A lot of you have been asking about how my class went, or perhaps you just wandered here by accident. In any case, here are all the details you wanted - and then some. This is a long story. If you don't have the stamina to read the whole thing, check back in a few days -- I will probably post an abbreviated version of it on the Stingray web site, in which case I will provide the URL here. In addition, I may be adding comments from Steve and Tony. I may be adding some other information in the near future, too. New stuff will be added with the date to the Table of Contents below so you can find it easily -- obviously I expect you to visit again!
The table of contents here is just for fun -- you're supposed to read this in order.
This page was last updated on 12/08/04.
Ginnie Cavern
Ginnie Cavern, revisited
The Ear
Peacock I
Little River
Orange Grove Sink
Telford
Little River, revisited
Introduction
A couple of weeks after returning from Florida, I noticed a posting on the cavers list requesting advice about what agency to get a cave diving certification from. There was a reply from someone who taken the GUE class the week after we finished. Two of the guys from the class posted reports of their experiences. We found our experiences comparable in many ways. These two reports are shorter and less detailed than mine, but capture some essential things that I have left out. And one of them includes some pictures. So check out: Jeff's report and Roger's report.
In June, 2001, Seth Johnstone posted his report of days 1 and 2.
Saturday, March 13th, 1999
Tony and I arrived in the tiny whistle-stop town of High Springs, Florida after an uneventful sixteen hour drive from New York City. We checked into the High Springs Country Inn and took a short nap (boy, were we tired). Then we drove over to Ginnie Springs and got a visitor's pass to go down and check it out. The water looked very inviting, but we were really too tired to consider diving that day. After that, we had dinner for the first of many times at the Great Outdoors, a great restaurant where anyone can find something good to eat.
Sunday, March 14th
Ginnie Cavern
It rained all morning, and quite frankly, neither of us was too psyched to go diving in the rain. And we were still tired. When we finally got to Ginnie Springs, the rain stopped, the sun came out and it turned out to be a very nice day. As Open Water divers, we had two options -- we could go to Devil's Ear, but only without lights, or we could go to Ginnie Cavern. Since our lights are an important part of our equipment, we decided to go to Ginnie Cavern. And we were pretty sure we'd get to see Devil's Ear during our class. Our goal in going diving before class started was mainly just to get used to being in the water again. Neither of us had been diving since our vacation in Mexico in December (see http://www.stingraydivers.com/whatsnew.html) and we hadn't been diving in our regular gear since the end of October. In addition, both of us had two new regulators to get used to (Oceanic Delta II's), new fins (I got spring straps on mine) and Tony had a new set of Pressed Steel 104's.
A number of our cave-certified friends, ever eager to give us advice, had told us that one of the difficult things we would have to do in class would involve tying off the end of our reel in high flow. We entered Ginnie Cavern, which is a huge, open room, and swam all the way to the back, where there is a grate installed at the entrance to the cave system. (This is designed to prevent open water divers from entering the cave system and getting themselves into situations they aren't prepared to handle.) Water was coming through the grate at a pretty good rate, so we practiced tying off nearby and running the reel around in the cavern. We had a great new reel from Extreme Exposure that we practiced with -- the handle is on the side instead of the top, and that, along with its extremely smooth action, took a little getting used to.
After so long out of the water, my buoyancy was pretty messed up, so I worked on that while Tony concentrated on turning on and off his valves -- they seemed harder to reach on the 104's than on the 95's he'd been using all last year. We also did some S-drills (practiced air sharing) and I played around with my valves a little, too. But despite all the work we had to do, neither of us failed to notice how clear and crisply clean the water was. Somehow all the videos, photos and reports from friends of the beauty of the water didn't quite prepare me for how fabulous it actually was. At one point, Tony and I were inside the cavern, and we looked out to see the most intense bright blue I think I have ever seen. The view was enchanting, I think I could've stayed there for an hour. In any case, that image will be fixed in my mind for quite some time.
No need to wash our gear afterwards -- we were diving in spring water! How cool is that?
Ginnie Springs has a lot of nice amenities, too. There was no shortage of parking by the generous supply of picnic tables on which to set up gear, there were a couple of nice wooden staircases (complete with sturdy hand rails) for entering and exiting the water, and changing rooms with showers and bathrooms. (Although the changing rooms were large, clean and well-kept, they didn't compare to those at Dutch Springs -- not that I'm complaining.) The dive shop at the entrance had about every piece of equipment you could possibly imagine, from emergency items and accessories to BCs, wings, wet suits and so on. It looked like they also had a pretty complete selection of rental gear. All well-worth the $24 admission fee, IMHO.
