I got off work early, the truck was already packed from the night before, so all we had to do was put food in the cooler, load the dogs, and head south. It was Thursday July 19th and our fourth day of Tech 1 was in the morning. We rented an Air BnB a few miles from pompano dive center… Read more »
It was Sunday morning at 7:30am and we were heading South on 75 towards Hudson Grotto, north of Tampa. I was not excited. In fact I really just wanted to get this day over with. We would be spending a long hot day diving and then have a 2.5 hour drive north back to high springs. When we first talked… Read more »
DrewComments Off on GUE Tech 1-Day 2 at Blue Grotto
Ahhh Blue Grotto. By now we are intimately familiar with this place. Virtually all of our GUE classes have started here (except for cave 2). It’s a great place to train and the facilities are very nice. Picnic tables, covered pavilions, showers, and nice bathrooms. The downside is that It’s also fairly crowded on the weekends with… Read more »
Tina and I have been putting off Tech 1 for a while. Partly because we both felt like we didn’t need it, and partly because we didn’t think we were ready. But as much as we cave dive and feel somewhat proficient in that, we also realize that we had a major deficiency for diving in the ocean doing the… Read more »
Technical and cave diving has always seemed to be such a distant goal for us. I can remember the feeling I had when starting to discover Global Underwater Explorers back in 2013 while living in Houston. I was in awe of the divers that I would watch in videos. They just made it look so easy and fun. They had… Read more »
You can’t go into any of the the local High Springs dive shops and not see a DPV (DIver Propulsion Vehicle or a scooter as they are commonly called), sitting, waiting, begging to to be fondled inappropriately. Scooters represent a level of diving that we just didn’t think we would be at a few short years ago. Not to mention… Read more »
Cave 2 has been a different class compared to other GUE classes we have taken. The challenges were there, the struggle with new skills were there, but the learning was different. Mark and Mer gave us the tools to make good decisions underwater; in a positive and controlled way. Of course there are a number of ways to deal with… Read more »
It’s the 4th day of Cave 2 training. We are sore and tired. Our fingers are chewed up more than normal. I suppose it’s because of trying to mess with gear in the cold and dragging extra equipment that we aren’t used to in the caves. So far class is going ok. It’s certainly challenging and fun. But at the… Read more »
December 28, 2017 It’s day 3 and we finally got some sleep last night. However the weather doesn’t seem to be cooperating with us. It was really cold this morning, and analyzing tanks with cold fingers was not fun. Now have even more tanks to analyze, ( 4 sets of doubles, 2 AL40 deco bottles and 2 AL 80’s) it… Read more »
December 27, 2017. Both of us slept poorly again last night, and this morning Tina was feeling worse than yesterday. She had a lot of congestion, and was up coughing all night. However, we managed to get moving fairly early. The morning started with the usual gear prep and breakfast. We analyzed gas, and I did some fixing of any… Read more »
With the anticipation of GUE Cave 2 training starting bright and early the following morning (December 26, 2017), Tina and I went to bed at our normal time-ish (10pm). Unfortunately neither of us slept very well. I ended up sleeping on the couch because we were tossing and turning keeping each other up. I suppose we were just anxious about… Read more »
It’s almost bedtime on Christmas day 2017 and Tina and I are about to start our Cave 2 class in the morning. We are staying at a house near Fort White, just a stones throw away from High Springs. The class will be roughly 8 hours of field and in water drills for 5 days. This is the pretty standard… Read more »
I’m not ashamed to admit that I like to eat and partake in the occasional adult beverage. But when life gets busy I tend to eat more and exercise less. Unfortunately my early to mid thirties have been a very busy time for me; and consequently I’ve not maintained a very healthy lifestyle of exercise and proper diet. Hey… Read more »
Tina and I had been working hard all week and Mer was gracious to give us an open ended schedule. We pretty much agreed that it would take what it took to do the class and at this point we were just happy to be learning and growing as divers. As with fundies, we grew so much in just a short amount… Read more »
It was day 6 and we arrived at the front office of Ginnie Springs just before 8am. We waited a few minutes for the staff to open up but we were the only ones in the parking lot. We quickly checked in and everyone there was very nice. They gave us our “Cave 1” arm bands and we headed over the the… Read more »
The week was flying by. It was the morning of December 22nd and our plan was to meet Mer at Peacock again at around 8 am. We got up a little early and we were making good time. So we stopped at this really cool breakfast place called The Great Southern Biscuit Company in Mayo Fl. Tina was wearing her santi… Read more »
After actually getting some sleep and waking up at a reasonable hour to prep gear, Tina and I hopped into the truck and drove towards Wes Skiles Peacock Springs. It was cold and rainy but eventually it was supposed to clear up (we hoped). We met Mer at the gate around 8am and she showed us to the parking lot… Read more »
We had trouble falling asleep from just being wired and anxious, and on top of that, we woke up cold in the middle of the night. The temperature outside had dropped to the mid 40s and the thermostat was set for the low 60’s. I couldn’t figure out how to reset it in my half-a-sleep stupor, so I just tried… Read more »
Class started on Sunday the 18th at EE, with Meredith Tanguay as our instructor. We did the normal morning lectures followed by some gear inspection. There are some slight gear changes for cave diving that we hadn’t done prior to class, but Mer got us all fixed up. Really not much changes but you will see once you take the… Read more »
If you asked me two years ago if we would be getting ready to do a cave diving class, I’d have said “no way that’s happening!” In fact I remember when we first met Mer, she asked us what our goals were in diving. The subject of cave diving seemed pretty ridiculous to even think about. But I guess life tends… Read more »