OP
Thankfully this was at the end of my trip...
Hopping my way to full cave...
- Thread starter Manatee Diver
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lermontov
Contributor
thats nifty a large cut out for your adams apple
OP
DPV Day 3:
After my Blacktip flooded, I rented a Suex XJ-S from EE. This thing was night and day different and honestly harder to ride. I’ll be honest through a majority of the dive it was driving me rather than the other way around. During the tows it was too much and I wasn’t able to keep it under control.
After the dive we had a come to Jesus meeting and he said that I wasn’t ready for the cert and agreed that we need to do a couple of practice dives just to get used to the scooter.
DPV Practice Day 1:
We met up just after Christmas after the river crested, he had a couple of his former students to practice. The vis was really bad, maybe 30 ft. Which made for an interesting site as I waited on the other side of the lips for the rest of the team. Like an oncoming car coming toward you in fog, but it was green. We made it to the other side of the Key Hole to the Park Bench and ran a line to the Bone Line. At that point I was signaled to turn due to flooded drysuit of one of the team members.
During this dive I was again using a rented XJ-S from EE. While it was short, I felt a lot more comfortable riding it. It required me to man handle it much more. After the previous dive, the manager mentioned that they would be selling them. I decided to use my vacation fund and buy one. He let me pick the one I wanted, so I used the phone app and looked at the battery wear on each scooter, and I picked the one with only a couple dozen full charge cycles and a bit over a hundred partial charges. Apparently, it was rebuilt recently due to a flood.
DPV Practice Day 2:
This time it was just myself and Chris. My first dive with the DPV I actually owned. He asked where I wanted to go, I didn’t have any particular place I wanted other than perhaps to pick up a cookie that we left on the second jump on Parallel Lines. Since that obviously wasn’t far enough, we ran up to Double Domes and then back to Parallel Lines. This felt a lot better; I ran out the tow cord to near max length and put a lot more force into pushing the DPV down. Now I really felt in control of the scooter, though my SAC rate was still trash.
Solo DPV Practice:
At the end of February my Black Tip returned from service, not wanting to make the same mistake I did when I first purchased it, I decided to give it a test run and do some practice with DPV and stage handling. First thing I did was setup the handle more closely to my Suex using standard 2” webbing. I also reprogrammed it because they updated the firmware, disabling Safe Start and setting the gear migrate rate to 60 seconds.
I decided that I would work more on general handling skills. Drop and pick up the DPV. Drop and pick up stages. Exiting the Eye. And of course, screwing around running up and down the spring run often at max speed.
YT Link
After my Blacktip flooded, I rented a Suex XJ-S from EE. This thing was night and day different and honestly harder to ride. I’ll be honest through a majority of the dive it was driving me rather than the other way around. During the tows it was too much and I wasn’t able to keep it under control.
After the dive we had a come to Jesus meeting and he said that I wasn’t ready for the cert and agreed that we need to do a couple of practice dives just to get used to the scooter.
DPV Practice Day 1:
We met up just after Christmas after the river crested, he had a couple of his former students to practice. The vis was really bad, maybe 30 ft. Which made for an interesting site as I waited on the other side of the lips for the rest of the team. Like an oncoming car coming toward you in fog, but it was green. We made it to the other side of the Key Hole to the Park Bench and ran a line to the Bone Line. At that point I was signaled to turn due to flooded drysuit of one of the team members.
During this dive I was again using a rented XJ-S from EE. While it was short, I felt a lot more comfortable riding it. It required me to man handle it much more. After the previous dive, the manager mentioned that they would be selling them. I decided to use my vacation fund and buy one. He let me pick the one I wanted, so I used the phone app and looked at the battery wear on each scooter, and I picked the one with only a couple dozen full charge cycles and a bit over a hundred partial charges. Apparently, it was rebuilt recently due to a flood.
DPV Practice Day 2:
This time it was just myself and Chris. My first dive with the DPV I actually owned. He asked where I wanted to go, I didn’t have any particular place I wanted other than perhaps to pick up a cookie that we left on the second jump on Parallel Lines. Since that obviously wasn’t far enough, we ran up to Double Domes and then back to Parallel Lines. This felt a lot better; I ran out the tow cord to near max length and put a lot more force into pushing the DPV down. Now I really felt in control of the scooter, though my SAC rate was still trash.
Solo DPV Practice:
At the end of February my Black Tip returned from service, not wanting to make the same mistake I did when I first purchased it, I decided to give it a test run and do some practice with DPV and stage handling. First thing I did was setup the handle more closely to my Suex using standard 2” webbing. I also reprogrammed it because they updated the firmware, disabling Safe Start and setting the gear migrate rate to 60 seconds.
I decided that I would work more on general handling skills. Drop and pick up the DPV. Drop and pick up stages. Exiting the Eye. And of course, screwing around running up and down the spring run often at max speed.
YT Link
mr_v
Contributor
That's one of the most underappreciated BlackTip features - they're easy to ride and learn on. I now own a SUEX XJ-S and concur with your statement above.
