Course Report: Basic Cave Diving Class – Day 2

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.