Full Cave Diver (almost)...

Just got back from almost a week in Playa Del Carmen taking a full cave diving course. Some of you may remember my taking an intro to cave course with Michele Carvale back in November of last year. We took the course with Protec. It was a pretty testing course - Michele definitely did a little better than I did with buoyancy but we both passed the course (admittedly Michele with a little more grace). Let me first introduce my cave instructor, Steve Bogaerts. The voice over is a little cheesy but it gives you a good feel for the guy and a little glimpse into the cave systems between Playa Del Carmen and Tulum.

I arrived in Playa the day before my course was to start and did an refresher dive with Hans and Allie. The first thing I realized, even before we entered the cave was that I was pretty darn nervous. Hans also saw this and suggested we did a cavern tour first. OK good start, I felt a bit better. We then did a short cave dive (as an intro cave diver I can dive the cave system so long as I don't have to make any directional decisions). This dive was much better, except we surfaced in a small cenote mid-dive and I could not clear my ears to descend. We regrouped, discussed alternatives and then made a second descent attempt. My ears cleared and we completed this pretty short dive. Hans shared with me that my frog kick was pretty skew and would not fly with Steve. I knew this to be true, but had always considered it quirky rather than a problem. Bear in mind that most of my technical diving thus far has been on wrecks in NJ, an environment where good buoyancy is scorned. On one boat a diver said to me 'you want to see what I use for good buoyancy?' and pointed at his rust covered knee pads:) Nevertheless, I felt mine was pretty good. In fact I'd go as far as to say my buoyancy is good by open water standards - I mean I can hover and my trim was always good - or so I thought.
The next day Allie and I met Steve. Allie was to audit the class, partly to refresh her own safety skills and party to keep me company. I was VERY pleased to have her there. First dive was OK. I really had to concentrate on keeping my frog kick straight but with a whole lot of effort I don't think I did too badly. I shared my worries re memory, with Steve, and he said he was fine with my using a wrist slate and making tons of notes as we dove. This, he said, helps train the memory and in time it would come much more naturally. I completely agree - this is how I usually set about navigating in a new environment (look at my last blogs on the beach/ wall dive off Scuba Shack). I also made lengthy notes on tie-ins. When we dive in caves, we follow permanent lines (well unless you are an explorer diving virgin territory, which is a little advanced for me). The permanent line is set way back in the cavern to deter open water divers from investigating the line. At the start of the dive you tie your line into a rock, or similar, with clear water about your head, then make a secondary tie off further into the cavern, more tie offs as needs be and then a final tie off into the permanent cave line.
I had thought my forwards frog kick was going to be my biggest problem, but I soon was told that in order to pass the course I would also need to master finning backwards, in perfect trim. This skill is imperative so that you can make tie-ins without disrupting the cave system. There is often a weak/ strong current in the cave so unless you can fin backwards its easy to drift over the tie-in you are working on. The dives I did were such that there was room to swim over the line and re-position myself - but this will not always be so. Steve was pretty patient with me. Unlike so many other technical instructors, he does not subscribe to the tough love theory of dive instruction. He is adept at breaking down skills into their base components and explaining with great patience how the skill should be performed and gives great tips on how you might improve.
I'm not sure I witnessed frustration in Steve's voice at one point during the course. Its funny though - this is very much how I try to teach as in my view getting frustrated with a student does little more than to increase their anxiety levels and undermine their performance further. The reason for my little smile is that often I am shaking my students by the shoulders 'concentrate you nincompoop' in my head, while complimenting their efforts, commiserating with their frustrations and making suggestions for improvements - I feel Steve may have been screaming at me in his head!!!!
So unfortunately by the end of the course the best I could accomplish was about three backwards fin strokes (usually when Steve was not looking) and more often than not I also managed to pull myself upwards as well as back, which tends to be no good for the roof of the cave. Steve very nicely said he'd prefer to see me perform this stroke and the knock on perfect tie-ins before giving me the full cave cert. I have been sent away to practice and we're going to spend another day together in October.
I'll admit, this was demoralizing. I do not deal well with failure and the fee for the extra day was going to hurt my pocket. I may have shed a few little tears while showering after the last dive - or I might have just gotten a little soap in my eyes (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!).
I have learned a lot from this course though and by the 4th day, as my skills were requiring less and less intensive concentration the cave environment was beginning to open up to me. I think I have just been very task loaded as everything in the course was pretty much a new skill. I now understand why Hans suggested 3 months of just diving the caves before taking the full cave class.
What have I learned. Buddy communication is very different. Eye contact is out. There are several ways to communicate with a buddy behind you. You can duck your head down and look underneath yourself at your buddy (turning the head to the side disrupts buoyancy), you can cover/ direct your light to the floor of the cave so you can see your buddy's light pool and know they are close, or you can make an OK circle with your light on the floor of the cave and cover your light for your buddies response. On the first few days kicking the habit of glancing over my shoulder was hard (perfect frog kick, arch back, no glancing over shoulder at buddy was my mantra). I think my share air and valve drills were pretty darn acceptable by the end of the course. Tie-ins themselves were so so. Allie and I did fairly good neutrally buoyant no viz touch contact exits (lights out swim out of the cave touching buddy and maintaining contact with the line). I found the line in both lost line drills but was let down by my tie offs. The last lost line drill I lost my double clip (essential for tying into the line) and cursed myself for not carrying a spare (Jose and Fernando might remember my tendency to forget to stow my clip before dealing with my reel - I'm no stranger to loosing these clips).
What do I think of the caves. Well I think haloclines (were the salt and fresh water meet) are unbelievable beautiful. I love how still it is in the cave system. I find the less obviously pretty caves a bit dull, but then I remember that this is how I felt about wrecks in New Jersey when I first started diving them and as my experience grew I came to find them awesome indeed - grand and foreboding but peaceful.
What I do not like about cave diving. The dirt, dust, gravel and slime on the water, nasty bathrooms, mosquitos, tarantulas (yes Steve took this all in his stride, explaining that the worst that the tarantula, crawling around our feet during our briefing, could do was to administer a bee like sting). I also find lugging heavy double tanks around to be difficult physically and finally hate how dirty my car gets. I feel that there must be ways to eliminate some of these things. Washing gear in the cenote after the days dives is a good way to eliminate some of the dirt (provided its not a slimy cenote).
I plan to call Steve today and rearrange a days diving with him. Hans has kindly agreed to do some cave dives with me between now and then to work on my skills and Miguel has also agreed to take the finning backwards challenge with me and video my efforts in the hope that this will help me improve!