I just returned from my latest adventure and as usual, I can’t stop talking about it.  Last August, I wrote about Susan Finlen and I taking the NSS (National Speleogical Society) Cavern Diving Class in the Bahamas.  On the 2005 Dive Connections Thanksgiving trip to the Bahamas, I took the NACD (National Association of Cave Diving) Intro to Cave Diving Class with Ben Cook of Xanadu Undersea Adventures (www.xanadudive.com). 

            The Intro to Cave Diving Class takes the skills that Susan Finlen and I learned in our Cavern Diving Class and carries them to a much higher level.  I learned much more about the use my equipment, swimming techniques in the cave zone and general techniques needed to safely begin to enter the underwater caves.  While the penetration of the caves was limited by the level of training, I got to observe first hand the beauty of underwater caves that were created thousands of years ago when the sea levels were up to 300 feet lower.  Stalactites and stalagmites cannot form underwater, yet here we were swimming among them.  They were formed by water filtering through the island’s porous limestone base and slowly dripping from the ceiling onto the floor of the cave which built up mineral deposits which in turn became stalactites and stalagmites.

           Enough ancient history.  Fast forward to June 13^th when I left for the Bahamas once again.  I hooked up with Ben Cook again and we planned out what we were going to do during my classes to get me up to Full Cave Diver.  This would require at least 8 more cave dives with several planned to include decompression techniques which were also part of the instruction.  We went over gear configuration and equipment we would be using to travel deeper into the caves. 

            Traveling to the Bahamas with gear bags full of primary and backup lights, computers, 3 reels, 2 masks, fins, wetsuit, stainless steel back plate with wing and harness and all the other necessary items is an art form all it’s own.  Weight limits of 50 lbs. per bag means splitting up gear and clothes.  Sometimes it’s a matter of deciding what’s more important…dive gear OR clothes.  But I finally got it all sorted out and made it there with everything I would need. 

            Cave diving is gear intensive and at this level of training requires the use of double tanks with regulators on each.  The primary regulator is on a 7’ hose which allows air sharing in confined spaces.  Dual computers, a primary light with 2 back up lights as well as reels for both safety and jumping from the main cave line to secondary lines are mandatory.  Line markers such as clothes pins and line arrows are also necessary to mark routes taken so there is no confusion when trying to find the way home.   Also, most all cave divers use a metal plate and harness system with a “wing” for buoyancy which is different from the standard BC that we learned to use in Open Water.

            We did our first 2 dives in Mermaid’s Lair which in my first story I described as a “ditch”.  Some things never change!  The first dive was a warm-up to get me back in the swing of things.  I was amazed at how quickly the skills we had previously learned came racing back, especially when Ben would have me turn out my lights or practice being out of air.  I was mesmerized by the beauty of the cave and fell in love with cave diving all over again.

            Dives 3 and 4 were in Owl Hole which is a big sink hole where the surface collapsed into a pile of rubble in the water.  Getting into Owl Hole means climbing down a 30 foot steel ladder in full gear to reach the water’s surface.  Dive 3 was an exercise in running reels and marking our route with markers as we jumped from the main line to alienate lines.  Dive 4 began that afternoon and it was going to be a rough one.  While climbing down the ladder, I stepped on a rusted rung which gave way and almost threw me from the ladder.  After I recovered from that, Ben and I continued into the cave to do more jumps and gap training.  To further complicate this dive, Ben’s primary cave light failed and we turned and headed back to the cavern as proper cave diving protocol requires.  As we were turning around, the light came back on and we decided to continue the dive.   I suspected that Ben had done this to test my adherence to protocol, but he later said that this was a true light failure. The rest of the dive was “uneventful” if you could ever call a cave dive uneventful and we exited the cave and attempted to climb out of the hole without further ladder failure.  Safely up on the surface, we decided that we would not be able to make the complete underground traverse from Owl Hole to Mermaid’s Lair like I had hoped to do with the potential of further ladder failure.

           Dives 5-9 were done in Mermaid’s Lair and entailed planning dives that included completing both simple and complex circuits.  A simple circuit dive means following a planned route that brings you out the way you came in.  A complex circuit usually requires at least 2 dives and means going in one way and coming out another.  We had a third diver join us for the last 2 dives which added another dimension to the dives.  I experienced primary light failure on 2 of our dives and while this is very disconcerting, my training kicked in and I immediately turned on a backup light and secured the primary light to my harness.

           Some of the training exercises for these final dives included traveling through passages that were completely “silted out” which means that there is the silt in the passage has been disturbed meaning no visibility and you must maintain contact with the main cave line to find your way out.  I also had to plan and lead dives following a route that we determined based on Ben’s cave map.  We had to include decompression planning due to the length and depth of our dives and this meant planning our air consumption to allow for the time needed to decompress.  We also placed backup tanks at our deco stop to make sure we would have adequate gas for decompressing.

           Cave diving is considered Technical Diving and should NEVER be taken lightly.  People who have not been trained should avoid the temptation of seeing what the caves look like.  While cave diving can be dangerous, the proper equipment and training make this sport another exciting form of scuba diving that is available to divers all over the world.  Florida, Mexico, the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Bermuda and several locations in Europe are well known cave diving locations.

For more information on cave diving and training check these links out:

            NACD             www.safecavediving.com

            NSS-CDS       www.nsscds.org