NSS-CDS Full Cave: The Live-Blog

[barth]

This is a private course for me. In February, one of Reggie's partner-instructors has a two-student course, so he and the other instructor will be teaching as a team.

For something as complex as cave diving, I think a 2:1 ratio wouldn't get me the level of coaching that I need.

For some things like skills a private course would be more efficient.

But the skills were not the hardest things during a course for me. I think these were the hardest things for me:

- Good communication with buddy’s.
- awareness
- procedures (when the instructor was using his airgun and simulate failure. Some failures were fixable and some were non fixable.
- position in the team of buddy’s with different failures

I was learning from my own mistakes and also from mistakes of buddy’s.

Everyone was making mistakes and was learning. We were talking about mistakes, even after the briefing. I still dive with my tech and cave course buddy’s. Sometimes things go wrong and we talk about mistakes after the dive.

I also dive with other buddy’s, but it is nice that you have already tech/cave buddy’s after a course.

For me it wouldn’t make sense to do a private cave course.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

Day 4: Hitting a Wall
Even though we took the day off yesterday, both Reggie and I didn’t feel great at the start of the morning. It was cold and windy, I had weird dreams, we were putting on wet shell suits in the wind, etc. After the first dive, I called the second dive off and we went to the warmth and comfort of the dive shop to discuss academics.

Day 4: Selected Observations
As I mentioned previously, I can generally finish dives within 300-400 psi (roughly 20-25 bar) of Reggie. However, we’ve observed an interesting pattern to my air consumption. I breathe fairly heavy on my first third, but when we turn the dive, I either match or beat his SAC rate on the way home.

We started the course using LP85 twinsets. I’m 5’4” (163cm) and not particularly strong, so we started with the smallest tanks that seemed appropriate. These small-capacity tanks worked very well for several short repetitive dives (20:00-ish) or mid-range dives (45:00-ish). However, my consumption isn’t quite good enough to reach the Apprentice-level sites that we need to reach next week. Tomorrow, we’re going to try LP108 on one dive and LP95 on the other, to see which of them is better fit for my needs.

I have a really frustrating mental block when it comes to reel use. The Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, and Burj Khalifa located on this block. Getting all the steps together without skipping anything or accidentally reversing reel direction and keeping the right tension on the line require all of my concentration and it takes away from my buoyancy management and situational awareness. Reggie sent me home with four different reels tonight for some practice time.

I haven’t been able to start the practice yet tonight. The fingertips on my left hand are really raw, to the point that washing my hair stung and burned. Right hand is a little chewed up, but not nearly as much. A lot of the initial damage to my left-hand was during the inversion recovery in The Ear. However, it’s been getting worse at a faster rate than the right hand. I think this is because I’m right-handed, so I do the brute-strength pulls with my left arm. I’m try to do more palm-based pulling as I go forward. Someone at the shop recommended “New Skin” coverings, which I plan to try tomorrow.

Day 4: Too Much
I can’t really give you a composed narrative of the dive. Near end of our planned time, I felt really overwhelmed by the number of tasks that we had set out to accomplish and couldn’t really focus and just wanted to get the hell out and find some surface air.

This was a planned decompression dive using O2. We entered through The Ear, which went better today than it did in previous days. There was a hard rain in the early hours of Thursday morning, which seems to have somehow mitigated the flow. I was less tired when I reached the Grim Reaper at the bottom than any other day. Somewhere nearby (but closer to the main tunnel, I think?), we dropped our deco bottles.

The primary drill for the dive was to head back to Hill 400 (I think) and then execute three jumps heading toward a tee in the line. There was another instructor with two students working at the jump when we arrived, and the delay put us behind and made me a little more nervous about being able to carry out the plan before hitting thirds. I fumbled a little with the reel, I was nervous, and was working on the second jump when I had to call the dive. We turned the dive.

Things felt crazy (but objectively, probably were not that bad) on the way out. I tried the Basic Cave lost line drill again but made the same orientation mistakes as I did yesterday. Reggie and I discussed how to fix this set of mistakes in detail and I’m going to try again tomorrow. We had a blackout air-share drill where I was the donor getting out of the cave. We grabbed our deco bottles and left out The Eye – Reggie complimented me on a really smooth pick-up and fast clipping as we moved towards the exit, so I had something to be proud of on this dive.

