here's one of them (start on page 6): https://nsscds.org/uws/uws-volume-47-number-1-march-2020/ . It also explains how to calculate the amount of gas you'll need and burn testing info.

 

[Whitrzac]

I think that a lot of the best instructors are ones that you don't hear about. They aren't producing bad students nor causing drama online but instead just keep their heads down diving and training.



Yeah I would imagine that it would be good to learn both. Though this is one of the areas that GUE's standardization is nice you know what to expect.

On a related note to the earlier topic about swimming out, Chris sent me the required reading for the class. It has some stuff on burn testing batteries and how to calculate SAC, but the biggest part was @kensuf NSS-CDS article on realistic DPV gas planning and swimming out. Sure you might have enough gas to swim out, but are you physically capable of doing a multi-hour swim out.

Decompression, hypothermia, exhaustion are all serious issues if the dpv fails way back in there. Best to just buy a spare, lol.

 

[kensuf]

Decompression, hypothermia, exhaustion are all serious issues if the dpv fails way back in there. Best to just buy a spare, lol.

That's the dirty secret of scooters and cave diving.