 | GROUNDHOG TALES |
So, You Want to be a Cave Diver? by Mike Petrik | |
| (Wetvet) | ||||||||||
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On November 7, 2003, Jamie Grant, Rob Kobe (Lurch), and myself began our cave diving odyssey. For those of you unfamiliar with the pursuit of cave diving, it is a mentally and physically demanding, equipment intense pastime. Some people in the diving community (and the community at large) consider it dangerous. As in all diving, there is an element of risk, but unlike all other forms of diving, all the risks in cave diving can be predicted and prepared for. All fatalities in cave diving, with one exception, have been due to diver error. If you are adequately trained, maintain your skills, and follow some basic rules, cave diving is extremely safe.
It is also unlike anything you have ever experienced underwater. Back to the story. We loaded our gear into the back of Lurch’s extenda-cab pick up truck. After a fair bit of arranging, three sets of gear barely fit (did I mention equipment intense?). We set off, driving, navigating and sleeping in shifts. The trip was uneventful, except that Jamie (a driver with notoriously poor stamina) drove a lot more than we expected. We arrived in High Springs, Florida on Saturday, about 22 hours after leaving Kitchener, and found out that we were too early to check into our motel. With several hours to kill, we did what any of us would do, WENT SHOPPING. We were in cave country, and Jamie had researched the locations of nearby dive shops. We stopped in Gainesville and did the rounds. After a couple of stops, drooling over gadgets and lights, reels and computers, and amazed at the power of the American dollar, we returned to High Springs, checked into our motel. We were exhausted from the drive, but too wired to sleep easily. Lurch and Jamie had the added excitement of knowing that they were staying in the very room that Tiger Woods had stayed in when he was getting his cave certification in 2000. We tried to get an early night, though, since we had to meet our instructor, Larry Green at 8am the next day. We awoke early and headed across the road to one of Florida’s hidden treasures: Floyds Diner. A life size Elvis statue greets you at the door of this 50’s style diner, and the food is unbelievable. There is more grease, sugar, caffeine and starch in that restaurant than anywhere I’ve ever been before. It was heaven. Several other cave divers were fuelling up that morning also (there is NOTHING else to do in the area, so the vast majority of tourists around High Springs are cave divers). It was exciting to be sitting in the presence of real, live, authentic cave divers. I was utterly convinced that I was going to flunk out of the course. I had less than 3 years and 200 dives under my belt, and the tech stuff was still relatively new to me. I had heard how demanding the course and the instructor were over some internet diving forums, and felt unprepared. I was hoping to get my cavern and intro to cave certifications, but was afraid my skill level would not allow me to get my full cave cert. It turns out that the reports on the demands of the course were not wrong. We arrived at Larry’s house on time, and met Larry and Deb Green. We introduced ourselves, and spent about an hour with Deb, doing paperwork around their kitchen table. Larry then began by telling us about his history, credentials and experience level. Without any chance of overstatement, he is the most accomplished, respected, experienced and liked cave diver alive. He pioneered several of the cave diving organizations, discovered and mapped several cave systems, has trained many instructors in many disciplines of cave diving, is a leader in cave search and rescue teams, and has completed over 10,000 cave dives….. in ONE cave system alone!!! We were sure we were in good hands, but he also stated that he had no hesitation in failing a student if he felt the student was not competent. (My heart sank a little at this). This was a formal, somewhat awkward discussion as each of us tried to get a feel for the personality of the other. We then spent 6 hours discussing the basics of cave diving. Lurch, Jamie and I had all read the 375 page NSS Cave Diving Manual, as well as another handbook. We discussed how to safely perform a cave dive, the importance and technique of maintaining a continuous guideline to the surface, why we each need to carry 3 lights, and why it is crucial to know your gas consumption rate, and calculate safe turn pressures. We then went through an overview of how to dive as a team while still maintaining self-sufficiency. The afternoon was spent in Larry’s treed back yard, getting comfortable with deploying reels and lines, and following different line configurations with our eyes open as well as closed. It was now getting dark, and we were getting hungry. I was starting to daydream about the pink neon of Floyds, and thinking that we would have to stop soon….it was getting dark, after all. Luckily, however, Larry had thoughtfully mounted a floodlight on the front of his garage, so we were able to perform our last task of the day, which was setting up our gear for Larry’s inspection. “Great,” I thought, “this will only take a half an hour”. Larry just wanted to make sure that we had a “decent configuration”. I feel the need to make a couple of points here. The group of us had been doing technical diving for various amounts of time. We had geared up many times, and made many small changes in our configurations. Remember that cave diving is equipment intense. Each of us put together our backplate and wings (an alternative to a BC, but more streamlined), our twin tanks, canister light, two backup lights, primary reel, secondary reel, jump reel, line markers, slate, wetnotes, spare mask, computer, backup bottom timer, two regulators, pony bottle, pony regulator, fins and masks. We thought that we were very streamlined and “together”. Larry didn’t seem to agree. It is odd to be asked why you run hoses in a certain direction. Or why you clip your pony here, instead of here. I had never thought about a lot of it. My gear worked well the way it was, and in open water, a small bow in a hose, or a small amount of drag was not even noticeable. In a cave, though, anything that sticks out past the outline of your body is an entanglement hazard, and can get you tangled in lines, or hooked on an outcropping. Also, the distance you need to swim, usually into a current, means that any amount of drag will be a problem, and reducing that drag is crucial. Here is where Larry’s teaching methods became apparent. He gives you the illusion of choice. “You could do it like that, or…..” precedes many of his suggestions. He always gives reasons for his suggestions, and usually, you have no choice but to agree. Finally finished, we drive back to the motel, grab a quick bite at Floyds, make the “suggested” alterations to our gear, and fall into bed around 11pm.
