to the best of my knowledge, this is my first time posting in this forum (although I have been known to jump into a thread on the "new posts" list without looking at the forum) since up until this point, I wasn't a cave diver, but that changed last weekend.
Over 6 days last week, I had the privilege of taking GUE Cave 1 in the Yucatan Cenotes and the course was simultaneously enlightening, challenging and very rewarding. I enjoyed every aspect of the class with one exception that was standing in an ant hill during a surface skill leading to the feeling of standing in a fire.
All week my instructor was impressing upon us to expand our situation awareness, and the way he gave extremely detailed de-briefings showed me that I had a long way to go. It was as if he was watching a video replay of the dive, describing what he was watching. This is something I need (and plan to) work on. It is one thing to remember a particular feature from a dive, but it is quite another to remember the feature, that it was 125' into the penetration, that it was composed of exactly 6 speleothems and how much gas was used to get there. Then, it is an entirely different thing again to remember 10 of these features with the same detail
The other thing that was particularly impressed on me was to slow down. At the beginning of the week, any issue such as a simulated failed primary light, put my team and me into a big rush to resolve the issue and get moving toward the exit. Towards the end of the class, when we finally started to slow down, assess the situation and come up with a solution, issues such as the failed primary along with a failed backup were so easy to deal with that they were really not a big deal at all. This is still however something I need to work on more. It seemed to me that I was calm and collected for all issues except bubble leaks. For some reason, when my instructor would simulate a bubble leak, those violently rapid bubbles would just get my adrenaline flowing and I was back to rushing for a solution
Lastly, I realize that red is the first color to be filtered out under water, but when you are swimming along the line sharing gas, and your instructor dangles a red blackout mask in front of you, it is the most vivid red you have ever seen and everything else turns grey...until it all turns black
Over 6 days last week, I had the privilege of taking GUE Cave 1 in the Yucatan Cenotes and the course was simultaneously enlightening, challenging and very rewarding. I enjoyed every aspect of the class with one exception that was standing in an ant hill during a surface skill leading to the feeling of standing in a fire.
All week my instructor was impressing upon us to expand our situation awareness, and the way he gave extremely detailed de-briefings showed me that I had a long way to go. It was as if he was watching a video replay of the dive, describing what he was watching. This is something I need (and plan to) work on. It is one thing to remember a particular feature from a dive, but it is quite another to remember the feature, that it was 125' into the penetration, that it was composed of exactly 6 speleothems and how much gas was used to get there. Then, it is an entirely different thing again to remember 10 of these features with the same detail
The other thing that was particularly impressed on me was to slow down. At the beginning of the week, any issue such as a simulated failed primary light, put my team and me into a big rush to resolve the issue and get moving toward the exit. Towards the end of the class, when we finally started to slow down, assess the situation and come up with a solution, issues such as the failed primary along with a failed backup were so easy to deal with that they were really not a big deal at all. This is still however something I need to work on more. It seemed to me that I was calm and collected for all issues except bubble leaks. For some reason, when my instructor would simulate a bubble leak, those violently rapid bubbles would just get my adrenaline flowing and I was back to rushing for a solution
Lastly, I realize that red is the first color to be filtered out under water, but when you are swimming along the line sharing gas, and your instructor dangles a red blackout mask in front of you, it is the most vivid red you have ever seen and everything else turns grey...until it all turns black
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