Little did I know, day 2 was going to be the worst day of the class. I was rather pumped up coming into this day as I had a great first day in the Ballroom at Ginnie Springs. Our plan was to conduct three cave dives in the Devil’s Eye and Ear with a total bottom time around 90 minutes for the day. We met Dan at Extreme Exposure at 8:00 AM and picked up my tanks, then headed to Ginnie.

We started off with a brief lecture about diving in a high flow system. Dan went over how to “read” the flow and places to swim at in order to minimize fighting the flow. We also discussed the pull and glide technique for moving through the cave with high flow. The days were were at Ginnie, the flow was average. Let’s say if that is average, then I’d really hate to see above average or really high.

The plan for the first dive was to enter the cave system at the Ear and head to Keyhole. Dan give me some good pointers about how to run the line and conduct safety stops. For some reason, I wasn’t worried too much, but Dan was going into some great detail. I’d soon learn why I should have focused more.

We swam out to the Ear and it was clear of divers, so we descended. If you have never seen the opening at the Ear, it’s not very big and you don’t have the luxury to descend in the standard horizontal position I’ve grown accustomed to. Instead, we descended in a head first position.

In order to do the primary tie off, I was in a head down position with my legs spread against the cave wall in order to brace myself to do the tie off. Otherwise, the flow would spit you out before getting your reel unclipped. This was very odd for me. I’m not used to being in a head down, vertical position, let alone doing a tie off in the position, but I made it work.

I was able to get the primary and secondary tie offs set and then did my best to to perform tie offs and wraps till we got to the main line. It was a good thing that Dan took up the rear. Trying to do a pull and glide, hold onto the reel, then do tie offs was extremely challenging in the flow. With Dan in the rear, he was able to correct my screw ups with line placement and tie off such that I didn’t create problems for other divers entering and exiting the system. Good thing he did that. On our exit, Dan pointed out the tie offs that I screwed up so I knew what I did wrong and how to correct it.

Once I got us tied into the main line, Dan took over as the leader and I followed. Little did I know that Dan had a plan to put even more stress on me. Once we were on the main line, Dan took off and headed towards the Lips restriction. He really took off and I found it difficult to keep up with him. Once we got to the Lips, he squeezed through there and waited for me on the other side.

Sitting at the entrance side of the Lips, the flow was just beating the crap out of me. I could feel it vibrating my mask. Dan was on the other side and was signaling me to come through. The Lips was almost as bad as getting into the Ear. It was, as Dan called it, “tits to tanks” type diving. Forget buoyancy control and swimming, we had to pull our way through and I could feel my tanks rubbing against the ceiling with my chest rubbing the floor at the same time. Coming into contact with things is something that makes me very uncomfortable and easily gets me very frustrated.

With visions of getting permanently stuck inside the Lips, I was eventually able to make it through. Once through the restriction, headed up towards the ceiling where the flow wasn’t as bad. I’m always reluctant to swim near the ceiling of anything. As a wreck diver, if we come into contact the the ceiling, it could come down on us. So I ended up swimming lower than Dan did. Of course I paid for it by getting the crap beat out of me by the flow.

We made it to the area called the Keyhole. This was a really cool looking area. The Keyhole looks just like a keyhole in a door. Except it was huge. Very nice to look at. At this point, I thumbed the dive as I was starting to breathe a little faster than normal due to fighting the flow.

You’d think the trip back out would go easier, not really. In Dan’s classes, he doesn’t have you perform skills during the swim into the cave. He waits until the students turn around and are on the exit before conducting failures and skills. We get back to the Lips. At this point, I’m looking forward to getting back through there, but was reassured that the flow was strong enough to push my ass out.

Before we went through the Lips, Dan signaled a lost buddy. This is where the flow can really force you to loose your situational awareness. Knowing that I had to place an arrow on the line to conduct my search, I turn to look for the line and didn’t see it. I was so focused on keeping up with Dan, finding hand holds and fighting the flow that my line awareness went to shit and I didn’t know where it was. Dan was kind enough to spin my dumb ass around and sure enough, there was the main line. The lesson that got reminded of, was to never lose awareness of the line.

Once I got on the line, I placed my line arrow on it (in the right direction even), tied off my spool to the arrow and started off looking for my buddy. After a short search, Dan cut the drill and we returned back to the main line. While I was removing my spool off the line, Dan kills my primary light and covers up his primary light. I quickly deployed my backup light and stow my spool in my dry suit pocket. However, in my rush, I left my line arrow on the main line. So, if you see a yellow line arrow with Precision Diving on it, feel free to remove it. At least it was pointing the right way.

