John Carter, our club Diving Officer recently went on a cave diving trip. Here is his report and some pictures.

Caves and mines have always fascinated me.  Whenever I see a swim through, overhang or ‘cave’ whilst diving in open water I always want to investigate.  Even walking in the dales when I see an entrance or ‘pot hole’ I have that feeling of wanting to explore.  So after much research, reading, soul searching and questioning my motives I decided to sign up to a combined cavern and intro to cave course.

As we were planning a family holiday to Florida [cave capital of the world] I decided to get in touch with an experienced instructor based in Orlando – Dayo Scuba.  Tom Johnson or TJ has he’s often called, is about as experienced as you can get when it comes to cave diving.  The main thing about TJ is that he regularly cave dives for pleasure and is perfectly at home in the cave environment.

Day 1 saw us practising line drills on dry land.  Getting the basics in your head before venturing in the water was essential.  We looked at the various reels, tie off methods, arrow markers, ‘cookie’ placements etc…  You don’t realise how much there is to reel use until you get into it!  TJ had us following the line with our eyes shut [no cheating] bumping into whatever was there.  You quickly come to realise that team work and touch contact with your buddy is absolutely vital.  A simple line wrap around a rock when its pitch black becomes so important and you have to ensure that it’s done cleanly and securely.  We had the lectures on the rule of thirds, i.e. third of our gas for penetration, leaving two thirds for the exit and safety.  Thanks to legendary divers such as Shek Exley pioneering the way forward in cave diving has meant us lesser mortals are much safer nowadays.  I would recommend that anyone read his book, caverns measureless to man.

Later that day, we carried out what we’d done on dry land in the water at Ginnie Springs cavern zone known as the ballroom.  We had to run line, performing primary tie offs, secondary tie offs and placements in one large circuit.  We than had to follow the line blind with no mask, buddy following.  TJ loved to give us the wrong mask back at the end of the exercise just to see our reaction.  You quickly learn to stay close to your buddy and respond to his touch contact signalling.  Push to go, squeeze to stop, or if he let go and you didn’t feel him, you stop and await his signal.  I think we were finally out of the water at 9pm!  Safe to say, we slept well that night.

Day 2.  Today was proper cave diving!  Again we went through line drills, going over what we did the previous day, but this time we focused more on lost line drills and lost buddy.  The lost line drill has us taken offline by TJ, dropped a good distance from the line, and all lights out.  We then had to tie off onto a suitable placement or rock projection by doing the wrap, wrap tie method with our safety reel, then carefully swim back to where we ‘thought’ the main line might be.  You tend to always visualise where the line was the last time you saw it.  Eventually after a few attempts I found the line.  We then had to tie into the main line with our safety reel and put an arrow marker back onto the main line to mark the exit.

Lost buddy drill is more involved.  For this we had to perform a shielded light search as this can sometimes show up where your buddies light might be.  Then we searched with our primary light, checking our gas reserves before performing the search.  This is done because if you don’t have enough gas, i.e. you’ve reached your rule of thirds, you can then make the decision to exit the cave.  No point having two dead divers eh?  Providing you have enough gas, you place a marker on the line indicating the exit, tie off with your safety reel, and search the cave.  Once the ‘lost’ diver is found you physically place his hand on your reel line and guide him back to the main line and then exit.  All this took some getting used to as you might imagine, so we repeated these drills quote a few times!

Another interesting scenario is out of air diver.  TJ really had our hearts pumping on this exercise!  Just as we were passing an area known as the ‘lips’ on our way out of the cave, he made the pre agreed signal indicating that we should turn our primary lights out and switch to backup.  Then TJ gives the signal that one of the team was out of air.  You then had to pass your long hose regulator to the ‘victim’ with all sense of urgency!  This was made even more interesting as when your in the ‘lips’ it’s narrow, restricted and the flow of water is at its strongest.  If ever someone is to query the benefits of the long hose, then they need to experience this!  The out of air diver then moves forward exiting first.  Stepping things up another gear, we all had to turn all lights out.  By now your heart is racing, adrenaline pumping, and that line is the most important thing in the world.   You feel alive.  Yes, we slept well again.

Day 3.  Yesterday was an eye opener to say the least.  It taught me a great deal and today was no different.  We performed yet more drills, repeating and making sure that it’s etched into our brains.  Drills, drills, drills!  Today we successfully passed our course and we finally got to see the beauty of the cave.  Some areas of the cave open up into amazing rooms, tall as houses, majestic ceilings that curve off into the distance, and yet you can turn a corner and you’re passing through a restriction only 2 feet high where the flow of the natural spring water is always wanting to spit you back out of the cave.  When you’re in the caves you need to have near perfect buoyancy control.  If any of us showed signs of poor trim, or a vertical position in the water we were severely chastised.  Cave diving requires a near horizontal position at all times, head slightly down, legs bent at 90 degrees.  The standard finning kick is rarely used, replaced by the popular frog kick.  In some tight sections even the frog kick is no good.  You would instead do the modified flutter kick, only using the ankles for propulsion.  It all takes practise and comes in handy in all forms of diving. 

Now we had passed, TJ allowed us to go on what he called a ‘fun dive’.  In other words we could go cave diving!  I tied off a primary and ran a line to the cavern zone, tying in a secondary, we then joined the main line and entered the true cave.  Once inside the gallery we headed up to the ceiling as we had done on our earlier training dives.  Why?  The flow is weaker outside the main centre of the cave, so you can make more headway.  Once past the gallery we turned right into the lips.  Here the flow is at it’s strongest.  Trying to fin is pointless.  Instead we used the pull and glide method, where the diver pulls himself along then gliding diagonally to one side of the cave, back and forth zig zagging.  Once passed the lips we travel through the junction room, key hole, then an area known as hill 400.  We ended up penetrating nearly 1000ft to a depth of 100ft.  I’ll be back next year for more.

Cave diving isn’t for everyone, but those who have good buoyancy and don’t mind the dark will love it!  When you feel ready, give it a try!