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I'mmmmmmm Baaaaaccck!!!!!! As many of you may know I just returned from a week of cave training at GUE. The trip started out well when I got to American Airlines and learned that due to flight overcrowding I had been bumped to first class. My bags were intact and they were the first off the plane.. All's going well at this point. I check into the luxurious accomodations at che' Cadillac Motel. A cave diver's hotel if there ever was one... I arrive at Extreme Exposure bright and early and ready to go. For purposes of background I should mention that I am a full trimix certified diver, I have approx. 2,000 dives and have done several hundred deep decompression dives and deep wreck penetration dives. But having said that, entering a cave is a whole new world and should be treated as such. I was fortunate to get Tamara Kendel as my instructor. Anyone would be well served to request her should you decide to take a class. She is an excellent instructor and kicked my butt.. The initial morning we spent some time going over basic cave training safety procedures. I was given no slack for prior diving experiences nor did I want any. After the morning session Tamara generally spends the rest of the afternoon going over gear modifications. Fortunately for me we spent only a few minutes doing this. My gear is in accordance with DIR and Tamara noted that this was the quickest she ever spent on gear modifications. So the basic cave tenements behind us, gear all configured properly it was time to get wet.. Dive 1 was at Ginnie Springs. We reviewed some basic line techniques, proper kicking techniques and some basic S- drills... We stayed within the cavern zone for Dive 1 and Tamara ran the reel to demonstrate suggested tie - off's, ensure that other teams wouldn't get entangled, etc. etc.. Dive 2 was much of the same except that this time it was my turn to run the dive. I would run the line, I would monitor turn times and I would lead. All was going well at this point as Tamara noted that I had some open water habits that needed to be broken. For example, she thought my frog kicking could use some work and that she felt that while I had no problems completing any of the drills I would, out of habit, tend to get vertical while solving the problem. At this level is should be assumed that you could do mask R & R's, valve shut downs and the like, but what she suggested is that it must be done while keeping proper trim. You don't want one problem made worse because your silting the place up trying to resolve it.. Day 2 Tamara was brilliant at manipulating the sequence of events ( i.e.; class -v- diving ) to account for the Memorial day weekend crowds and the NASCD cave conference that was in town. Rather than do lectures in the morning and then dives afterwards she reversed the schedule and got us to the appropriate sites before the crowds arrived. Today we did Pothole tunnel as the first dive and peanut tunnel the second dive. As the week progressed she would select sites that were slightly more challenging than the previous day. She would also introduce different tasks to be completed. I won't give away all of her tricks but suffice to say, you shouldn't relax during the dive because just when you do you'll find your light failed, or somehow miraculously your isolator was closed and the like. My personal favorite was doing an OOA drill without lights and exiting the cave... This ain't no PADI class here. * In the unlikely event * is replaced with * at some point everything will fail and you better know how to survive*... Day 3 we did more class work and then dove Little river. This was my first real experience with a *high flow * cave. Tieing in the line in the high flow isn't as easy as it looks. As the week progressed you gain an understanding of why everything must be configured in the suggested manner. Back up lights must be readily accessible, you can't have anything dragging or hanging haphazardly, you leave useless gear at the dock.. Day 4- I'm tired, my legs hurt from using different muscles while improving my frog kicking techniques and then Tamara tells me that I need to do the swim test. 300 yards in less than 12 minutes. I finish in 9 and I'm now looking towards the finish line. We do Devil's ear as dive one and Devil's eye as dive 2. Tamara insists that I run the line into the high flow. We get ourselves into some pretty tight restrictions and as usual Tamara takes the opportunity to complicate matter's ;-). She wants to make sure that you realize that failures don't just happen at opportune times that they very likely could happen at a less than opportune time and that you need to be able to solve the problem, you need to focus on your trim while so doing and you need to keep you head... Trust me Tamara does not let you relax, she keeps you on your toes. Day 5 - we dive Telford. Our plan is to do 2 dives here and Tamara makes it clear that you don't get a GUR C-card unless you can get yourself out of every situation. So I'm preparing for the worst in my mind. It is your obligation to plan this last day from soup to nuts. And it's also your obligation to survive all roadblocks that somehow miraculously pop up. I won't give away Tamara secrets for this dive but needless to say Mr. Murphy decided to be my dive buddy on these dives. We manage to survive Mr. Murphy's attempts and live to see the final exam. The final isn't one of these easy multiple choice tests. You really needed to pay attention in class and articulate the material. The test is a combination of multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blanks and computations. I get a 91% and are now congratulated by Stephen Grass and Anthony Rue. Both of whom walked into the room initially and attempted to deliver the bad news that I failed and that I would not be getting my card... Nice try guys.. Granted that High Springs isn't the party capital of the universe but I was able to enjoy a bunch of great evenings with Tamara, Michael Blitch, Rich L., Andrew Glasbrener, Anthony Rue and Stephen Grasso. I did get to meet Jim Greenlee for lunch one afternoon but the strangest thing happened when I got back to the room for the last evening. Taped to my door was a big sign that read DIR SUCKS FOR CAVES. YOU BETTER PLAN ON COMING DOWN FOR LABOR DAY WEEKEND FOR A DIR DEMO. Signed MJB ( the good one ) ;-) So it looks like I'll have to force myself to fly back and straighten out the caver's ;-) I'll see you guys again Labor Day weekend. Later -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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