I have been diving a lot, but also it’s been a whirlwind of training the past 4 years. Much of my desire to get more training has to do with being confident to take on bigger dives, utilizing more gear, and wanting to see new things. Also the way that most GUE classes are structured, is that most of… Read more »
You may have seen some cave divers wearing fingerless gloves and wondered what the purpose of them is. Do they protect our hands from the sharp rocks or do we do it just to look cool? Someone actually asked me why I wear gloves while I was at peacock not too long ago, and I had to stop and… Read more »
NSS-CDS Cave DPV class with Dan Patterson was scheduled on Friday September 28th through Sunday the 30th. The week prior to class went by fast, because both of Tina and I were very busy at work. One thing that I hadn’t really taken into consideration when buying scooters, was how to get them, and all the other gear into the… Read more »
We’ve been wanting to dive Peacock III or P3 as it’s called for quite some time. This cave system is adjacent to Peacock I or P1, in Peacock springs state park in North Florida. It’s considered a more advanced cave dive because of a number of factors. First, the system often siphons, which means it gently sucks you into the… Read more »
It was 3am on Sunday July 22nd and Tina and I were wide awake desperately trying to sleep. Marley woke up around 2am because of a storm and was bumping around, crashing into the walls and closet door. She’s a 14 year old Golden Retriever, that’s totally blind, and hates thunderstorms. So when she gets upset, she wanders aimlessly around…. Read more »
It was the morning of Saturday the 21st of July, 2018. We were up earlier than Kirill and Per, but as we started moving around both of them woke up shortly after. We gathered our stuff for the day and put some drinks in the cooler. Everyone had their undergarments in the dryer from the night before. We we… Read more »
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 »
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 »
It’s been just about 6 months since Cave 2 and we have been busy diving as much as we can. Tina and I have spent a fair amount of time exploring a little bit of Madison, a lot of Peacock, and a lot of Ginnie springs. We pretty much try a different dive or try to see something new every… 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 »
We’ve been really busy cave diving, averaging about 10 cave dives per month, since completing our GUE Cave 1 class almost exactly a year ago. We have learned a lot this year, and are lucky to have such beautiful dive sites in our back yard. Now we are on the cusp of taking GUE Cave 2, and we are… Read more »