Monday, March 15th
Our first official day of class. It was quite cold (probably in the 40's), but luckily we spent most of the day in a classroom above the Ginnie Springs dive shop. Here we met our classmates -- a fellow Northeast wreck diver from Pennsylvania named Steve and three German guys -- Fin, Hermann and Matis. (All probably spelled wrong, sorry.) We also met Ted Cole, who was the co-instructor of the class (GUE has a 3-1 student-instructor ratio). Quite honestly, I had mixed feelings about this. I signed up for this class for the opportunity to get the [mostly] undivided attention of Jarrod Jablonski himself. But Ted turned out to be a very able instructor. His style was very different from Jarrod's. On a couple of occasions, he spent more time critiquing us than we had spent underwater! The class was divided up into two groups for the diving sessions, the Germans in one group, and the Northeast wreck divers in the other. More on this later.
Jarrod gave all of the formal lectures in class. Our first morning covered a great variety of interesting subjects. At the end of the lecture, he handed us near-final drafts of the GUE Cave 1 manual.
After a lunch break, we all set up our gear on picnic tables behind the dive shop. The Germans apparently needed quite a bit of attention for their gear. Since we were busy with our own stuff, I didn't find out too much of what happened, but I know that at least one of them showed up with a silly stroke BC, and quick-releases and other problems abounded on all their equipment. I did learn a couple of interesting things by observation of their equipment. Among them were a few of the same Barry Miller Scout backup lights that Tony and I have. For those of you that are unfamiliar with these lights, they are 3 c-cell lights machined from Delrin. They are perfectly round, and quite honestly, very slippery. This is not a problem when holding the light with your bare hands, but I was concerned that when using them at home, I just might drop it. The Germans had put two sections of bicycle inner tube approximately 1" wide on the light handle. I didn't ask them about it, but I am sure it improved their traction on the light with gloves on it. So this is one change I plan to make for Northeast use. Another thing they did was use shrink-wrap electrical tape stuff to harness their mask straps. I used duct tape. The shrink-wrap stuff had a much neater appearance and probably lasts longer.
At our picnic table, Ted spent some time examining our stuff. I had been looking forward to this, since Tony and I had done about all the research we could with cave-certified friends and on the web to get our gear just right, but I was sure that there were some small changes that would need to be made. It was evident that Steve had also done quite a bit of research, but perhaps not quite as much as we did. We watched with interest while Ted discussed proposed modifications to Steve's gear. Ted talked about where he puts D-rings on his harness, and we were all shocked to discover that he uses more than three! He said that when your average dive involves schlepping (no he did not use that word) lots of stage tanks into caves, your D-ring configuration may differ than that proposed by George Irvine. He has one d-ring on his right shoulder and two on his left -- one all the way up by his clavicle and one lower down. He uses the upper one to clip stage bottles and the lower one to clip off a backup light and perhaps some other small items. Behind his light on the right hand side he has another D-ring and on the left, he has two -- one further forward for attaching the stage tanks and one further back for "standard" stuff like the pressure gauge, reel and so on. Based on this, I am considering adding another D-ring behind my light, since here at home I often have a lot of things clipped to the left d-ring and another hip d-ring could make life a little easier.
Ted also suggested the use of tank neck o-rings to hold the backup lights instead of bicycle inner tube sections. Based on this, Tony and I purchased some tank neck o-rings late that afternoon, but found them to be a little too small and not quite stretchy enough. I guess we need a different kind.
Ted felt that Tony and I had our gear set up correctly, but my spring straps caught his attention and he showed them to JJ and exclaimed over them. He said that he personally preferred adjustable straps, but he really like the design of my spring straps. For those of you who are interested, I got my spring straps from Jackie Smith, whose email address is mixdiver@InfoAve.Net. He charged me $40 plus shipping. The springs are sized based on the fins I'm using (ScubaPro Jet Fins, size Large) and the kind of dry suit feet I have. The spring part of the strap is mostly covered with a somewhat stiff piece of clear material that might be something like a fuel hose. The springs themselves (and the cord within) are attached to a round metal piece which has thin rectangular metal bars coming out of it that attach where the regular strap was. The end result is not very similar to the Spring Straps described by David Dalton Sr. and David Dalton Jr. at http://www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/fins/sprstrps.htm. (More information on the Original Oceanic Spring Straps and another description of how to make your own can be found at http://www.fifthd.com/gear/fins.html. More information about where and how Tony and I did gear configuration research on the Internet will be posted on my main scuba page eventually.
