new cave diver
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Ginnie hasn't been high flow since the 90s. With the drought,over development,and agricultural usage,the spring flows have been diminshed. For example when Little River is flowing,you will never make it to the Florida room swimming,but the water clarity is unbelievable. Jackson Blue when flowing like it should,you might make it to the T. Doing high flow caves like this makes you learn and think about passage size and water dynamics,because you know where to go to avoid flow,and find eddys. I stopped at a LDS shop and they told me a diver complained because he couldn't get into Madison,and the water pushed him and the rock he was holding out of the cavern. Pretty funny because Madison is flowing like it normally should,and I had no problem because past memory of the system kicked in,and knew how to use the flow to help,and where to be. High flow adds an unique element to the cave,and greatly appreciate it.
Ginnie and JB need scooters, IMO
Reinforce what I was talking about above,if you are scooter dependent for these systems,then you never completely develop skills needed as a cave diver,and that is learning the cave,and dynamics of the flow. I know so many people that are scooter dependent,that when you take them to a high flow cave that scooters aren't allowed,they haven't mastered how to swim and navigate in these conditions,and you see the thumbs up sign prematurely.
Okay, karstdvr, you and your one-upmanship win! Collect the kitty!
ucfdiver
Contributor
Well, I'm a lazy a&& cave diver, and I'd just rather go where it isn't so much work. Airfare from here to FL or MX is essentially the same, anyway, and when I get done cave diving in MX, I get to sit on white sand beaches and drink margaritas . . .
LiteHedded
Contributor
Thats my issue with the Mexico certs.
in my mind it doesn't compare to learning 'surf entry' on open water dives at all and is a crucial part of training if you want to be a cave diver. If you can't dive a higher flow cave without help you might as well have an asterisk on your card.
We see it time after time where people come here with a bunch of cave dives under their belt and they have these caves built up as some scary thing in their minds and their instructors even tell them to hire an instructor to dive with them. They are cave certified and should know how to cave dive IMO. If you need to hire someone to get you into ginnie springs or telford safely how good was that training?
of course if all you want to dive is Mexico caves (and I certainly see that appeal) then it really doesn't matter and you have all the training you need to have a successful career diving caves in Mexico
So then, Brian, you think anyone who wants to dive in caves should have to get their training in Florida? Because you can't TRAIN high flow in Mexico -- it doesn't exist anywhere where you would take a student in his initial cave class.
Each environment has its own challenges. I don't think it's bad advice to tell someone who has no experience in a given environment, whether it's a cave situation or open water, to get some experienced help to negotiate that environment's specific challenges. If you come dive in Puget Sound, I almost guarantee you you would like some help in choosing sites with respect to the tides and currents. If I go to LA, I like some help figuring out where the best place is to do my entry, and in Monterey, you really need local help to decide when Monastery is safe to dive (it's very deceptive). You are only on top of the kind of diving you have already done, and going from MX to Florida is an exercise learning to cope with flow. Going from FL to Mexico is an exercise in finesse, and in navigation -- no FL cave diver has had to cope with the kind of navigational weirdness (like six inch reach gaps) that we see in Mexico.
BTW, your posts sound eerily reminiscent of my Cave 2 instructor, and that is NOT a compliment.
Each environment has its own challenges. I don't think it's bad advice to tell someone who has no experience in a given environment, whether it's a cave situation or open water, to get some experienced help to negotiate that environment's specific challenges. If you come dive in Puget Sound, I almost guarantee you you would like some help in choosing sites with respect to the tides and currents. If I go to LA, I like some help figuring out where the best place is to do my entry, and in Monterey, you really need local help to decide when Monastery is safe to dive (it's very deceptive). You are only on top of the kind of diving you have already done, and going from MX to Florida is an exercise learning to cope with flow. Going from FL to Mexico is an exercise in finesse, and in navigation -- no FL cave diver has had to cope with the kind of navigational weirdness (like six inch reach gaps) that we see in Mexico.
BTW, your posts sound eerily reminiscent of my Cave 2 instructor, and that is NOT a compliment.
LiteHedded
Contributor
So then, Brian, you think anyone who wants to dive in caves should have to get their training in Florida? Because you can't TRAIN high flow in Mexico -- it doesn't exist anywhere where you would take a student in his initial cave class.
Each environment has its own challenges. I don't think it's bad advice to tell someone who has no experience in a given environment, whether it's a cave situation or open water, to get some experienced help to negotiate that environment's specific challenges. If you come dive in Puget Sound, I almost guarantee you you would like some help in choosing sites with respect to the tides and currents. If I go to LA, I like some help figuring out where the best place is to do my entry, and in Monterey, you really need local help to decide when Monastery is safe to dive (it's very deceptive). You are only on top of the kind of diving you have already done, and going from MX to Florida is an exercise learning to cope with flow. Going from FL to Mexico is an exercise in finesse, and in navigation -- no FL cave diver has had to cope with the kind of navigational weirdness (like six inch reach gaps) that we see in Mexico.
BTW, your posts sound eerily reminiscent of my Cave 2 instructor, and that is NOT a compliment.
i tend to agree with david on a lot of these points so I think we'll agree to disagree on this one
I don't think any Florida cave 2 divers will have any trouble diving in Mexico without breaking anything or swimming past T's or jumps. IMO at least...
if you intend to cave dive in Florida, yea I think you should have some training in flow. Part of being a well rounded cave diver. Maybe I'm not being realistic...
ucfdiver
Contributor
i tend to agree with david on a lot of these points so I think we'll agree to disagree on this one
I don't think any Florida cave 2 divers will have any trouble diving in Mexico without breaking anything or swimming past T's or jumps. IMO at least...
if you intend to cave dive in Florida, yea I think you should have some training in flow. Part of being a well rounded cave diver. Maybe I'm not being realistic...
I don't get this logic. I seem to recall you and AJ doing a dive in Ginnie with someone who was Intro and turned the dive before the keyhole because of a blasting headache more than once? I seem to recall that was the same year his instructor issued more cards than any other NACD instructor. We've both dove Ginnie/Peacock on the weekends enough to know that all a FL card would tell anyone is that you were able to bulldoze into the cave long enough or exit slow enough to meet the minimum dive time.
Given first hand knowledge of this, and the fact that the last CDS conference was on the crappy training going on recently, I don't know that we really want to identify ourselves as "FL" cave divers.
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