CAVE COURSE REVIEW BY JOHN BAILEY, part 1

This is a review of last year cave course Adam K. did with John Bailey.
John did great job during his Cave course, due to his skills, positive attitude but also for sure the fact that he arrived ready with his equipment and basic skills squared away, so we could do a first day to check and introduction followed by the start of the cave program.
We believe GUE fundamental helped him very much to get the basics sorted out, now we teach through UTD and we recommend UTD Essentials of Overhead prior taking a cave course.
The review is based on the NSS CDS program we did last year (2009), thanks John for sharing it!!!

Cave Course Review – Cave Heaven, Dec. 22-29, 2009

I’ll start by saying that this was without a doubt the most enjoyable course I’ve taken to date. I’m sure this was in no small part due to Adam Korytko’s calm manner in addressing my deficits but I also completely enjoyed the cave environment and believe that the amount of diving I did in 2009 and previous courses, particularly GUE Fundamentals greatly assisted by building good basic skills.

In February 2009, our family booked a 10 day vacation in Mexico for the end of the year and once that was done, I began to investigate what I could do. It seemed a waste to be in Puerto Aventuras and not take advantage of some of the opportunities for diving that were available. Everyone in my family dives, but I was the only one with an interest in a cave course.

Forums and emails/pms to people I knew in real life or on the net assisted in finding some prospective instructors. I searched on the net, narrowed it down and began emailing instructors. From email responses, I narrowed things further and began calling instructors.

I was impressed from the start with Cave Heaven. They responded quickly to emails and answered questions readily. It was clear that they were not giving a generic response and in turn had questions of my diving experiences etc. While the training was to take place in Mexico, they also had experience in Florida and I thought this would provide insight into the differences in both types of caves. Within a few of weeks of starting my search, a deposit was on the way and I was booked for the cavern to cave course (minimum of 7 days) starting on December 22. We kept in touch during the long wait to travel and finally, we were on our way to Mexico.

After arrival, I called Adam and made arrangements to begin the next day. He picked me up at our condo and we were off to fill out forms, personalize arrows and markers, check equipment and get the preliminary routine stuff out of the way. This first day was filled with skills and drills (air shares, valve drills, propulsion techniques, line drills, no vis drills including air shares and following the line) in the Ponderosa System, Garden of Eden. What a beautiful cenote! Everything was in open water the first day and I could only wonder what awaited me the next day. I was diving dry for the course and it was a pleasure to be in such light undergarments – water temp was consistently 77F. Adam’s valve drill was different from the one I had learned and this did cause me some difficulty later.

Next day (Dec. 23) was my first cavern dive at Garden of Eden. I think this was the day that I realized that I had punctured my wing when I packed it in the crate the day before. Adam had another one and we dropped mine off at Zero Gravity for repair in the afternoon. Zero Gravity provided another wing until mine was repaired. Every dive started with bubble check, equipment matching, dive planning and S drills. I know I was slow at this at first (it felt like it took forever, but this did go quicker as the course continued). Adam led and I was quickly hooked! I found it relaxing and beautiful. Adam simulated primary failure on the exit and we re-ordered. Note taking and valve drill completed every dive while at our stop. I thought the view when you see the daylight as you exit was spectacular.

The next dive (my 100th of 2009) was to be my first cave dive! I led, we were diving 1/6s and not surprisingly, I turned the dive on gas! This was a common theme, I need to get my air consumption rate down… Failures on the exit were my primary light and an out of air drill. I noted that I had some issues with buoyancy at the end of the dive. My first experience with a reel was less than successful. I managed to jam it up fairly well. I noted that the halocline was really nice to look at but was quite effective at making the line difficult to see. Another dive followed in the same cave. More failures on the exit and I noted that I mucked up the valve drill as well as jammed the reel again (but not as bad). Hmmm. Some work was needed!

....to be continued....