Jarrod also looked over our gear briefly. With a grin and a wink, he asked Ted if he needed a mallet to help Steve remove the boots from his tanks. He looked at the connection I had made from my pressure gauge to its clip using an o-ring and tie wrap and recommended I change it to cave line.
After we packed all our gear back up, we went to a little wooded area across from the shop and practiced running reels, following lines using touch contact, using line arrows and safety spools. All of that went smoothly and was not particularly challenging.
Before class started, I was worried that it would all be too difficult for me, that I would not pass the skills or the academics and that I had done something stupid with my gear that would make me the laughing stock of all Florida. But after this day, I felt more confident. Most of what Jarrod discussed during the lecture was review to me. I had read both NACD's _Art Of Safe Cave Diving_, the NSS' _Cave Diving Manual_ and Sheck Exley's _Blueprint for Survival_. I run a line on more than half the dives I do at home, so using the reel was not a challenge, touch contact on land was easy, and the safety spool was not exactly a bizarre concept. And my gear turned out to be nearly perfect. So I started feeling a lot more confident. I kept remembering the encouragement my cave-certified friends had given me before I left and thought that I would probably pass, and maybe I would even pass "with flying colors.".
We decided to go to Gainesville for dinner for a change of pace. We got directions from Jarrod to a vegan restaurant he likes called The Dream Zone, but the drive was much longer than we expected and we got there only ten minutes before closing time (8 pm). So we ate at Semolina instead. Every other night, we ate at The Great Outdoors. I cannot recommend the food there enough -- I could have gladly eaten there every day for a month (though it was a little expensive).
Tuesday, March 16th
Ginnie Cavern
We met again at Ginnie Springs at 9:00 am. After filling our tanks (Everybody was diving with doubles. I had my lp OMS 85's with me; Tony had his new lp Pressed Steel 104's; Steve had hp Genesis 120's and the Germans had all rented lp Pressed Steel 95's.), we headed down to Ginnie Cavern and set up our gear. We all got in the water and were given a few minutes to mess around in the basin, since nobody but Tony and I had dived here before, and everyone but us had some pretty radical gear changes to get used to.
After this, we all followed JJ and Ted into the cavern where they demonstrated different finning techniques and then each of us got to try it. With two of the world's top cave divers watching me, I was very nervous and found my buoyancy, finning technique, trim and just about everything else to be lacking, but nobody said anything about it. After this, we split up into two groups. Jarrod worked with the Germans while Ted worked the Northeast wreck divers. The first thing we did was practice running the reel into the cavern and tying it off (we didn't bring it all the way to the grate, just inside the overhead. Each of us got to take a turn running the reel, following the reeler to help with placements and assist with lighting, and being third -- which meant learning how to stay out of the way.
Ted had a few helpful suggestions about line placement, selection of tie-off points and how to assist the "reel person" (Jarrod caught himself a few times saying "reel man" -- as if I cared), but overall, we did well at this exercise, so I was still feeling pretty upbeat about the class and how well I anticipated doing.
A few times, Ted confused Tony with Steve (Jarrod also did this later on) because they both had the same color dry suit. It was strange, being in the water with all these people wearing nearly identical gear. In my normal diving here in the Northeast, people have every manner and assortment of gear and it is very easy to tell people apart from a distance based on the configuration and color of their gear. Ted and the Germans all had the same mask as I did (the Poseidon Technica, although Ted's was a Cressi, it's actually the exact mask with a different logo) and Tony and Jarrod also had the same mask. The only person whose mask skirt wasn't black was Steve -- he had a clear mask skirt with a blue frame. In addition, everyone was using an Extreme Exposure light except for me (I had my Dive Rite MLS with a new H1 mini head) and Steve had a small AUL light. I know that the Extreme Exposure light is a superior light to the AUL, but I think the red-white-and-blue battery in the clear canister looks really slick. Everyone had the same style fins (though I think I was the only one with Spring Straps) -- and I've always relied on fins as a way to identify Tony when I'm behind him under water. And since JJ, Ted and the Germans all had double 95's, nobody had boots on their tanks and Tony had new tanks (so they were shinier than his old 95's), identifying Tony by the tanks (which is how I am used to identifying him from a distance) didn't work too well either!
