Prep for Cavern

[Peter Guy]

I will be in PDC so suggestions are appreciated.

German Yanez -- Although German lives on Coz, he is quite willing to teach on the mainland -- I know, that's where he taught me. He's been around for quite some time and teaches in a very "soft" way. website -- Yucatech email -- german@yucatech.net

Dennis Weeks -- Dennis runs Aquanauts Dive Center in Puerto Aventuras -- which is in Cenote Country, just a hop-skip-and-jump from the "jungle fill station." The last time I was there, I spent quite a bit of time with Dennis, including going on a few guided cave dives. websites -- Aquanauts; Diablo Divers; email -- info@aquanauts-online.com -- Dennis is also on SB -- "Pez de Diablo"

 

[rjack321]

Dennis Weeks would be my recommendation for cavern near PDC. He's in Puerto Aventuras.

 

[MichaelBaranows]

me and my dad are considering taking out Cavern Course for Dennis in Feburary. Dad was down there doing a little cenoting diving earlier this months and starting to get interested in caverns. I am always up to diving so I figured I might tag along.

If anyone stops by Aquanauts say hey to Nat from Michael.

 

[TSandM]

A third recommendation for Dennis. He's a good guy, and I suspect he's a good teacher.

Once you've done Fundies and cavern and are confirmed in being utterly and totally hooked on caves, go back down and do Cave 1. It's worth it.

 

[rjack321]

Steve Bogaerts is also in PA. He's an excellent instructor. AZTEC DIVING - WHO WE ARE

There are a couple more in the area but further south by Tulum. Fred, Danny and Chris at Zero Gravity only teach the GUE curriculum now (which has no cavern class for philosophical perspectives).

 

[Oside Jimc]

Got an email from Dennis, he is recommending doing Cavern in doubles if I have a desire to move into intro to cave or higher. Frankly this could be an issue, no way I'm going to show up in Mexico and strap doubles on for the first time and head off into a cave system. So now I need a doubles wing and a set of tanks, I suppose I could take fundies in doubles (?yes?), but this is sounding like a steeper learning curve than I expected since I"m also moving to a dry suit later this month. :crazyeye:

 

[TSandM]

I would very strongly recommend not doing cavern in doubles, if you have never dived doubles before. The third member of our cavern class was doing that, and although he did amazingly well, he was very stressed.

You have some options: You can do cavern in a single tank. You can do Fundies, and decide if you are ready for cavern (and if not, hook up with Dennis for some more cavern tours. There's lots to see beyond the most common sites.) You can work on transitioning into doubles and readying yourself for cavern. You are in an area where you should be able to find people to help you do this; a lot will depend on how much time you have to dive, and how quickly you pick stuff up.

Your cavern class is not likely to be an unending sequence of post failures and OOG emergencies. At least, ours wasn't. We had to close the isolator when asked to do so, to demonstrate that we COULD. Cavern is way more about running line and following line, and coping with loss of visual reference.

 

[OneBrightGator]

Find a different instructor.

 

[devilscrowndiver]

I have done Cavern and Intro To Cave with Dennis. He is an excellent instructor. Knowing that I would continue with cave training, I had the option of doing cavern in doubles or with a single tank. I chose to use a single tank because I had only done a few dives in doubles at that point. I was happy I did, there was plenty to learn without adding doubles to the mix. Just have as much experience in doubles as you can before Intro To Cave.

Have a good time, but be warned, the caves in Mexico are very addicting!

 

[Peter Guy]

Gator -- why write that? The OP was saying that Dennis "recommended" doing Cavern in doubles IF (note the big conditional statement) he wanted to go on to Intro and Full Cave. That makes perfectly good sense to me because IF you already know that is the path, you will need to learn to dive doubles.

Evidently Dennis did NOT say do it in doubles or else (nor would I expect him to). As I wrote earlier, IF you want to get the most out of your "overhead" classes, do all of the non-overhead work/skills in the before working in the overhead. Given the OP's time (and financial?) constraints, it sounds like he's going to have to do Cavern in a single tank and in a wetsuit (no biggie there). That may hinder him IF the path is to go "beyond the sign."

I think any competent Cave instructor is going to "recommend" doing Cavern in doubles IF the desire is to go on.