Course Report: Basic Cave Diving Class – Day 1

When we arrived in High Springs, we stopped by Extreme Exposure during our tourist activities of High Springs. Dan is an instructor and employee for EE and was helping some of the WKPP team members fill tanks for the weekend’s work at Turner Sink. Having never met Dan in person, it was good to put a face to the name and chat for a few minutes. We decided that we would do our lectures at the dive site as the classrooms at EE were full with JJ’s Cave 2 class and a Fundamentals class being taught by Mark Messersmith. Dan decided that the first day would be at Ginnie Springs. We were to meet him at EE at 8:00 AM, then head to the dive site. [Read more...]

Course Report: Basic Cave Diving Class – The Pre-Class Activities

I’ve always been interested in underwater caves. The formations, geology and excitement have keep my interest level high in regards to cave diving. The problem, though, is that there are no caves in the Chicago area. So my ability to dive and get training locally is significant limited. After much thought, I decided it was time to take the plunge and start my training process to become a full cave diver. [Read more...]

Ice Diving Course Report: The Horror Story

Recently, I had written about how ice diving courses have become seriously flawed. You can read about it here. In that post, I promised you a story. This story is about the ice diving class I took to get certified in ice diving. So sit back and enjoy. I don’t think any scuba diving class could get any worse than this. [Read more...]

Bouyancy Class for S.T.A.R.S

On July 5, 2009, I conducted a buoyancy course at Haigh Quarry in Kankakee, IL. The proceeds from this course were donated to ST.A.R.S. International. S.T.A.R.S is a charity that uses scuba diving to help at-risk youth re-focus and get direction in their lives. [Read more...]