After we finished practicing with the reel, we practiced line following. We were split up into groups of two. Tony and I stayed with Ted and Steve went to Jarrod and the Germans. First, we practiced following a line with our masks off and eyes shut. Before this, I never realized how much my sight has to do with my buoyancy! My buoyancy was a mess and I pulled the line off of six different placements due to general clumsiness. When I pulled it off, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do about it, so I just kept going, figuring somebody would stop me if I did something wrong. The line we were following started in about 8-10 feet of water on one side of the basin, ran under the cavern entrance (to a maximum depth of 19 feet), up the other side of the basin and a ways into the shallow water on the other side (2-4 feet deep). I also discovered that while my buoyancy may be okay at depth, it really sucks at a depth of four feet! Ted wasn't too pleased with my performance, to say the least. Basically, I completely flunked this exercise. I was hoping I would get to repeat it so that I could try to do better, but I wasn't given the opportunity (then again, I didn't ask).
The next exercise we did was to follow the line in pairs (first Tony led, then I led) using touch contact with our masks on but eyes closed. Having remembered what I did wrong the first time, I was much more careful the second time. I did a little better, but Ted had quite a bit of criticism about my buoyancy, and basically I felt like I failed that one, too.
The Ear
After a short break, we packed up our cars and drove to Devil's Ear. (Devil's Ear is also at Ginnie Springs, but the entrance is a short distance from the basin -- you could walk it, but it's a little far with doubles on your back -- especially with parking by the entrance to the Ear.
Steve rejoined our group. Here, Tony was to run the reel with Steve following and me bringing up the rear. Ted was diving with us again. I had heard from a number of people about the flow at Devil's Ear, but I didn't realize it would be so much stronger than it had been in Ginnie cavern. I knew that I would have to pull myself in on the rocks going down, but I didn't think it would be any big deal. As we began to drop into the entrance, I immediately realized that the flow was stronger than I anticipated, but it still didn't seem like any big deal. Suddenly, right where the entrance gets smaller, I found myself unable to move forward. Despite pulling with all my strength, I was unable to budge (although staying in the same place didn't seem like a big effort, it also seemed pointless). I felt someone pushing me down from above (it was Ted), who I knew was trying to help, but it didn't seem to be doing any good and gave me a feeling of -- well, it's hard to explain. I didn't really feel claustrophobic, but I did have an irresistible urge to struggle against him, which I did. After two or three tries, he gave up and I let myself rise a few feet out into the part where the flow wasn't as strong and helplessly watched Tony and Steve working with the reel below me. I felt completely done for and figured that I would be kicked out of the class and would just get on a plane and fly home, and let Tony finish the class by himself.
Tony and Steve exited shortly thereafter (though it felt to me like about a half hour) and we joined Ted on the surface to discuss our performance -- or lack thereof. Ted had an extensive critique regarding their performance with the reel, though I honestly don't remember what he said was wrong with it. He told me that the reason I couldn't get into the cave was because I wasn't parallel to the floor, I was presenting the whole front of my body to the flow which gave it a big surface area to push on and that's why I couldn't get into the cave. (I was diligently trying to be horizontal in relation to an imagined flat floor, though I don't know if I was succeeding at that either.) Although his suggestion seemed to make sense, it seemed obvious to me that he probably thought I was stupid and completely inept. I also thought that even if I approached it as he suggested, I still wouldn't be able to get in -- that I was just too weak and stupid to make it, and that perhaps it wasn't even worth the bother.