More about dives two and three in a bit.

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.

We arrived at EE to meet up with Dan, then headed over to Ginnie Springs. The plan for day one was to do some open water and cavern work at the Ballroom at Ginnie Springs. Once we got there, I setup my rig and we went over it. Dan also teaches and dives a Hogarthian rig, so our setup was similar. We reviewed pocket contents and briefly reviewed the benefits of standardization for team diving.

The equipment discussion went pretty quickly as expected. We then did some brief lecture where Dan talked about the differences between the NACD and NSS-CDS, the different types of caves and hydrology. The thing I learned most about this part of the lecture was how the Florida caves were formed and differed from the Mexican caves. Pretty cool stuff.

After a couple hours of lecture, we decided it was time to tie up some trees and go over land drills. Doing tie offs and wraps wasn’t anything new to me, so we spent a bit of time covering line arrows and non-directional markers (cookies). Things we covered the most were how to recognize areas where jumps can be done (i.e. with the two line arrows). At the basic cave level, performing jumps is forbidden. However, it is important to know how to recognize this. Dan covered quite a bit of information about stuff like this.

After tying up some trees and going over arrows and cookie placement, we went into some diving skills while on land. First up was air sharing while on the line. Dan gave me a few new tips that I haven’t done. Like holding on to the long hose while holding onto the line. Dan also stressed having a heightened sense of situational awareness. For example, while on the line, if you feel the line being pulled up, that means you may be getting slightly positive. You then correct it. Same thing when moving side to side. If you feel the line pulling in one direction, swim to straighten it out. I would find this out on day three.

Now it was time to get into the water. We entered the basin and discussed what we would be doing for the next three hours. Dan didn’t have the luxury to see me in the water before putting together this custom class for me. So he really had to take my word that I knew what I was talking about. He wanted to use this time at the Ballroom to make sure I just wasn’t full of shit.

Dan ran line around the perimeter of the basin. Once completed, he wanted to test me with something difficult. As we were standing in about four feet of water, he wanted me to drop down and do a valve drill while hovering, in four feet of water. This wasn’t anything new to me and I banged out the valve drill without hitting the bottom or surface. Upon completion, Dan complemented me “Yeah, you’ve got your shit together.” He noted that not many people he’s had through the course could do that.

Once my “test” was out of the way, Dan wanted to see my propulsion kicks. So I swam around the basin, following the line, while doing many different kicks. After everything went well, we did some no mask work on the line. This is where I got a taste of scraped up hands. Dan had me take my mask off and follow the line. Because it is so important not to lose touch with the line, you really need to take your time and feel around all of the wraps and placements to follow the line. After the no mask work on the line, we did air sharing on the line.

After the open water work was completed, Dan and I ran line through the Ballroom. During this time, Dan showed me the best practices for doing tie offs and placements on rocks. In my shipwreck diving experience, I’ve grown accustom to doing my tie offs and placements on man-made objects. Doing them on slippery rocks is another thing completely. This is where Dan’s knowledge about shipwreck and cave diving really helped me. He was able to show me how to make my tie offs stronger and what to look for on the rock to really hold the line.

Day one went off without a hitch and was very enjoyable. We finished up around 5:00 PM and headed back to EE for some quick video review and to fill the tanks. We decided to meet the next day at 8:00 AM at EE. The next day’s diving would all be in the overhead doing real cave dives. Stay tuned for how day two went, it certainly stretched my stress levels.

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.

My progress towards cave diving has been very slow. As many of you know, I am a diabetic. Overhead diving with diabetes puts people in significant risk. Not just to themselves, but to their team members who may have to provide assistance to safely exit the overhead. My decision to undertake this type of diving was one that I didn’t rush into. As a matter of fact, I thought long and hard about this for a number of years. I’ll get more into how my diabetes went during my cave training at a later date. But, suffice to say, I felt I was ready to take on this very aggressive form of diving.

The first thing I had to do was find a cave instructor. I didn’t want an instructor who would just show me how to do the skills. I wanted my brain to work in addition. I looked at all of the big name cave instructors in the industry, but I’ve had poor classes from people with great reputations in the past. So I didn’t put much stock into reputation. My friend Ed Gabe recommend that I take a look at a Dan Patterson. Dan works for Extreme Exposure and is a team diver for the WKPP. He is well versed in team diving concepts, like myself. With Dan’s extensive experience in diving with the WKPP, he is more than capable of teaching the “thinking diver”. After a few long phone calls with him, I knew that this was the type of instruction I wanted. That being, 1) difficult, 2) critical thinking focus and 3) forcing me to perform at a higher level than what I’m accustomed.

