... and it was incredible. I went down with Rick and my now-defunct LDS (they closed their doors a few weeks ago) not long after I got my full cave card. We had an absolute blast. We stayed at Villas DeRosa. Very much enjoyed chatting with Big and Little Tony as well as Steve G. (he stopped by for some drinks). Being such a newbie, it was great hearing some of the stories including the big line arrow controversy. We did it without a guide but Bruce, the former owner of Tucker's Dive Shop, had been there a few times before and set the primary for us everywhere but Ponderosa which me and Rick and the other guy I was I was diving with all week (Hong) did on our own (never found the line we were looking for but found what seems like every other line down there - still had a couple of good dives there). The most notable dives included Car Wash (Room of Tears), NoHoch and Grand Cenote. I got in 11 dives in 7 systems and 5 of those dives will go down as my best dives in my life (Car Wash, NoHoch and Grand Cenote). My only regret was missing the Waterfall (I think that's what it's called.. the thing that looks like Godzilla's mouth). I was 25 psi prior to my turn when my team came to a restriction and I decided to go ahead and turn it there. I was told I was 50' shy of it when I turned. Oh well.
My non-diving wife (health issues) also got to come down there and her being able to go back into some of the caves with a snorkel was really nice - she finally got a taste of what cave diving is like. I gave her a little 1W LED backup light to look around with and she said something that brought a tear to my eye: "I want a bigger light"
She finally understands why I spent over a grand on a light.
Anyway, we did all the dives just on backgas and I was amazed how long a set of 80's will last down there - even with my SAC rate (which I think was made a little worse with all of the screaming into my reg ("Hey, look at this!!!")).
The best part of the trip was our driver, Roger (Anglicized name). We always brought 2 sets of doubles per diver so we didn't have to go back to the hotel and he was Johnny-on-the-spot when it came to climbing out of the water, changing tanks or anything else. Wonder how much it would cost to fly him up here for my Florida trips
At two of the sites (Ponderosa and Dos Ojos), we tied into the gold cavern line that is used for tours and jumped off of it onto a white main line (at first this seemed like a no-no but Lena (sp?), a experienced guide working for Villas DeRosa, assured us that this was ok. At Dos Ojos I saw some guide who was leading a cenote tour follow my jump just as I was coming back. At first I mistook them for the rest of our group and when I realized it wasn't them, I signaled him and told him that was my reel and I intended to pull it (he didn't place a marker on it or anything, it was about a 15' jump). He said go ahead. Again I signaled him with a what-the-**** but he just said OK so I started to pull my reel then fortunately I saw the other 3 cave divers we went down there with and they signaled that they were going to use my jump so I just left it in place - whew. I know Tito and Lena, who I believe were both full time with Villas DeRosa and were doing the cenote tours with the OW divers we'd brought down there, were both experienced cave divers but this guide, I wouldn't even want to be in the same cave as him. He was a cave diver in gear only. He was swimming with a nice feet-down flutter kick and I felt sorry for the OW divers he was leading as they probably had no idea who they were following in there.
Well, I had a whopping 7 post-training full cave dives prior to this and despite not setting the primary, I gained a lot of experience down there. I think Mike O'Leary (my full cave instructor) would be very proud of us as we were able to remember the times to anything of note (jump, double arrows, etc) without having to write it down (we ended up writing most of them down in class because he would quiz us on them when we surfaced).
Now I start the count-down to my next Florida Trip... 7 weeks.
My non-diving wife (health issues) also got to come down there and her being able to go back into some of the caves with a snorkel was really nice - she finally got a taste of what cave diving is like. I gave her a little 1W LED backup light to look around with and she said something that brought a tear to my eye: "I want a bigger light"
She finally understands why I spent over a grand on a light.Anyway, we did all the dives just on backgas and I was amazed how long a set of 80's will last down there - even with my SAC rate (which I think was made a little worse with all of the screaming into my reg ("Hey, look at this!!!")).
The best part of the trip was our driver, Roger (Anglicized name). We always brought 2 sets of doubles per diver so we didn't have to go back to the hotel and he was Johnny-on-the-spot when it came to climbing out of the water, changing tanks or anything else. Wonder how much it would cost to fly him up here for my Florida trips
At two of the sites (Ponderosa and Dos Ojos), we tied into the gold cavern line that is used for tours and jumped off of it onto a white main line (at first this seemed like a no-no but Lena (sp?), a experienced guide working for Villas DeRosa, assured us that this was ok. At Dos Ojos I saw some guide who was leading a cenote tour follow my jump just as I was coming back. At first I mistook them for the rest of our group and when I realized it wasn't them, I signaled him and told him that was my reel and I intended to pull it (he didn't place a marker on it or anything, it was about a 15' jump). He said go ahead. Again I signaled him with a what-the-**** but he just said OK so I started to pull my reel then fortunately I saw the other 3 cave divers we went down there with and they signaled that they were going to use my jump so I just left it in place - whew. I know Tito and Lena, who I believe were both full time with Villas DeRosa and were doing the cenote tours with the OW divers we'd brought down there, were both experienced cave divers but this guide, I wouldn't even want to be in the same cave as him. He was a cave diver in gear only. He was swimming with a nice feet-down flutter kick and I felt sorry for the OW divers he was leading as they probably had no idea who they were following in there.
Well, I had a whopping 7 post-training full cave dives prior to this and despite not setting the primary, I gained a lot of experience down there. I think Mike O'Leary (my full cave instructor) would be very proud of us as we were able to remember the times to anything of note (jump, double arrows, etc) without having to write it down (we ended up writing most of them down in class because he would quiz us on them when we surfaced).
Now I start the count-down to my next Florida Trip... 7 weeks.
