Intro to Cave

Four dives for the day, although each lasted not more than 30 minutes and all were not deep. That was good for me because I was flying the following day and the water was pretty cold. I was shivering in every dive especially during our post-dive critique on the water surface. Also, our crazy dive profile in Sipadan two weeks earlier and my flu one week earlier all told me I should be more conservative this time. So I was cool with our training dive profile.

We had our first two dives in Peacock I again. This time we went further in to the real cave environment. We had a primary light failure drill. After I turned off my primary light, I was supposed to turn on my backup light. Damn, it didn't go on, and I was still using it as my primary light the previous two days! Okay, I guess there's a reason for cave divers to always carry at least three lights! So I turned on my backup backup light and swam back out. A friend of mine who had the same flashlight also had his light flooded. I guess I should advice no one to use the Princeton Tec Torrent. There's probably a design flaw in this model. There goes my new light with less than 10 dives. :( We did some more line work, out of air drill, and valve drill and we were back in the dive shop for lunch.

Mike kept complimenting me, saying I had good buoyancy, excellent air mangement, good frog kicks, good line work, etc. I didn't feel worthy of his compliments at all. I wish he was more critical, actually. In fact, before I went into his classes, I read on the forums that he's very critical! I was expecting a lot of harsh criticism and I got none! I'm used to having overly critical diving instructors. I guess people who go into Cavern and Intro to Cave are really very inexperienced divers who still had problems with their buoyancy so Mike was very impressed by me, especially the gear I brought along with me, something in no way resembled an open water diver's gear, and the fact that I had already been working on my trimming and frog kicks. But having trained with my other friends, I knew I still had a long, long way. I haven't even got my hands on twin tanks yet! And of course, Mike's buoyancy and control were incredible, something even my friends would have a long, long journey to catch up on.

So, after lunch, we went to the Cow Springs, a private site owned by the NSS-CDS. It was a pristine site with no other divers. It's a very mild siphon, where water was flowing out of the cave rather than into. Cavern divers are forbidden to dive siphons because they required different air management rules. Since coming out would require more air than going in, we'd have to reserve more than 2/3 of our air.

We did some more line work, a lost-buddy drill, a lost-line drill, and an out-of-air plus lights-off (no visibility) drill. We almost had an added silt-out drill when the silt I stirred up caught up on us downstream after we turned around. :P I had no idea how that silt was sitrred up since I was pretty sure I had my feet up all the time, but Mike said it probably came from my belt or the cord on my canister light because they were hanging low on the bottom. Ahh, now I see the added importance of streamlining my gear. We then went back up through the vertical fissure. I always had trouble maintaining my trip when ascending a vertical fissure. Whenever I looked up, I lost my trim and I started to ascend quickly and I couldn't release air through the valve on my back quickly enough and I became vertical -- it was just always a mess. Going down, however, was fun and stressed me out slightly. Before we were up on the surface, we did another valve drill. I was starting to get very comfortable with out of air situations. I used to be really scared of it back when I had my Rescue training. The only thing I have to work on now is a mask-off situation. I still can't remain calm during the first 30 seconds.

So that was the end of my three-day training. I had a lot of fun with the drills. I know I'll be back for Full Cave. Mike was a good, very skillful, and very experienced cave instructor. I just wish he was more critical with me. I can now proudly pronounce that I'm an Intro to Cave diver. I'm more than just an open water, recreational diver. :) This is, of course, only for my ego's sake. There's still a lot more training ahead of me. My friends who haven't been to a cave yet have much better skills than I do.

For above-water photos of the trip, click here.