On the second try, diligently staying parallel to the floor, holding, pulling and kicking with all my might, I finally made it to the bottom (once again following Tony and Steve), at a depth of about 50 or 60 feet. Here, the cave immediately turns left, and there, although the flow was very strong, it immediately got a lot easier and I felt better. Here we saw the sign that says something like "Stop - Prevent Your Death!" I noticed that the "P" was missing from Stop, and my first thought was that someone had stolen it! (For those of you who don't get how silly this is, the letters are painted onto the sign, not affixed individually.) I had some time to look at this sign as Tony and Steve busied themselves with wrapping the line on our primary reel around the main line and clipping the primary off. As we passed the sign, I was very excited -- maybe not far, but I was actually inside an underwater cave! No mere cavern! We swam along the ceiling (where the flow was lower) of the large passage for a short distance, turned a corner and then either Tony or Steve called the dive. (No, we never made it as far as The Lips.) I tried to remain relaxed, keep my trim correct and enjoy the view, but I was so excited, I hardly remember much of what I saw. (Kinda ironic, don't you think?) We exited without much fanfare and discussed the dive on the surface with Ted. I was still pretty excited, but Ted didn't think too much of our performance in there. I can't remember exactly what he thought was wrong, but I think it was just about everything. After that, we spent quite some time doing S-drills in very shallow water before we finally called it a day.
Wednesday, March 17th
Peacock I
After meeting at Ginnie Springs and getting air fills, we drove to Peacock, which is a state-owned park with an admission fee of $5. Here, too, there were picnic tables on which to set up, but no changing rooms. (Though there was an interesting little solar powered eco-toilet of some kind that had a little sign in it explaining how it worked and asking you to please close the lid when you were done. What I liked about it was that it was clean and not at all smelly.) Here, again, was a nice wooden staircase for entering the water.
The three of us entered Peacock I shortly before Jarrod and spent fifteen minutes doing S-drills. Jarrod briefed us on the dive, describing the entrance and the cave. He told us that there was another exit straight back from the direction we would be going called Pothole sink, but that we would exit where we had came in. We entered through a big crack directly under the staircase, and wend straight down to a depth of about 65 feet, went a few feet further back and tied the line off just past the Stop sign. This was a very different cave than Devil's Ear -- there was almost no flow. At the beginning, the bottom was rock and very coarse sand, but just after we tied off the line, the depth decreased about ten feet, and the bottom was covered with what looked like very deep silt. We were all very worried about kicking up silt, and I bumped into the ceiling a bunch of times, diligently checking my left post valve each time (it rolled quite a bit some of the times). The vertical clearance in this cave was less than that in the beginning of Devil's ear, but it was still quite large. The cave was very wide, and there were many enticing side tunnels all over the place. Feeling more relaxed, I spent a bit of time looking around and enjoying the view.
When we got about 400 feet back, we turned the dive, and then JJ had us do lost diver drills. First he separated each of us along the line by about 20 feet. Next, we were to stop and stabilize and look for the imaginary lost diver with our lights, then look for the lost diver's light by covering our own, then attach our line arrow to the main line and wait for Jarrod's signal to attach our safety reel and swim off the line to look for the lost diver. After I attached my line arrow, I waited patiently for Jarrod's return, and just as he was coming back, I realized my line arrow was pointing in the wrong direction -- INTO the cave, so I removed it and fixed it, feeling like a real dunce. Attaching my safety spool, reeling it out to look around, then rewinding it, removing it and finally removing the line arrow all went without a hitch, and I was feeling much better about everything. I found Tony here and we waited together for Jarrod to finish with Steve.
Jarrod and Steve returned a minute or so later, and it was Tony's job to lead us out of the cave, since he had been third going in (Steve had run the reel, and I was second). Tony was just a few feet closer to the exit than I was, and Steve was about 10 feet behind me. So I waited for Tony to start going, when he went to the back of the line. I can't remember exactly what happened after that, but somehow I ended up between Tony and Steve. To complicate matters, everyone's primary light had mysteriously :) gone out at around the same time, and we all deployed our backup lights. It was harder to enjoy the beauty of the cave with the dimmer lights, but other than that, it didn't seem to be a problem -- I could still see Tony, Steve, the main line, floor, ceiling and walls closest to me quite clearly. Then Tony started swimming further into the cave. I signalled with my light, trying to give an "attention" signal that seemed important but not panicky. Tony turned around and looked so I motioned to him to come towards me, but he turned around and continued in the same direction. I swam a little closer to him and tried again, with the same result. So I swam over to Steve, pointed to Tony and made the "crazy" signal. Steve seemed to agree and started swimming towards Tony (now I was at the back of the line), but didn't do anything. At this point, I figured that this must be some kind of drill that everybody was in on except me. And Jarrod wasn't doing anything about it.
