My Journey To Cave Country...

[Omicron]

Part 3 (An Final Part...)

Our second dive was a distance dive. We made it to the breakdown room on the Peanut line, and into the large phreatic tunnel after that room. You could drive a Mack truck through this tunnel. It is HUGE. It’s kind of the stereotypical that you would imagine in your head. You can see as far as your light will light up the twists and turns. You can also see clay – thick, sticky, silty clay just waiting for you to get cocky again and nail it. You can see the occasional hand/knee/fin print in the clay from others that have nailed it. I stuck my finger in it just a little bit to see just how bad it was…yikes. On our way out from this dive I had to do my lost line drill.

My instructor set aside the rest of the dive team and led me away along the line. He pulled me off the line and led me to a rock about the size of my fist. I got out my safety reel and began making my tie off. I got the line behind the rock, began putting the reel through the loop aaaannd..whoops. Slipped off. Again – line on the rock, begin the lockdown…slip. Argh. Again…rock, line, loop, slip. Shoot – now there was a whole bunch of line off the reel. I started reeling up and next thing you know I jam it. Oh man….now in the real world I’m a dead man. I turned on my light and showed my reel to my instructor. He set me on the rock next to the team and took another over to do the drill. He did it in like a minute or two. We exited the cave after the drill. Let me tell you how low your head can hang somedays. I knew what I did wrong. My instructor didn’t even have to say it. During our break (the other team was doing their two dives) I practiced. I ran lines all around that parking lot. There wasn’t a stump, rock, fencepost or bumper that I didn’t do a tie off on with my eyes closed. I couldn’t understand how I screwed that up.

Our next dive we just made it quickly to the edge of the breakdown room again. Turned the dive and I had to do lost line again. My instructor put my hand on the rock, I ran the line, got it looped, started to lock it..and nailed it. I had that thing LOCKED – I started my wrap…and wrapped, and wrapped, and wrapped. That line was NOT coming off that rock. I turned around and started my sweeps…did one..two…three…okay, a little nervous here…started the fourth….nailed the gold line! What a feeling again. I made my tie off onto the gold line, placed my line arrow and started my exit. I felt my instructor tap me on the head signaling that the drill was over. He flashed me OK – YES!!!! I did it. On the way out we did our final lights on OOA drill. I handed the hose, he spun like a top and I locked onto his arm perfectly. That was it – the hard part was over!

Our last dive was a short one again – 400’ in, and simulate primary light failure using backup lights on the way out. At the end of this dive we also had to do a valve shutdown sequence. Now, I’ve never really managed to do that. Especially after adjusting my tank height for improved trim in the class. But…by the time we made it to the cavern entrance where we had to do the valve drill…it was the only thing standing in between me and passing that class. There was nothing…and I do mean nothing…that was going to stop me from getting to those valves. Our instructor signaled to start – I ripped my waist belt apart, got feet up in the water and just slammed my hand back looking for something to grab onto. I felt a 1st stage – perfect!! I got my other hand back there and pulled a little more until I felt valve. Wooo! Got the valve shut down, opened…felt for the other one, found it, shut it, opened it…nailed it. My instructor looked over at me and signaled “two?”. I just nodded back “yes”. I did it.

That evening we corrected our exams at the Luraville store which is quite the place of cave diving culture. We aced the exams pretty well….and that was it. Our instructor gave us our cards, we thanked him about a million times over for all his work and tips…got a few pictures with him…we actually ended up meeting him for dinner the next night too.

We stayed @ Ginnie for a few more days to do some more diving @ Peacock. Essentially the same dives we did during training, but we just wanted to savor these…that night we also did the glowstick dive in the Ginnie Cavern. Pretty neat stuff…swirling stars all around you, swimming through it….it’s a cool dive.

The trip was awesome. Even if I wouldn’t have passed the class, the things I learned are invaluable. The touch contact, the proper way to share air, the weighting, the buoyancy tuning…dang. This has forever changed the way I will dive….changed my outlook on diving…it was awesome.

This ended up being a little bit longer than I had thought – sorry for some of the rambling, but it just kinda started rolling along once I sat down to type this. Thanks for reading…and like I said, I’ve got a weight belt for sale