We did our deco and went back in on recalculated thirds for additional drilling, for which we dropped our deco bottles ahead of time. Going back for this second set of drills was stressful and I did my best to keep my focus, but it was tough. There was stuff in partial blackout, there was air-sharing… post-dive, it’s blending together in my head. My tanks were fairly low at this point (900-ish psi) and becoming positively buoyant. When I felt like I couldn’t control my buoyancy well and manage other tasks and be safe, we had made it out into the basin when I took my blindfold off.

We were supposed to head back in and grab our deco bottles stationed around 30 feet, but I “noped” Reggie on that. He understood and graciously went back in to retrieve them both. I was simply too taxed to handle another entry/exit cycle safely.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

Day 4: Conclusion
When we got out of the water, I did the morbidly-obese-turtle trudge back to the bench. I just sat and caught my breath for a while, enjoying that sweet surface air.

I made sure that I was the first one to talk. I declared that based on my sense of confidence in the cave and self-assessment of my skills, that I don’t think that Full Cave is going to happen on this trip. The indicators that I’m seeing when I review my own performance and when Reggie and I de-brief are indicating a lack of readiness for higher-difficulty material.

AND THAT’S OKAY.

The most important thing I’ve learned is that the cave conditions decide how hard the dive will be. A competent Full Cave diver has to be prepared to respond to all of these challenges appropriately. In honesty, I’m not there yet. I have confidence that I can be, with the appropriate amount of time and practice.

I revised my goals for the outcome of our planned course time (10 water days). I’m not going to try and rush myself or compress stress to finish the Full Cave curriculum in the final two days of the course. I’m going to shoot for Apprentice, which will give me a year in which to accumulate additional supervised/buddy dive experience. I’ll be able to practice my skills outside of the ticking clock of course time.

Reggie said that this was a reasonable goal, and I should also be able to complete the TDI Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures coursework. He also mentioned that he’s seen many people turn a corner after several days of struggle and make it across the Full Cave finish line.

I’m not holding my breath – you’re not supposed to do that on SCUBA.

 

[PfcAJ]

Day 4: Hitting a Wall
Even though we took the day off yesterday, both Reggie and I didn’t feel great at the start of the morning. It was cold and windy, I had weird dreams, we were putting on wet shell suits in the wind, etc. After the first dive, I called the second dive off and we went to the warmth and comfort of the dive shop to discuss academics.

Day 4: Selected Observations
As I mentioned previously, I can generally finish dives within 300-400 psi (roughly 20-25 bar) of Reggie. However, we’ve observed an interesting pattern to my air consumption. I breathe fairly heavy on my first third, but when we turn the dive, I either match or beat his SAC rate on the way home.

We started the course using LP85 twinsets. I’m 5’4” (163cm) and not particularly strong, so we started with the smallest tanks that seemed appropriate. These small-capacity tanks worked very well for several short repetitive dives (20:00-ish) or mid-range dives (45:00-ish). However, my consumption isn’t quite good enough to reach the Apprentice-level sites that we need to reach next week. Tomorrow, we’re going to try LP108 on one dive and LP95 on the other, to see which of them is better fit for my needs.

I have a really frustrating mental block when it comes to reel use. The Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, and Burj Khalifa located on this block. Getting all the steps together without skipping anything or accidentally reversing reel direction and keeping the right tension on the line require all of my concentration and it takes away from my buoyancy management and situational awareness. Reggie sent me home with four different reels tonight for some practice time.

I haven’t been able to start the practice yet tonight. The fingertips on my left hand are really raw, to the point that washing my hair stung and burned. Right hand is a little chewed up, but not nearly as much. A lot of the initial damage to my left-hand was during the inversion recovery in The Ear. However, it’s been getting worse at a faster rate than the right hand. I think this is because I’m right-handed, so I do the brute-strength pulls with my left arm. I’m try to do more palm-based pulling as I go forward. Someone at the shop recommended “New Skin” coverings, which I plan to try tomorrow.

Day 4: Too Much
I can’t really give you a composed narrative of the dive. Near end of our planned time, I felt really overwhelmed by the number of tasks that we had set out to accomplish and couldn’t really focus and just wanted to get the hell out and find some surface air.

This was a planned decompression dive using O2. We entered through The Ear, which went better today than it did in previous days. There was a hard rain in the early hours of Thursday morning, which seems to have somehow mitigated the flow. I was less tired when I reached the Grim Reaper at the bottom than any other day. Somewhere nearby (but closer to the main tunnel, I think?), we dropped our deco bottles.