Dan put together a course for me that was centered around my strengths as a diver. Because of this, I was in a class to myself. By doing this, we just needed to focus on the cave specific skills for the class. For example, we didn’t cover buoyancy, trim and propulsion as I already have mastered those skills. This shaved off quite a bit of time of the class and allowed us to spend more time in the overhead. Oh, I should mention the specific classes I was signed up for was cavern and basic cave diver (Intro to Cave in double cylinders).

Since I was in a class by myself, I needed to get from Chicago to Florida. I thought about doing the drive solo, but the idea of driving for 18 hours alone didn’t sound like much fun. My buddies Dan and Samer volunteered to go down with me and share in the driving duties. Both Dan and Samer are already full cave certified. So they would get to do a few fun dives, while I was in my class.

Dan and Samer live in Indianapolis. Our plan was to drive, over night, leaving for Florida on a Wednesday night. We would then drive back home over night on Sunday, so Dan and Samer could get in a partial day of work.

I arrived at Dan’s house about an hour late. Traffic wasn’t the greatest and my wife didn’t let me leave until I did a few more “honey do” things. We quickly loaded up Dan’s trailer with my dive gear and hit the road. We left Indianapolis around 6:30 PM for the 14 hour drive to High Springs, FL.

We arrived in High Springs, FL around 9:00 AM on Thursday. This worked out very well for us. We were able to take in the typical diving tourist stuff, like hit the dive shops. Shortly after lunch, we headed over to Ginnie Springs for some time in the basin and Ballroom cavern. I certainly needed this time in the water as it had been about two months since I was last diving. Hey, that’s what happens when winter arrives in Chicago.

The Ballroom cavern is pretty cool. If you’ve never been to Ginnie Springs, the Ballroom is a place dedicated to open water and cavern only divers. The basin of the Ballroom is about 15 feet deep before the entrance to the cavern. The thing that really gave me the cool feeling was the visibility. Visibility was only limited to how far your lights could go. I rarely get a chance to dive in fresh water with visibility like that. Not to mention the water temps stayed a constant 73F degrees. There is a very thick line anchored across the Ballroom. This permanent line allows for cavern divers to easily find the exit. Located at the bottom of the Ballroom, with a maximum depth around 50 feet, is a welded metal grate. This prevents divers from entering the complex cave system within. The flow coming out of the cave is very strong. Strong enough to blow divers all over the cavern. It reminded me of being on a scooter.

We did two fun dives in and around the Ballroom. Logging about 120 minutes of bottom time. We did a few valve drills, modified s-drills, running line, etc. The first dive, we entered the cavern and swam to the left side. The first thing I noticed was the flow. Moving around the left side of the cavern, I didn’t find much relief from the flow. After peeking into all of the nooks and crannies, we thumbed the dive to play around in the basin.

The second fun dive we entered the cavern on the right and stayed to that side of the cavern. The flow was very minimal on that side. Exploring around the right side, we were able to get right next to the metal grate before getting into the flow. Then let the flow push us toward the exit.

Our first day in High Springs winded down with dinner and grocery shopping. Then back to the hotel to get to bed early to get plenty of rest before my class started the next day.

Enough playing around. The next day it’s time to pull the big girl panties up for class. Stay tuned to read more about each day.

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.

Ice Diving Class, Gone Horribly Wrong It was the winter of 2004. I had just finished up my rescue diver certification and a handful of specialties. Already enrolled in the divemaster program, I thought I would take the ice diving class so I could continue to dive all year round. I had all of about 30 total dives under my belt. Around 20 of them were training dives. Told you I was a reformed card collector!!!!

We met at the dive store and drove to a lake about an hour north of where I lived at the time. Our classroom took place at a fire department’s firehouse as there were some firefighters in the class along with me. Everyone got there and we sat down for our lecture. The lecture consisted of how to cut the hole, signs of hypothermia and a brief mention about different ice types. Lecture lasted all of 30 minutes. No mention of gas management.

We wrap up the lecture and head to the lake. Cutting the hole was easy as a few of the firefighters hanging out with the class were already ice trained. So they had the hole cut by the time we got there. I was a little bummed because I like using chainsaws.

As we start gearing up for the dives, a few of the firefighters get to dive first. They conduct a quick 20 minute dive and get out of the water. All of the firefighters get to go first, but I got to tend a couple lines and acted as a 90% ready diver.