We did safety checks, out of air drills, placed lines, followed lines, felt our way along lines with eyes closed, masks off, one fin, while sharing air, you name it. We didn’t make too much of a mess of it, although some of our ties let go, and we had a couple reel jams, and one entanglement (with lights off and sharing air….wouldn’t you know it). The day was completely eaten up, as was the gas in our tanks, so we called it a day. It was starting to get dark anyway. We went back to the motel, ordered pizza, and started doing our paperwork to log all our dives, and start working on our cavern exam.
Our first dive was to be at the Pothole Tunnel. We met up with an instructor from Brazil, who was finishing his instructor training with Larry. We started the dive, and the experience was completely new (again). It is rare for people to be in an environment with no light. It is also weird to know that you are at a depth of 75 feet when the ceiling is only a foot above your head. The passages appear to be carved by some drunken driver with a lot of time on his hands. You go from tight, twisty passages to caverns that are as big as a house. There will be a tunnel shooting straight as an arrow for several hundred feet, and for some reason, there is a single pillar left in the middle of it. The colors are all browns, whites, blacks and grays, but it is a kaleidoscope of patterns and shapes. In spots the current is ripping, and there is no silt on the floor, while other times, you feel as if you are stuck in liquid glass, but you can push your hand into the flour on the bottom until it reaches your elbow before you feel any resistance. The risk of an errant fin kick in this situation is dire. Not only will you completely destroy visibility, but also it will take hours or days to clear. Of course, all these structures were not present at Pothole. To enter Pothole, you descend a flight of wooden steps into a pond about the size of a swimming pool. It is a shallow bowl, with fish and weeds in it. It looks like someone forgot to turn off a tap, and the water filled up a depression. At the one end, however, there is a dark slit that leads to a fork. Pothole Tunnel goes off to the right. It is primarily a fairly broad and tall tunnel, with several vertical narrowings which forced us to approach the moderately silty floor to get around them. Although out lights were bright, there were still vast areas of shadow and pitch black. None of us strayed far from the guideline, petrified that we would lose it, and never find our way out. We penetrated 500 feet into the cave, and came back out. Our first cave dive was a huge success. We were all ecstatic when we surfaced. Larry gave us some technique criticisms, but was generally satisfied with our performance.
