Did some fun diving in Tallahassee last weekend, tad cool, morning temps were in the mid 30's. I am a member of the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP) a team of exploration cave divers (I am also general counsel for the Team, pro bono). All volunteer divers that map and study caves in Florida and throughout the world, on behalf of State and Federal agencies and also universities.

The goal of the weekend was to push a few unexplored tunnels in this particular system. 3 exploration teams went in Saturday and my buddy and I did support and set up for them, staging tanks, scooters and decompression tanks, then pulling all this stuff out later. Total dive times for one team was 5 hours and the other 10 hours. My buddy and I were in the water for about 3 hours.

We were based in a sink called Emerald.


Second day we did a “fun” dive in a sink called Upper River.


Both of these caves were typical Tallahassee caves, big, very black and very low visibility. So no really good in-water pictures.

To give you an idea of the gear required to put 3 2-man teams in the water, here is a pic of the tanks used that weekend.

Sounds like a heck of a fun time. Pushing into unexplored areas is a dream of most.

Was this all done on OC? How far in did you push?

quote:

Originally posted by comet24:
Sounds like a heck of a fun time. Pushing into unexplored areas is a dream of most.

Was this all done on OC? How far in did you push?

I was merely support, all on OC, our fun dives we probably went about 4000 round trip. All on scooters, just diving single stages, never touching our back gas. The push divers were diving RB80's. I know one team pushed a tunnel almost an additional 1000 feet but this after they traveled about 6000' just to get there!

The only thing crazier than cave diving is cave diving in murky water with animals that can eat you (hibernating or not).

You, sir, and your people must have been using PFDs to lift those steel balls of yours back up from the abyss. F that.

Yeah. Love diving, not ordinarily claustrophobic, but you guys are nuts.

All I can think of is this:



-Rob

Wow! Nice!!!

Listening to Deep Shadow (Doc Ford Mystery by Randy Wayne White) on my iPod while working out a couple of winters ago has me a little squeamish about wiggling through underwater caves

Very cool. I have only been a few feet into caves, in the Yucatan, and was still a bit claustrophobic. I am GUE Tech 1, but worry about something going wrong such as a UW landslide. If you could post some UW photos they would be nice to see.

Ever dive with Miranda from Vancouver, B.C.? She is very professional, far better than most guys.

IIRC, a diver drowned in Emerald Sink and his body showed up many miles away carried by an underground river. This was 40+ years ago so I am likely mixing "facts"

Uhh...hole in the ground full of dark water, no thanks. I'm curious though, how do you keep from losing your directions and getting lost?

Nice - that's a lot of tanks! Been to the opening of a couple of a few caves in the Florida panhandle but didn't venture in (no cave cert.).

60-65F water is pretty chilly.

Michael

Looking at wet rocks, up not being out, and taking gear off to squeeze through passes is not for me. I rather dive 200ft straight down. What you guys do is impressive but crazy.

You say that like being the support team is not a big deal and not a challenge at all. We dove the sink but we were smart enough to know our limitations.

Anyone can go cave diving. Once.

Very cool. A friend and I are went down last spring to hit the north Florida springs (no cave or cavern cert, so OW only), but are planning on going back this spring to do our Cavern certs.

I have done some Cenote guided tours in Mexico, and I absolutely love it. Because of life & work (not to mention I have a 2-year old now) it will probably be 10-20 years before I even go for full cave, but I am excited about at least starting the journey with Cavern.

quote:

Originally posted by Thingol:
Very cool. A friend and I are went down last spring to hit the north Florida springs (no cave or cavern cert, so OW only), but are planning on going back this spring to do our Cavern certs.

I have done some Cenote guided tours in Mexico, and I absolutely love it. Because of life & work (not to mention I have a 2-year old now) it will probably be 10-20 years before I even go for full cave, but I am excited about at least starting the journey with Cavern.

I assume you are talking about PADI or other instruction. Many of those classes are wasting your time and sometimes what they teach is dangerous. If you want the real thing, start with GUE.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:

quote:

Originally posted by Thingol:
Very cool. A friend and I are went down last spring to hit the north Florida springs (no cave or cavern cert, so OW only), but are planning on going back this spring to do our Cavern certs.

I have done some Cenote guided tours in Mexico, and I absolutely love it. Because of life & work (not to mention I have a 2-year old now) it will probably be 10-20 years before I even go for full cave, but I am excited about at least starting the journey with Cavern.

I assume you are talking about PADI or other instruction. Many of those classes are wasting your time and sometimes what they teach is dangerous. If you want the real thing, start with GUE.

In order to not turn this into a scubaboard-esq agency bashing thread, I am going to respond once, then bow out, so southflorida-law's thread can continue on-topic. I do feel that it is important to address this statement though.

The assertion that there is only one acceptable agency to teach technical or cave diving is ludicrous. While the DIR/GUE/UTD crowd produces (thru training) and contains many skilled, well-rounded divers, that does not mean that people trained by other agencies, including *gasp* PADI, are incompetent, or going to die.

Anecdotally, years ago, when my Wife and I were still fairly new divers, we dove off a boat in Turks & Caicos with two GUE trained divers. Admittedly, they looked good in the water, but the funny part was during the surface interval, they asked my Wife and I what agency we trained with and how many dives we had. When the response was PADI and about 25-30, their jaws hit the floor, because they could not comprehend how *PADI* divers had good trim, frog-kicked, and dove long hose, primary-donate configurations.

What I am getting at here is that the agency does not matter. The instructor does. Our PADI instructor (who also teaches technical diving and is a (non-instructing) cave diver) went above and beyond in his teaching, and (at least according to that GUE dive team), it shows in our diving. There are good and bad instructors in every agency, and the agency should NOT be your first consideration in choosing any instruction (Cave or otherwise).

In conclusion, your assumption is wrong, I am not talking about PADI (although I am talking about "other instruction", but that pretty much covers any class, including fundies/etc.). I am talking about a short list of instructors (I have not chosen yet, as I need to speak to them first, and get a feel for how they teach, how many people they fail (if the answer is low, they are a no-go for me), etc.), including Johnny Richards, Jim Wyatt, Ken Sallot and Edd Sorrenson. As for the agency, I have no idea and do not care which logo will be on the card after (if) I earn it.

Sorry for the thread drift.

Thingol, you are right, there are probably many excellent instructors wearing different dive school hats. Organizations improve over time, and it would be best to investigate who in their area is providing quality instruction. My experience of PADI is from 20 years ago and is probably well dated by now.