OP
OP
DPV Cave Day 4:
About six weeks later due to lack of openings on his schedule. We planned for three days so we would have plenty of time. Plan for the dive was pretty basic back gas only; jump to the bone run it back to the main line, running a reel to the back gas run up to the river intrusion tunnel jumping if I felt comfortable with gas.
After getting to the River Intrusion Tunnel I didn’t feel I had enough gas, so I turned the dive. On the way back we first did the standard tows, which went fine. After the tows my primary light was failed, so I switched to my back up and took the lead on the exit. My back ups are a set of CX1s (still looking to buy used ones), which is fairly bright, but I did have to stick a lot closer to the main line than I would with my primary, but it certainly was workable even in the darker sections of Ginnie like past the Maple Leaf and on the bone line.
At the Maple Leaf, we stopped and Chris stole the CX1 that I was using forcing me to deploy my other CX1. Picking up the jump reel, Chris indicated he was out of air, the tow itself went fine, but Chris wasn’t happy about the deployment of the long hose, so it wasn’t good enough to pass.
DPV Cave Day 5:
Today is the big day, a run to the Henkel. We brief the dive, enter through the eye, drop deco bottles, and run until drop pressure on the stages, and run until the gold line ends. On the way back completing the air share tow that he felt I could do better. Run to drop pressure was uneventful, made it to 1,100ft, which is 200ft further than my last stage drop. After stage drop, I turned the speed up just a tad. The run up was a ton of fun, I felt comfortable riding my Suex. That part of the cave is fairly low impact, there were an area of wrecked clay, but most of the signs of other cave divers were hard to see as you moving past at over 100fpm. Passing double domes, stage bottle rock, insulation room, 2,400ft arrow, 2,800ft arrow.
Until I got to an area of rather intense wear, it looked low but I thought “That doesn’t look like a restriction” and started to position to move through it, but Chris signaled, and pointed to the white line and I realized we were at Henkel. On the way back he played tour guide, showing me various jumps and things. Until we go around the insulation room jump, and he turned and signaled he was out of gas. I unclipped my long hose, but I held it on the face plate to control it better with the elbow, he didn’t like that.
So, we reset and proceeded further until the next signal. This time I made sure that the cover was free, and basically tried to do a textbook air share. He pointed out that my QD was missing, and deployed his double ender, I looked around what I could, but we had already drifted too far away. Once he was stable, a grabbed my DPV and waited for him to enter position. The tow today was more difficult but once I got used to it, I was able to tow fine. Right before the Dog Leg he signaled to end the drill. We picked up our stage bottles, switched, and proceeded to exit the cave doing deco in the eye.
In the AAR we discussed things I needed work on, a big one is managing the DPV while stowed and just dropped. It was getting much better from day 1, in particular clearing line entanglements before they become a problem, but he wants me to work on preventing them in the first place. Which is something I was trying to be conscious of. And he emphasized that a moments inattention and you can scooter off the line into places where you can’t easily get out of. Writing this report, I am reminded off Andrew Ainslie’s How much gas is enough? Where while attempting to manage his bailout situation he scooters off the line.
Ultimately, he felt it was good enough to pass, and by that evening I had both the NSS-CDS and the TDI ecards. We also calculated the current range of my Suex based on the percentage used, 23%. If that dive was a reference, it would be at least a 6,000ft range, which is well beyond what I would be comfortable doing.
Thoughts after my first non-class DPV dive.
I went with @J-Vo who was staying at the same BnB that I was staying at. Mission was to find the QD that I dropped during the air share drill, we ran a line to the Bone Line to make the trip back a little more interesting. The dive was fairly eventful, but we got to Stage Bottle rock in less than 20 minutes it was then that it hit me just home much the DPV compresses the cave, a 1,800ft dive in less than 20 minutes using less than a 1/6th of my 108s.
I also removed the elbow from my long hose, and I do want to spend more time practicing some of the Intro/Apprentice level skills, so I am going to see if I can jump on some class dives to help be the buddy.
About six weeks later due to lack of openings on his schedule. We planned for three days so we would have plenty of time. Plan for the dive was pretty basic back gas only; jump to the bone run it back to the main line, running a reel to the back gas run up to the river intrusion tunnel jumping if I felt comfortable with gas.
After getting to the River Intrusion Tunnel I didn’t feel I had enough gas, so I turned the dive. On the way back we first did the standard tows, which went fine. After the tows my primary light was failed, so I switched to my back up and took the lead on the exit. My back ups are a set of CX1s (still looking to buy used ones), which is fairly bright, but I did have to stick a lot closer to the main line than I would with my primary, but it certainly was workable even in the darker sections of Ginnie like past the Maple Leaf and on the bone line.
At the Maple Leaf, we stopped and Chris stole the CX1 that I was using forcing me to deploy my other CX1. Picking up the jump reel, Chris indicated he was out of air, the tow itself went fine, but Chris wasn’t happy about the deployment of the long hose, so it wasn’t good enough to pass.