I wasn't really sure what to do. I had plenty of air left -- since we had turned on sixths -- so I wasn't really worried about running out. I thought about turning around and exiting by myself, but that didn't seem like a good idea. So I just followed Tony and Steve. The cave continued along, and continued to have a similar look to what it had coming in, with a few gradual slopes up and down, gentle curves and some enticing looking side passages. We came to a sharp dip, and I looked up and saw a gap reel attached to the main line, which seemed to be ending. At this point, Jarrod finally turned us around, and we exited the way we had come in, with Tony leading. As we were exiting, I noticed a one or two line arrows pointing further in to the cave, then near where we had done the lost diver drill, there were two line arrows together, one pointing in and the other pointing out. I realized immediately that this must be the halfway point between our entrance and Pothole. After this point, there were a couple more line arrows, all pointing out of course.
When we surfaced to discuss the dive, Jarrod naturally had quite a bit to say about it. Steve and I, he said, had not been aggressive enough in signalling Tony that he was going the wrong way. He pointed out a "herd" mentality in following the lead guy even though we knew he was wrong. Tony said he had gotten turned around, saw the arrows pointing in and thought that was the exit. Since my "attention" signal wasn't very assertive, he thought I was giving him an okay. When we came to the dip by Pothole, he thought that was the dip we had seen going in. JJ said the gap reel we had seen was leading off into some side passage, and that's why he turned us around. -- Somehow, at Pothole, we had all failed to realize that there was an exit above us!
We got out of the water for a while to have lunch and outgas. Then we got back in and did some S-drills. Jarrod briefed us on the next dive and said we'd have a chance to redeem ourselves after the big goof of the first dive. We would again go in under the stairs, but instead of dropping down through the crack, we would turn left. I was to run the reel with Tony following and Steve at the end of the line. We swam in quite a ways before we came to the Stop sign and the main line. I kept thinking I was going the wrong way. I looked back a number of times to see if everyone else was following me, or if they were signalling me that I had done the wrong thing! This part of the system was very different than the first -- rock surrounded us and there was almost no sediment at all past the Stop sign. The little sediment we did see was coarse sand. We went back through a narrow passage called the peanut tunnel to a big breakdown room where the depth dropped quite a bit. I think we were about 600 feet back. As I started to descend into this enticing room, someone behind me signalled and the dive was called.
Just after we turned around, Jarrod came up to me and signalled me that I was out of air. I spit out my regulator and swam up to Tony (who was in front of me) to grab him on the shoulder and signal him that I was out of air. (After the dive, JJ pointed out that I should have (or could have) signalled him with my light, but by this time, I was so used to doing S-drills outside the cave where this would do no good that I had forgotten that I could do that!) After I got Tony's regulator and established my position in front of us, all our lights went out, and we closed our eyes exited to our reel using touch contact. Although it took a very long time, much to my surprise it wasn't scary at all, and I thought it went well. It was a big boost to my confidence.
A few times on the way out, I forgot to keep my eyes shut and opened them to total blackness. Out of instinct, perhaps, I tried squinting, then opening my eyes wider, but could still see nothing. Then I'd see a bit of light from JJ's dim backup light and realize I was supposed to keep my eyes shut.
In the review after the dive, JJ pointed out that I had been holding on to Steve's leg and Tony was holding on to my leg, instead of us holding the arm of the diver in front of us, and that had greatly slowed our progress. Although we out started holding arms, we quickly came to a place where it was too narrow to do this and continued the rest of the way out. I kept assuming that if there was more room, Tony would move up to my arm, so I never took the initiative to see if there was room above me -- the herd mentality again. (Maybe I was a horse in a past life...)
Nonetheless, I was really happy that we had completed the dive with no problems and that it was not as hard or scary as I had expected -- I thought it was actually kinda fun! JJ referred to the dive a few times as our "resurrection dive," which we all found entertaining.
Thursday, March 18th
Little River
This remains my favorite dive site of all. I'm not sure I can say why, but it was somehow more beautiful to me than any of the other caves I'd seen. My only objection to it is that there are no picnic tables on which to set up your equipment and no bathrooms. It has a great and sturdy staircase down to the water, though, which is a good thing -- it's at least two stories down, maybe more!