The primary drill for the dive was to head back to Hill 400 (I think) and then execute three jumps heading toward a tee in the line. There was another instructor with two students working at the jump when we arrived, and the delay put us behind and made me a little more nervous about being able to carry out the plan before hitting thirds. I fumbled a little with the reel, I was nervous, and was working on the second jump when I had to call the dive. We turned the dive.

Things felt crazy (but objectively, probably were not that bad) on the way out. I tried the Basic Cave lost line drill again but made the same orientation mistakes as I did yesterday. Reggie and I discussed how to fix this set of mistakes in detail and I’m going to try again tomorrow. We had a blackout air-share drill where I was the donor getting out of the cave. We grabbed our deco bottles and left out The Eye – Reggie complimented me on a really smooth pick-up and fast clipping as we moved towards the exit, so I had something to be proud of on this dive.

We did our deco and went back in on recalculated thirds for additional drilling, for which we dropped our deco bottles ahead of time. Going back for this second set of drills was stressful and I did my best to keep my focus, but it was tough. There was stuff in partial blackout, there was air-sharing… post-dive, it’s blending together in my head. My tanks were fairly low at this point (900-ish psi) and becoming positively buoyant. When I felt like I couldn’t control my buoyancy well and manage other tasks and be safe, we had made it out into the basin when I took my blindfold off.

We were supposed to head back in and grab our deco bottles stationed around 30 feet, but I “noped” Reggie on that. He understood and graciously went back in to retrieve them both. I was simply too taxed to handle another entry/exit cycle safely.

If you’re too light when your tanks are low, you’re really setting yourself up for a dangerous situation if you really need to tap into that reserve.

Weight yourself so you’re neutral at 15’ with no gas in your wing and nearly empty tanks. The only way to know is to test it.

Imagine if you had some sort of emergency and you had to struggle on the way out to stay off the ceiling and/or in contact with the line because you’re underweighted. I can assure you it would not end well.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

If you’re too light when your tanks are low, you’re really setting yourself up for a dangerous situation if you really need to tap into that reserve.

Weight yourself so you’re neutral at 15’ with no gas in your wing and nearly empty tanks. The only way to know is to test it.

Imagine if you had some sort of emergency and you had to struggle on the way out to stay off the ceiling and/or in contact with the line because you’re underweighted. I can assure you it would not end well.

I got to experience some of that today and yes, it was an awful experience and I never want to repeat it. We'll be reassessing my weighting tomorrow with the larger tanks and I'll bring this up for discussion.

 

[rddvet]

Since when is there a specific area of the cave that needs to be dove to get to the apprentice level? There shouldn't be. It's about experience and building on skills. You can do that in the first 300 feet of peacock or Ginnie or 1500 feet back.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

I didn't communicate that clearly, sorry. There are specific areas that Reggie intends to use for certain skill drills. I'm having difficulty reaching those areas with LP85 capacity before hitting turn pressure.

 

[JohnnyC]

So at this point, what certifications have you qualified for? Could you leave tomorrow with your Basic? Apprentice? I ask because you're limited to no navigation through Basic, Apprentice is one jump, gap, etc. You're saying you were planning 3 jumps to a tee and deco, so you're into the Full Cave portion now?

I certainly don't begrudge you for taking what you've got and getting more experience and then coming back and finishing. If you make that decision, see if you can convert your last diving days into guided dives instead of training dives. Sure you'll be limited in penetration and complexity, but I think you'll appreciate the enjoyment of actually diving, as opposed to every dive being a training dive. Hell, you might do one fun dive and it will reinvigorate you for the rest of the course. Either way, keep diving while you have the opportunity!

 

[PfcAJ]

Since when is there a specific area of the cave that needs to be dove to get to the apprentice level? There shouldn't be. It's about experience and building on skills. You can do that in the first 300 feet of peacock or Ginnie or 1500 feet back.

It sounds like the intention was to hit the Ts on the Parallel Lines toward July Springs.

There are Ts elsewhere in the front of Ginnie but they’re not in good areas for teaching.

 

[Superlyte27]

Since when is there a specific area of the cave that needs to be dove to get to the apprentice level? There shouldn't be. It's about experience and building on skills. You can do that in the first 300 feet of peacock or Ginnie or 1500 feet back.

If you can't make it to a navigational decision, how do you learn complex navigation? I once had a student that couldn't make it to the lips on jacked up lp108's. He couldn't make it to the first jump in peacock. If comfort level isn't there, and you can't make it to do a traverse or circuit, how do we teach complex navigation?