Category — Cave Course
Teaching, teaching, teaching
The rest of September was pretty much full with teaching and I could only use the hand full of days off I had to go exploring.
First up was the cave course of Pasi from Finland, Lisa from Austria and Sherief from good old Egypt.
Definitely a course I will remember for a long time =)
Besides all the seriousness of cave diving we managed to have lots of fun before and after the dives with some truly classic moments…am still smiling just when I think of it.
Lisa, Pasi and Sherief
Although the weather was horrible and we spent almost every line drill in the rain we still managed to visit 5 different Cenotes. It took some time to get the team going especially due to the big differences in experience as well as body seize but once we overcame that things started to fall in their place.
All in all we definity had a great time and also celebrated that at the end of teh course with a nice dinner and some drinks.
After that I had two days off that I used to go exploring. Sistema Lorenzo unfortunately turned out to be rather small and so I ran out of cave after only three dives =(
On the way out of the jungle though I found another small entrance right underneath a bridge and after a short power snorkel dive decided to come back the next day and see if there is some cave.
The following day I was back and in a single 90min dive laid 1012ft, well all the knotted line I had on me =) This was really the first time in my life that there was so much cave that I really had to stop in awe every once in a while. Many super low bedding plains, lots of fossils and really a lot of percolation. But man I felt like a 1000 bucks when I left the water.
The next day it was back to work, Victoria and Chris were my new students. I had taught Victorias sister Chelsea some time ago and now as happy of course to have the second sister sitting in my classroom…I hope we get to do a family cave dive one day =)
Chris dropped out the second day for personal reasons but will join the course I am starting next Monday.
So it was only Tori and I. After always teaching teams it was cool to have only one student for a change and be part of the team myself. This time we were a bit luckier with the weather although we still spent quiet some time in the rain.
Victoria and Chris
Victoria was wearing one of her own Swish suits which was very impressive given that the suit was only a three mil and she hardly ever got cold….meanwhile I was diving dry with 300gram thinsulate…still impressed!
This time we even managed to visit 6 different sites including Xunan Ha were we encountered hundreds of coaties.
One of the cuaties
Definitely a great course with lots of cool dives!!!
Then the last days I was back again in Sistema Under the Bridge and with the help of Mauro managed to extend it to 4000+ft as of today connecting 3 different Cenotes.
In the next days I plan to take a break from exploring and instead take my Megalodon and the Scooters out for a spin. Its a hard life I live… =)
Then next week from Monday I have a cave course with Chris and Joram, followed by a Multistage course with Tristan and the later in the month some deep dive training with Normoxic Trimix and Advanced Nitrox on the schedule.
Until then, happy diving!!!!
Patrick
October 10, 2010 No Comments
September is here!!!
From teaching Trimix to several Cave courses and exploring with a crocodile…
It is amazing how fast the time is passing when you enjoy yourself!
The September was starting off with Mark who had a return visit to do his Advanced Recreational Trimix class. After spending a considerable amount of time in the class room to cover ratio deco, dive planning and other theory topics it was finally time to dive.
We dove the deep plateau off Xpu Ha and had planed to dive the drop off (Cantil) on the next day.
Mark with the deco bottles
The ocean was quite ruff that day and so we had this huge change of atmosphere from really windy and wavy on the surface to quiet and calm once we were under water. The deep plateau is a really amazing place full of life and colours and also ideal as a training site for this level of training.
Unfortunately though the wind was too strong the next day and so the harbour was closed and we could not make it to the Cantil. After making some minor changes to our plan we decided to dive a deep sinkhole south of Tulum instead . It was Marks first dive in such an environment with a deep shaft, a hydrogen sulfate layer and the total darkness underneath it. It was definitely a unique experience for him that he will not forget any time soon. I was super stoked as well coming back to this beautiful lagoon after not having been there in a year. It was really a cool course with some nice dives and good discussions in the classroom.
Mark next to the lagoon
The very next day I started a cave course with two divers from Finland, Joonas and Santeri. They are from Tampere from where we received already a lot of students and are always happy to welcome them because they have a very high skill level in general and are super nice people to hang out with!!!
Training for Zero Visibility
In the same time Nando was staring a course with Andrew form the States and Jonno from the UK.
It is definitely cool to teach side by side and get to spend some lunch brakes together talking about a million different things and simply enjoying some good time in the jungle with people from different backgrounds and walks of life!
Line drills
Unfortunately Santeri got sick after the third day and had to take a two day break. This gave me the possibility though to check out some new Cenotes and go exploring a little =)
Thanks to the help of Solomon a dear friend of mine I got the access to some super nice virgin Cenotes just south of Playa del Carmen. In fact the Cenotes are almost exactly downstream of Lilo Ha (named after my mom) which is right beside the highway.
I only had about 50 minutes time to dive and after successfully suppressing the fear of the crocodile that was taking a sunbath right at the waters edge, I managed to squeeze two hundred feet of line in and survey it. Generally it is very small and crumbly but has good flow. In this short distance I also already passed another entrance heading north direction highway. It is definitely worth it to go back there once I have a bit more time. For the moment the tiny system is called Sistema Lorenzo, like my tiny nephew =)
Cenote with Crocodile
After that Santeri was back in shape and we continued where we had stopped. We had two days left to finish the Intro to Cave part where we focused on line laying, team awareness, all the emergency drills as well as lost line and lost diver scenarios. Today then was already the second day of the Full Cave part where we worked some more on negotiating restrictions in zero visibility and did some more navigation in the cave.
Single File
Now only one last day with the same performance and we will have two more cave divers from Finland! It has been really cool so far seeing the two progress day after day.
Right after that I start another Cave course with three new victims =) and Nando will move on to teach Tec Cave and an Advanced Nitrox Instructor course.
So as you can see we are busy busy busy, as always!
Happy diving,
Patrick
September 13, 2010 3 Comments