After yet more S-drills, we dived again with Ted. This was a high-flow cave, but the flow was not as strong as it was at Devil's ear. The entrance to the main line was fairly easy. After that, the flow was stronger, and I had to pull myself along the right wall. It suddenly eased up where the sand bottom ended and turned to bare rock which was smooth but had interesting shaped bumps in it of a sort of regular size. Here the vertical clearance was very small, but after a few feet, it got a lot bigger and we found ourselves in a sort of round tunnel with small openings on each side that looked like they might lead to other rooms. At the end of this, there was a drop-off to about 100 feet where the tunnel turns around and goes back in the other direction (called the Underpass), but the dive was called as we entered it.
When we turned the dive, everyone's light went off, and we switched to our backup lights. At this point I was the lead diver. Then Tony and Steve's backup lights went out, and I made the mistake of remaining in front of them. At the exit, I figured that although Tony had run the reel, I should remove it, since I was the only diver with a working light. Steve assisted me, and we began to exit the cave without Tony (who, for some reason I thought had already passed us). Steve realized our error and went back to fetch him -- he was just a few feet back inside the cave, waiting patiently.
As you might imagine, Ted had quite a bit to say about our performance on that dive.
After a 40 minute surface interval (most of which was an analysis of the dive), we went back in again. I got to run the line. This time, we all made it to the bottom of the underpass before calling the dive. Yet again, my light went out, but no one else's did. I got into the middle of the team where I belonged and we exited without incident. Ted gave me an "outstanding" -- as you may have guessed by this time, he didn't give praise lightly (or really much at all -- not that we deserved it), so I was pretty pleased.
We all wanted to go back in, but because of the depth, we didn't have enough time for a decent surface interval, so we called it a day. We sat on the steps and JJ talked to us about decompression as we watched Lamar Hires and some other guys from Dive Rite prepare for a dive.
Friday, March 19th
We started the day with our final exam -- a written test. We all did well on it -- we passed with flying colors. I think all the reading we did before the class helped a lot. Most of the material covered in the GUE manual had been covered in the other books we read, and the GUE manual helped us focus on what we needed to know most for the test. All (or most) of the pictures in the book were of Ted and his wife (also a very accomplished cave explorer and GUE instructor), Tamara Kendall.
Then we went back to Peacock and did our swim test. The water seemed very cold in just a bathing suit, but other than that it went okay. As we were getting into our car with NY tags, somebody said to me "Only a northerner would get in that water in just a bathing suit!" I told him it wasn't voluntary! Actually, after 50 yards or so of swimming, it didn't seem that cold anymore, but I sure was glad that Jarrod didn't make us do it on Monday when it was so cold! I was more confident about the swim test than the academic test, since I had been swimming several times a week at home before the class and knew that I could very easily swim the required distance (300 yards) in the allotted time (12 minutes), so I wasn't surprised when I passed but I sure was glad to be done with it.
Orange Grove Sink
We drove a short distance to Orange Grove Sink (within the same park as Peacock) and dived there with Jarrod. Ted had to go to South Florida (we think it might have been for rebreather training) so Tamara came to dive with the Germans. We were pleased to see her driving a Hyundai Excel -- the same car Tony and I haul our doubles around in!
The entrance here was quite difficult for me -- no stairs, we had to climb down a hill. I am not a very nimble person and I had a lot of difficulty getting in and out and generally felt like a complete fool. For the first time, I wished I had rock boots on my suit.
The surface was covered with duckweed. (I couldn't quite decide if the duckweed was disgusting or if it looked tasty. For those of you who haven't seen it, it looks kind of like alfalfa sprouts without the tail.) But once we descended, we found the water quite clear (if a little dark due to the duckweed). Once again, I ran the reel. Jarrod warned me before hand that it was quite a distance from the entrance to the main line, so I wasn't quite as concerned as I had been at Peacock when it took me so long to get there. Orange Grove was not dissimilar to Peacock in that there was a lot of silt on the floor. Not long after reaching the main line, we saw a large (about 1-2 inches) cave crayfish -- definitely a highlight of the trip. We did not to too well on this dive -- we silted it up more than we should have, and each of us planted our lights quite deeply in the silt once during the dive. Right after we turned the dive, my light went out again and I exited with my backup light.
Jarrod thought we had not been ready to dive there several days before and that we had improved greatly. Nonetheless, he didn't throw much our way in the way of difficulties, "considering the cave environment." My take on it -- we didn't do too well.
Telford
For our last dive, we went to Telford. Here again, there were no stairs, but the entrance was quite easy -- except for the fact that I got in with my dry suit zipper partially open and had to scramble out to close it! There was a little flow here, but nothing even as strong as Little River. At Jarrod's suggestion, we crossed a short distance to a little sink, surfaced for a few minutes and then went back to exit where we had entered.
