NSS-CDS Full Cave: The Live-Blog

[dewdropsonrosa]

I’m in Florida! I’m from Chicago, I brought the cold with me this weekend, and you’re welcome to blame me for it. Everyone at the dive shop did, anyway.

I’ll in High Springs, Florida for the next fourteen days on training spree. I’m working towards NSS-CDS Full Cave and will be completing TDI Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures along the way. This is a lot of training in a short period of time. I probably would have chosen to spread it out if my work schedule allowed (alas, it did not).

My dive background: I finished Open Water in 2013 and have averaged about 60 dives per year since. I completed a lot of OW-level specialties in 2014 to get additional supervised dive time. For 2015, 2016, and 2017, I focused on skill development through independent diving. In 2018, I started preparations (Drysuit, Sidemount) to go into tech. After a really successful summer dive season, I decided to take the plunge on my winter vacation.

We always have people at the cusp of tech training, and I've been asked to chronicle my experience for those coming up. (Cough, @Marie13).

Pre-Arrival: Instructor Choice
I started searching for an instructor in early October 2018. I decided to restrict my search to NSS-CDS instructors based on the agency’s reputation for turning out high-quality instructors. My first-choice instructor wasn’t available, but he directed me to Reggie Ross. A few cave-certified friends asked around for me and reported wonderful things. Reggie and I also had several productive conversations about how the courses could meet my goals, so I decided to schedule with him.


Pre-Arrival: Academic Prep
I used the NASE xtEK Cave Diver Manual and e-Learning for cave academics. This textbook is the very best instructional material I’ve ever seen in scuba diving, and it’s a damn sight better than many of my college textbooks. The content is presented in clear language, logical order, and useful supporting graphics and charts.

For the TDI courses, I used the standard TDI e-learning. For courses as information-dense as these, I felt like e-learning wasn’t my best option. I would have preferred a book to flip/reference/annotate. I ended up creating my own e-books in Word.

Expect to put college-level study effort into learning the material. (Caveat: I am not a STEM major and needed to spend extra time on the physics. If you have prior high-level exposure, you might need less time). There is a tremendous amount of information to digest and it’s all safety-related, so you need to be prepared to retain it. I've read through and taken notes on each of the manuals twice, and I expect to revisit them frequently during training.

Coming next... Training Day 0.

 

[rddvet]

Good luck and I hope you enjoy. Not to be a party pooper but except for in rare circumstances of an excellent already established tech diver, I completely disagree with a zero to hero cave course. The point of the courses being broken into 3-4 parts depending on the agency is to give the diver time to practice the skills learned in each segment and perfect them before moving on. I've found the zero to hero covers I've encountered would benefit from post-class mentorship.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

Day 0: Academic Review
I made it to Florida a day earlier than expected, so we met today for some course preliminaries. We reviewed the remediation questions from each of the three courses and discussed some of the weirder answers in detail.

Some of the questions I had answered incorrectly, reviewed the material, and then subsequently answered correctly with new understanding. Some were more like trick questions and required additional thought. Other questions involved a lot of math and it took me a few study sessions to really grasp.

The remedial math questions have followed me home tonight as homework, which (a) gives me another opportunity to review and (b) will require less classroom time than instructor-led review.

Over the course of the week, I’ll have additional homework from the regular workbook and some take-home test materials. Additional final exams will come at the end of the course.

Day 0: Gear Config
Cave diving has specific gear requirements, and instructors have their individual preferences. I needed to get a new BP/W setup for doubles tanks, a deco bottle and an oxygen reg, a cave-capable primary light, a technical dive computer, and so on… starting in technical diving isn’t cheap. After academic review, we spent a few hours going over all of my gear and ensuring that it was properly configured to meet my needs during the class.

I got to do a lot of this hands-on, I got a lot of help from Reggie, and I learned a few new things about working with #24 nylon rope. I expect that this hands-on time with the new gear will help me be more comfortable in the water tomorrow as we make tweaks towards finalizing the setup.

Day 0: Hydrogeology
Although the cave academic materials covered hydrogeology very well, we did a very thorough review of cave formations in general, and what cave formations to expect diving in north-central Florida. As an open-water diver who deals with currents, I had a lot of questions about how to handle flow in a cave environment. We addressed almost all those questions in theory, and we might get to address some in practice.

Important note on hydrogeology: due to heavy rains, the Suwanee River is running high and has flooded a lot of the popular cave diving sites in the area. This will limit some of our training site options, so we discussed the implications of that for both scientific and course progression-related concerns.