DPV Cave Day 5:
Today is the big day, a run to the Henkel. We brief the dive, enter through the eye, drop deco bottles, and run until drop pressure on the stages, and run until the gold line ends. On the way back completing the air share tow that he felt I could do better. Run to drop pressure was uneventful, made it to 1,100ft, which is 200ft further than my last stage drop. After stage drop, I turned the speed up just a tad. The run up was a ton of fun, I felt comfortable riding my Suex. That part of the cave is fairly low impact, there were an area of wrecked clay, but most of the signs of other cave divers were hard to see as you moving past at over 100fpm. Passing double domes, stage bottle rock, insulation room, 2,400ft arrow, 2,800ft arrow.
Until I got to an area of rather intense wear, it looked low but I thought “That doesn’t look like a restriction” and started to position to move through it, but Chris signaled, and pointed to the white line and I realized we were at Henkel. On the way back he played tour guide, showing me various jumps and things. Until we go around the insulation room jump, and he turned and signaled he was out of gas. I unclipped my long hose, but I held it on the face plate to control it better with the elbow, he didn’t like that.
So, we reset and proceeded further until the next signal. This time I made sure that the cover was free, and basically tried to do a textbook air share. He pointed out that my QD was missing, and deployed his double ender, I looked around what I could, but we had already drifted too far away. Once he was stable, a grabbed my DPV and waited for him to enter position. The tow today was more difficult but once I got used to it, I was able to tow fine. Right before the Dog Leg he signaled to end the drill. We picked up our stage bottles, switched, and proceeded to exit the cave doing deco in the eye.
In the AAR we discussed things I needed work on, a big one is managing the DPV while stowed and just dropped. It was getting much better from day 1, in particular clearing line entanglements before they become a problem, but he wants me to work on preventing them in the first place. Which is something I was trying to be conscious of. And he emphasized that a moments inattention and you can scooter off the line into places where you can’t easily get out of. Writing this report, I am reminded off Andrew Ainslie’s How much gas is enough? Where while attempting to manage his bailout situation he scooters off the line.
Ultimately, he felt it was good enough to pass, and by that evening I had both the NSS-CDS and the TDI ecards. We also calculated the current range of my Suex based on the percentage used, 23%. If that dive was a reference, it would be at least a 6,000ft range, which is well beyond what I would be comfortable doing.
Thoughts after my first non-class DPV dive.
I went with @J-Vo who was staying at the same BnB that I was staying at. Mission was to find the QD that I dropped during the air share drill, we ran a line to the Bone Line to make the trip back a little more interesting. The dive was fairly eventful, but we got to Stage Bottle rock in less than 20 minutes it was then that it hit me just home much the DPV compresses the cave, a 1,800ft dive in less than 20 minutes using less than a 1/6th of my 108s.
I also removed the elbow from my long hose, and I do want to spend more time practicing some of the Intro/Apprentice level skills, so I am going to see if I can jump on some class dives to help be the buddy.
Cave DPV by far was my toughest cave related class. I took it with Edd and his class is pretty tough, as is yours from the sounds of it. There were times on day 2 and 3 my wife and I looked at each other and wondered why we were still taking the class cause we sucked so bad. It gets better. Edd tells his students class is X amount of days(cant remember how many now) if you are very confident or have DPV experience, but most people need an additional day. We 100% needed an additional day.
OP
It was a hard physically demanding class on me. It wasn't my hardest class, I still feel like Apprentice Cave was harder, but it is definitely harder than all the other classes.
Unlike stage cave, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel which will make the practice worth it. I am planning a double lines whale bone dive for the day after tomorrow. Instead of a 40 minute slog of a swim to the jump, I am expecting it to be a leisurely 15 minutes of less, hopefully arriving with full back gas at the jump so I have plenty of time to look around for the whale bone.
But I do want to keep my swimming skills up, so I think I will probably try to work in at least one swim dive a month, though those will likely just be play dives in the first few hundred feet of the cave.
Chris plans for four days, three of them paid with the fourth being a fun dive if you get done in three days, but with the option of a fourth instructional day if needed and you are close to passing.
Someone asked me for my advice and opinion on this class and how to get ready for it. And I think getting comfortable with your DPV is a must, most of my struggles were learning to ride it and manage it. I think doing a day with a cave instructor learning to rig and ride one like a cave diver, and then going out and practicing in OW, would've greatly helped.
Its not just you. Its a physically demanding class. At least it should be for a good instructor. I can name off some big name instructors who's class is little more than "where do you want to go in the cave" or just repeat trips to the henkle. All with very little skills thrown in.
I 100% agree. Play in OW with the DPV. I am generally one of those people who don't like to prepare heavily for a class that has so many physical aspects to it (clipping, unclipping, proper positioning and how to hold the dpv). I'm always fearful of learning a bad behavior my instructor has to break. DPV seems different to me for some reason. I think I would have done much better had I played with my scooter in OW just to get used to handling it.
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