Just after we began to exit, my light went out again, so I dutifully deployed my backup light. For my non-diver friends who are reading this, I should point out that all the times our lights "went out" our instructor had stealthily swam up behind us and turned them off -- meaning that we weren't supposed to turn them back on. Apparently, exiting with dim lights is distressing for many divers and that is why we had at least one light failure on every dive. Perhaps because we are used to diving in the dark waters of the Northeast, and because until a year ago, Tony and I were only using lights that most people would consider backup lights, none of us found this particularly distressing, it just made the scenery a little harder to enjoy. When we got out to review the dive, Jarrod claimed not to have turned out my light. I am not sure I believe him completely, but the switch on my light is very easy to operate, so it certainly is possible that I bumped it. I guess I will never know the truth -- but if I had known that it wasn't a drill I would have turned it back on!
After our dive, Jarrod gave Tony and I temporary NSS-CDS (National Speleological Society Cave Diving Section) Intro Cave cards and wrote "Doubles Trained" on them so that we could dive at Ginnie the next day. (The Germans were flying home Sunday, so they could not dive, and Steve had to leave at the crack of dawn Saturday in order to be back at work ASAP.) Tony and I decided to get an NSS certification in addition to the GUE certification (the GUE certification exceeds the requirements for both NSS and NACD Intro Cave) for several reasons -- for the time being, the NSS is more widely recognized than GUE, and also by being members of the NSS, we can get discounts on books, maps, T-shirts (essential items in the wardrobe of a Northeast-wreck-diving-geek) and so on.
I showed Jarrod my stage bottle setup and he made some suggestions for changing it, including abandoning the strap in favor of a rope. (See http://www.mindspring.com/~jeffbentley/stage/index.html).
Saturday, March 20th
Tony and I were not going to go anywhere until we got at least two more dives in! Although I would have preferred to dive at Little River, we agreed that we should dive at Devil's Ear, because we were going to hit the road right away, and at Ginnie we would be able to shower and clean up before leaving. I didn't mind this idea too much because we didn't get to see much of Devil's Ear the first time! I figured that with a few more dives under our belts, we would do better and hopefully get to see The Lips.
While our tanks were getting filled, we went inside to get our passes and discovered that even though our cards said "Doubles Trained" that we would not be allowed to dive with doubles. (Ordinarily, Intro Cave-level divers are not allowed to use doubles, but this is not a restriction of the GUE certification.) Jarrod had told us to have them call him if there was any problem, but they refused to do so. We both got pretty worked up about it, but there was nothing to do, so we went to Little River.
Little River
Tony and I got in the water and dutifully did our equipment check-off, bubble check and S-drills. Just as we were finishing our S-drills, the end of my 7 foot hose (where it attaches to the second stage) began to free flow and we discovered that the O-ring was cut. So we climbed back up all those stairs, borrowed an o-ring pick (the one tool we needed and forgot to bring) and Tony replaced it for me. Then we got back in the water, did a quick bubble check and went in. We went all the way back to the underpass and then a good 150 feet or more past it. What fun we had, and for a change of pace our lights didn't go out when we turned the dive! After a 45 minute surface interval we did a second dive, and still dutifully adhering to sixths, managed to get almost as far back as we had on the first dive! Tony ran the reel both times, so I was leading on the way out. On the second dive, I drifted out as slowly as possible to enjoy the view. These two dives confirmed the beauty of this spot for me.
Our drive home was awful. It took 27 hours and was pouring rain the whole way. Not a good end to such a great trip, but we were just glad it waited until we were done!
Conclusion
With two certified safe cave dives under our belt, Tony and I can't wait to return. I would hate to have to choose between Northeast wreck diving and Florida cave diving, and luckily I don't have to. But I am looking forward to the new season here, and weather permitting, I will be at the San Diego on the Wahoo in a few days. We both have our work cut out for us in the "skills to practice" department -- and we've got plenty of wrecks on which to have fun doing it!
I hope you enjoyed this report. Yes, I know it was very long, but if you know me at all, you shouldn't have expected anything less! If you have any comments, I'd be happy to hear them. (Even if you think I'm a complete stroke.) My email address is: mmowens at panix dot com.
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