A little while ago I had the pleasure of teaching a cave course with two awesome guys from Canada, Johnny and Rich. I got to know Johnny during a BBQ in my place because he was taking his Divemaster class with my girlfriend Katy and they had become very good friends.
Johnny is a bit intimidating to say the least, being quite tall and tattooed from head to toe, but after you have spent like 10 minutes with him you discover his genuine personality. We hit it of pretty much from the get go, since we both are sarcastic and into black humor and generally don’t take ourselves too serious. To sum it up, we rarely let an opportunity slip to make fun of the other.
Rich is even bigger, the only guy I know on which a set of double 80s look like 40s. He has super cool tattoos as well and despite his size has a very calm and relaxed way to handle things.
I have to admit though that I was holding back a bit in the debriefs because I didn’t want to get beaten up 😉
They were already certified Basic Cave Divers and so we had only to perfect what they already knew and start with navigation in the cave.
First day of the course we started of with some theory and after that we went to Jardin del Eden aka Ponderosa to review fining techniques, touch contact and long hose gas sharing procedures. All in all we had a great day, despite Rich still suffering from the aftermath of a cold.
The next day we returned to Ponderosa to start with longer cave dives including navigation and emergency drills.
We started with line drills between the trees to review step by step line lying, line protocol, positioning and communication. After that, on the first dive we went up the river run and then jumped straight forward on the orange arrow and took the first T to the right. Pretty much right after turning, we started of with a lights out drill which went perfect, passing the T and back over the jump to the main line. There I aborted the drill and collected the reel. On the way out we continued with an out of air emergency which went straight into another zero visibility exercise.
After debriefing and a little brake we headed straight back in for another dive, which Rich was leading. Being exhausted from the cold and the day before things just didn’t seem to work out as planed and so Rich did the only right thing and called the dive. This is really something pretty rare for a cave student, since most of them generally are so focused on what they do that they don’t realize what’s happening around or with them.
All in all the guys did good and so we left Ponderosa tired but satisfied.
Next day we drove to Taj Maha to train negotiating minor restrictions as well as trying to set up and execute a complex circuit dive. This day Johnny and Rich really outdid themselves!!!
The main thing we took from the days before was that we had to take everything a notch slower and simply dial down a bit. Rich was team leader on the first dive and did a great job placing the line and connecting the open water to the permanent cave line. It is always a pleasure seeing a student succeed like that. Once on the main line, Johnny really started to discover the power of his frog kick and now the two were cruising along the line on the way to the double arrows where they did the jump to the left. They passed the two restrictions and then finally turned, leaving a reference marker behind to mark the spot for the upcoming circuit dive.
On the way out we ran a zero visibility drill through the restrictions. The two had studied the cave and the line on the way in and so the touch contact went fairly smooth except Rich using more a modified flutter rather than a shuffle kick and therefore gave Johnny a quiet good beating.
On the second dive we completed the circuit but this time added an out of gas emergency to the zero visibility drill while passing the restrictions. They had a good speed exiting while keeping a relaxed breathing rate, the perfect mix.
Every minute on the surface was spent mocking each other and just having a great time. I can’t remember when I was laughing so much in a single day. If everyday would be like that I would pay to do my job, serious.
As a reward we went the last day to Grand Cenote which meant no drills but awesome jaw dropping cave diving instead.
We mainly focused on navigation doing several jumps and team diving. After two long dives we were done and the course unfortunately over. Well, unfortunately for me at least, since I really had a great time hanging out with the guys and would have liked to continue a couple more days.
As we did it at the end of every day we stopped at the super marked to pamper ourselves with some ice cream a tradition that Hans and I started and that I pass on to others 😉
When we meet again next time, Johnny will return the favor and share his passion with me. Most likely he will make me suffer more than I made him since he is a tattoo artist.
I hope you guys are good up there in the cold north and get the chance to get wet every once in a while, before ze germans come.
Keep in touch,
Patrick