Hopping my way to full cave...

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Word of advice. Don't get a significant other that cave dives as well. Two rebreathers(or doubles or sets of sm tanks). 1 stage and deco bottle each, two scooters, and all the other bs is not easy to pack. It's tetris. I have a yukon. I want to go smaller, but I can't. If we have no stages or scooters we can easily fit in my wife's tesla. Once you add scooters it f--ks the whole tetris geometry of packing the car and it's hard to go smaller than the yukon Esp. because of the dpv shrouds. They make it much harder to pack efficiently
These are tough life issues to have.

Edit: Sidenote-Little River is zero flow right now. It's a good time to swim or scooter it.

Yep a first world problem,
Not sure what I'll do when my kids start diving.
 
Word of advice. Don't get a significant other that cave dives as well.

Yeah this stuff is expensive enough for one set, let alone two.

Esp. because of the dpv shrouds.

I noticed that too, I was thinking perhaps a roof top DPV rack, you know like how people put bikes or kayaks up there. :rofl3:

Edit: Sidenote-Little River is zero flow right now. It's a good time to swim or scooter it.

I saw that on FB too. We may or may not get over there. Tomorrow is Ginnie too.
 
Cave DPV Day one is over, it has been a very long day, met at Ginnie at 8:30, finally got all the after dive stuff done now at 6:30.

We spent about an hour going up and down the run doing OW drills. Before heading into the cave on 1k third on our 108s. Made it up to the 2k arrow turning per our pre-planned turn location after doing data collection, heading back we jumped to double domes, which is pretty cool. We did data collection on the way back too.

This stuff is much harder than it looks when people zoom by. And not in the way that one would think. My leg was cramping from tensing up, and my shoulder holding up my light hand was sore just from the drag. Some of my bad habits from diving solo so much hurt me, in the chute.

Data is a bit weird, assuming that I can read what looks like Japanese that I wrote in correctly.

Swimming speed (slick with 108s) 40fpm
SAC 0.77cuft/min/atm

Penetration scootering maple leaf to 2k
100fpm
0.67 cuft/min/atm

Exit Double domes jump to Hill 400
125fpm
0.97 cuft/min/atm
 
Somebody's gonna your tank strap for an Uber Ride as you go past them.
Great writeup......and keep warm up there, friggin cold topside !!
 
This stuff is much harder than it looks when people zoom by. And not in the way that one would think. My leg was cramping from tensing up, and my shoulder holding up my light hand was sore just from the drag. Some of my bad habits from diving solo so much hurt me, in the chute.
DPV was probably my toughest cave class. It gets easier, then you add more stages, then it gets hard again.
The more time on the trigger the easier it will come. I used to be tense when scootering. Now i flap in the breeze
 
keep warm up there, friggin cold topside !!

It is, didn't even work up any sweat in the drysuit.

DPV was probably my toughest cave class. It gets easier, then you add more stages, then it gets hard again.
The more time on the trigger the easier it will come. I used to be tense when scootering. Now i flap in the breeze

Probably similar to stages, I HATED stages at first immediately after the class, forcing myself to use them until I got used to them. Once I get more experience I am sure that I will go away.
 
Cave DPV Day 2
Today was even worse. We started the day off with a scoot up and down the run, just to see how I like the stage, it felt fine, so we switched over to it. The plan was to enter the cave at the Ear, run to the insulation room do that circuit, then do drills on the way back.

Well the stage rode fine so we switched over to the stage, and scoot over to the ear. I get to the ear and I see a line run from the buoy to the chain. It was run right straight, not to the ground. The lady at EE suggested that perhaps it might have come loose, but it was pretty taut. I drop down to the log to take a closer look and thought "I think I can make it".

Narrator: "He did not make it" I get caught in the line in the worst area of the cave. I tried to get loose, but that didn't work, I use the scooter to pull myself into an area with less flow, but that didn't help. So I sort of turn myself around, and signaled Chris, he cut the line. I tried to turn around, but that wasn't happening. So I work my way out, and get stabilized. I looked around and saw he entered the cave, so I zoomed down and entered, even with a scooter it was surprisingly difficult.

The gallery through the lips could be better, but it wasn't as bad as yesterday. We get though the Keyhole, which felt more natural than yesterday. But on the other side I encountered another team, and was a bit too much in a hurry thinking that he was behind me sooner, and signaled if he was ok. Chris very clearly told me to slow down.

Around the Maple Leaf I hit my drop pressure on my stage due to all the screwing around in the ear. He didn't like my original drop point and pointed me toward so better rocks, and during the debrief I found that apparently on DPVs he seems to be more keen on further apart drop points than I would be used to swimming.

After this went ok, until my BT started just dying giving a number 1 and one or two bars. After this happened three times I turned the dive, and we nursed the scooter home. From the Keyhole to the deco spot was a struggle managing the stage, scooter, and eventually the deco bottle as well.

Getting out of the water I opened my BT up, and found water, pouring up at least a cup. I decided that I would just rent a baby Suex for the final two days of the class. We also decided to do day three slick, so I can get trigger time on just managing just the scooter and deco bottle. We may reintroduce a stage bottle on day four.

Also if you are going to wear your base layer shirt to the dive site, remember to bring a back up shirt.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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