At this point, I should mention that the instructor was not in the water. Major standards violation number one here. Both PADI and SDI require the instructor to be in the water at all times when students are in there. No indirect supervision allowed. My instructor never even got out of his street clothes.

Getting back to the class, now it is my time to get in the water. At the time I was diving Scubapro MK18UL. Those are the aluminum regulators. As soon as I got in the water, the regulator started to free flow. Even after tuning it down a bunch, it just wouldn’t stop free flowing. I never even took a breath off of it. So to allow some of the other students to continue to dive, I got out of the water and the instructor tried working on my regulator. The entire time, two other students were already in the water conducting ice dives without the instructor present. Everybody got to do at least one dive for the course. I get one more shot at getting back into the water after doing some modifications to my regulator. I gear up and get into the hole. I’m alone. The instructor hooks up the line to my harness and says to enjoy my dive. By myself? I ask. Yup, he said. As soon as I get the regulator under the water it starts to free flow again. I come back up. The instructor tells me to just do a few circles under the ice sheet while breathing off of a free flowing regulator. I’m thinking to my self “I’m a divemaster candidate with 30 total dives, I can handle this.” So I did it. That was my one ice dive. It lasted about three minutes and almost drained my tank completely.

After all of the dives were done, we meetup back at the firehouse. The instructor congratulates all of us for a successful class. At this point I’m remembering something I read on PADI’s web site that the class was three dives conducted over two days. When I asked the instructor about the duration, he said it was more of a recommendation. Enter major standard violation number two.

We get back to the dive store to process certifications. He hands me my temporary ice diving c-card. I asked “But I didn’t get any dives in.” His response, “That’s OK. I’m not going to be running another ice diving class this winter. So I couldn’t get you done anyway.” Here’s major standards violation number three. So I ask, “Shouldn’t I get a refund or something.” Response, “I don’t give refunds.”

So to put this in a nutshell for everyone out there. My ice diving class was conducted in only one day, no instructor was present in the water with students, and I was still certified after conduction zero ice dives. All three of those are major standards violations.

If you are thinking about taking an ice diving class, do your homework first. Even if you never plan on doing any ice dives again, you should still get a safe class.

]]> http://precisiondiving.net/blog/ice-diving-course-report-the-horror-story/feed/ 6 http://precisiondiving.net/blog/bouyancy-class-for-stars/ http://precisiondiving.net/blog/bouyancy-class-for-stars/#comments Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:02:08 +0000 Duane Johnson http://precisiondiving.net/blog/?p=789 Read More]]>

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.

Participants in the buoyancy course were: Amy, Doug, Ron, and Drew. All four were from Indianapolis with Amy and Doug coming all the way from Ft. Wayne, IN and spent a couple of days diving at Haigh Quarry after the class.

Amy, Doug, Rod, and Drew after a successful buoyancy class

The class started talking about the STARS mission and how I became associated with the organization. All of the students were surprised at how scuba diving could be used to change the lives of the STARS participants.

After discussing STARS for about an hour we moved into the lecture portion of the class. Here we talked about propulsion techniques. During this portion of the class we discussed the flutter and frog kicks and their pros and cons. All students were surprised to hear that the flutter kick is the most inefficient kick in scuba diving. The discussions moved a little off-topic as we talked about carbon dioxide retention. However, this enabled the discussion to move towards how to establish proper breathing patterns to maintain buoyancy and remove the carbon dioxide build up.

In addition to propulsion techniques and breathing patterns, we discussed equipment considerations and how equipment can greatly influence a diver’s buoyancy. We spent quite a bit of time discussing how to create a balanced rig. That is, how a diver can create a balance between the negative equipment a diver carries and the things that are positively buoyant. This allows a diver to be able to swim up, from depth, if their BCD were to fail.

In the water, we focused on hovering, practicing the frog kick, correct breathing patterns and trying to remain in good horizontal trim at all times. We utilized the buoyancy course at Haigh Quarry to practice moving up and down in the water column just by using breath control instead of swimming. We conducted three dives during the course of the day. All dives were video taped and reviewed to show areas of good diving form as well as areas for improvement. This was very useful for the students.

By the end of the class, all divers were able to hover at 10 feet with no air in their BCDs and near empty tanks. All students were able to remove weight off their weight belts. Two of the students were able to take 10+ pounds off their weight systems to be able to dive more safely and comfortably. One student said that she learned more in one day with this class than she had in her year as a certified diver. Everyone had a great time and looked forward to utilizing their new buoyancy skills.

Dive Safe,
Duane Johnson
Precision Diving

Technorati Tags: frog kick, flutter kick, buoyancy, balanced rig, BCD, Haigh Quarry

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