Day 0: Land Drills
After we finished with the indoor practical work, we hopped in the car and headed for the parking lot at Ginnie Springs. We were there for about two hours, focusing on reel and spool use. I practiced primary and secondary tie-offs, making placements, keeping slack out of the line, and re-feeding the reel evenly. We spent a long time on drills for zero-visibility exits in touch contact, including how to handle OOA and entanglement issues.

We also did the infamous timed drill in which you follow the line normally, eyes open and then repeat the exercise with your eyes closed.

I walked the line in 40 seconds with my eyes open, so with the Rule of Thirds, I would have 80 seconds to make it back to the other end of the line. It took me 2:25, but apparently almost everyone “dies” during this exercise. Instead of shooting for perfectly-executed technique, "perfect technique" in this exercise is simply following the line well enough to get out in time.

I’m going to ask to repeat some of the land drills during surface interval tomorrow for more practice.

Coming tomorrow…. Day 1 at Ginnie Springs!

 

[michael-fisch]

Ouch, I too went the Zero to Hero route, 21 years ago. For 8 days I was worried that I would be unable to complete the next days dives successfully. The most stressfull and fun courses I ever took. Believe him when he tells you exactly how to do pull and glide, since I knew better, I lost all the skin on the fingertips of both hands untill I learned that my instructor was right.
Michael

 

[BoltSnap]

I decided to restrict my search to NSS-CDS instructors based on the agency’s reputation for turning out high-quality instructors.

I used the NASE xtEK Cave Diver Manual and e-Learning for cave academics.

For the TDI courses, I used the standard TDI e-learning.

Aren't you taking a NSS-CDS course? Why NASE and TDI? Can you clarify please?

My first-choice instructor

Who was your "first-choice instructor"?

I ended up creating my own e-books in Word.

How did you do it and what did you use as reference for the information?

 

[Schwob]

Well, good on you to find the time as is! Enjoy the journey, learn it all, sweat it & learn it well! I'll keep on reading.

 

[kelemvor]

Aren't you taking a NSS-CDS course? Why NASE and TDI? Can you clarify please?

When I took classes with Reggie, he offered a cheap crossover to CDS (needed because some dive sites require CDS membership to dive there). I think it was basically the cost of the card. Same for NACD, except that was about the time NACD fell apart.


0-Hero definitely isn't the best way to go. However one thing I can tell you about Reggie Ross is that @dewdropsonrosa won't be getting a cave card at the end unless they really are a competent cave diver.

 

[Jack Hammer]

I'm not a fan of zero to hero, I think the same can be said for most experienced full cave divers. I strongly believe there should be a minimum # dives (20?) between intro and full cave to allow people to gain experience and solidify what they've learned. There are a lot of very important little details to both take in and let fully sink in. The kind of details that both help prevent cave damage and can bite one in the rear when they have a problem. Throwing AN/DP into the mix and it's a tremendous amount of information to properly absorb in a small amount of time.

Best wishes for the class. Ginnie is an awesome site. I believe Manatee is open too, another fun cave.


edit: smiley

 

[BoltSnap]

When I took classes with Reggie, he offered a cheap crossover to CDS (needed because some dive sites require CDS membership to dive there). I think it was basically the cost of the card. Same for NACD, except that was about the time NACD fell apart.

I am just confused on what course and material he took. It seems that he is taking an NSS-CDS course but is using course study material from other two different agencies, it doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Nirvana]

I’ll in High Springs, Florida for the next fourteen days on training spree. I’m working towards NSS-CDS Full Cave and will be completing TDI Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures along the way. This is a lot of training in a short period of time. I probably would have chosen to spread it out if my work schedule allowed (alas, it did not).

I started searching for an instructor in early October 2018. I decided to restrict my search to NSS-CDS instructors based on the agency’s reputation for turning out high-quality instructors. My first-choice instructor wasn’t available, but he directed me to Reggie Ross. A few cave-certified friends asked around for me and reported wonderful things. Reggie and I also had several productive conversations about how the courses could meet my goals, so I decided to schedule with him.

Reggie was my full cave instructor, too, and I really enjoyed the course. He was very demanding, but also patient and thorough in his explanations and in his post dive analyses. I am certain you will learn a lot.

I am just confused on what course and material he took. It seems that he is taking an NSS-CDS course but is using course study material from other two different agencies, it doesn't make sense to me.

If I am not mistaken, Reggie wrote the cave training material for NASE. He must be using it to complement the mandatory material from NSS-CDS.