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.