The next day we were back to Peacock springs, and did our first dive back in Peanut tunnel, which seemed to have grown overnight. We worked on skills, air sharing, light failures and just improved our comfort level in the caves. Our second dive was our first actual full cave dive. In full cave, you are able to penetrate further (in intro, you plan your gas as if you have only a single tank), and you are able to “jump” off the main line (referred to as a “gold line” due to its colour). Many caves have several permanent lines in them, but some of them do not connect. Thus, to explore some of the more remote parts of the cave, you have to use a reel to “jump” from one gold line to the next. Our first full cave dive was a traverse. This describes a dive where you exit from a different spot from which you entered. We followed the gold line through the Pothole tunnel for 1400 feet, until we could see daylight again. We tied off a reel and surfaced in Olsen Sink….a puddle that was barely large enough to hold the 4 of us. I am surprised that the entire north half of Florida does not cave in. It is so under run with miles and miles of caves that often interconnect that it is hard to believe there is enough structure under there to support the land. Each little pond, sinkhole or ambitious puddle can lead to miles of underground corridors that amaze with their size and complexity. I discovered that 1400 feet is a LONG way to swim in full cave gear. We wanted to complete the traverse, so that we could get two dives out of it, which would get us back on schedule. We had to hurry along, since this is well over twice the distance we penetrated before. The problem was if you hurry too much, you use too much air and would have to turn around before we got to Olsen sink. There I was, trying to swim fast (but not too fast), while keeping good trim (keep feet above head, don’t bend at the waist), not paddling with my hands (a bad habit of mine that Larry constantly pointed out), staying off the bottom (lots of silt), staying off the ceiling (my tanks are scratched and my nitrox stickers are ragged), all while not breathing. We made it…..barely. Our third dive of the day was a traverse from Olsen sink back to Peacock 1, which was easier to accomplish because the flow was at our back, so we easily covered the same distance on the return trip. On this dive, Larry brought along a video camera, which accomplished two things. First, we got a priceless souvenir of our trip, and Larry could point out to us our bad habits. It is fascinating to see yourself and realize the mistakes you made. No matter how they are described to you, nothing tells you what your attitude and trim in the water is like better than seeing it for yourself.
The Devils Ear and Eye system is one of the most beautiful and challenging caves we experienced. The flow out of the Devils Ear is unbelievable. During our deco stop, we straddled a log, which is wedged across the mouth of the cave at a depth of 20 feet. We had to grip the log with our legs, and the 7-minute stop was the most exhausting safety stop I’ve ever done. I had real fear that I would blow by the log and miss my stop. Larry used this high flow cave to illustrate to us how to “work” a cave to swim more easily through current. One technique is called “pull and glide”, where you pull yourself along with your hands. It works wonderfully well, but poor technique (like I had) will cause each and every fingertip to fray, blister and bleed. It took me almost 3 weeks before my fingertips healed. Larry gave us a demonstration of proper technique after the first dive….better late than never, I guess. Friday’s dives were at Telford and Orange Grove springs. Both were really pretty, and really different. Orange grove has sections of vertical slits that are only 3-5 feet wide, but 20-30 feet tall. It’s like swimming inside splits formed during an earthquake. Telford was the cave with the most amount of “structure” to it. Alternately tall, short, narrow, wide, there are all kinds of challenges. The spring makes you eager to see what is around the next corner. Our last day of cave diving started at Little River. This cave is famous for its clear water. Larry apologized to us because visibility was poor, but it seemed unlimited to me. This was yet another very nice dive. We finished the last of our skills testing on this dive. Larry assured us that the wave of disasters that was following us (lost divers, light failures, air failures, broken lines, etc) would end. We had performed the skills well enough that he didn’t feel that he had to continue creating problems for us to solve. Our final dive was both a challenge and a compliment. Larry suggested that we go in the Waterway tunnel, which is a little side passage off of the Peanut Tunnel, that we had become so familiar with. It was a very low flow passage, with massive amounts of silt. The silt formations were beautiful, like sand in a Japanese meditation garden, the current in the passage formed parallel lines that were deflected by the structures in the passage. The tunnel was quite low, and with the amount of silt present, it was a challenging dive. After we exited, Larry told us that he never takes students into the Waterway, since it is so easy to ruin the silt formations, and they take so long to form. It made us all feel like we had accomplished something special. That night, we went back to Larry’s house, where we were presented with our cards. We all passed all the courses, and were invited back to just go diving. We went with Larry and Deb to a sushi restaurant to celebrate, and got to bed around midnight. We got back up at about 4am, and drove home. Work on Monday morning was a challenge, but the pain was well worth it. I’m not sure if my enthusiasm for cave diving has come through in this description, but I would recommend everyone to at least try a cavern course if they have the least bit of interest. Cave diving cannot be compared to any other type of diving I’ve experienced. The architecture underwater, and the myriad of ways water can cut limestone is something that is well worth experiencing. If I were to do it again, I would try to give myself a day or two off in the middle of the week. Each day we were up at 7am, and ran all day until we fell into our beds around 11pm. We loved every minute of it, and it was not overwhelming, but a day of rest in the middle to take stock and let some of the new experiences and knowledge settle in would have been nice. If anyone has any questions about cave diving, you can ask any of us about the course. You will have no trouble getting us to tell you all about it…..getting us to shut up may not be as easy. Dive safe. Wetvet (Mike Petrik) |
