The rest of September was pretty much full with teaching and I could only use the hand full of days off I had to go exploring.
First up was the cave course of Pasi from Finland, Lisa from Austria and Sherief from good old Egypt.
Definitely a course I will remember for a long time =)
Besides all the seriousness of cave diving we managed to have lots of fun before and after the dives with some truly classic moments … am still smiling just when I think of it.
Although the weather was horrible and we spent almost every line drill in the rain we still managed to visit 5 different Cenotes. It took some time to get the team going especially due to the big differences in experience as well as body seize but once we overcame that things started to fall in their place.
All in all we definity had a great time and also celebrated that at the end of the course with a nice dinner and some drinks.
After that I had two days off that I used to go exploring. Sistema Lorenzo unfortunately turned out to be rather small and so I ran out of cave after only three dives =(
On the way out of the jungle though I found another small entrance right underneath a bridge and after a short power snorkel dive decided to come back the next day and see if there is some cave.
The following day I was back and in a single 90min dive laid 1012ft, well all the knotted line I had on me =) This was really the first time in my life that there was so much cave that I really had to stop in awe every once in a while. Many super low bedding plains, lots of fossils and really a lot of percolation. But man I felt like a 1000 bucks when I left the water.
The next day it was back to work, Victoria and Chris were my new students. I had taught Victorias sister Chelsea some time ago and now as happy of course to have the second sister sitting in my classroom … I hope we get to do a family cave dive one day =)
Chris dropped out the second day for personal reasons but will join the course I am starting next Monday.
So it was only Tori and I. After always teaching teams it was cool to have only one student for a change and be part of the team myself. This time we were a bit luckier with the weather although we still spent quiet some time in the rain.
Victoria was wearing one of her own Swish suits which was very impressive given that the suit was only a 3 mm and she hardly ever got cold … meanwhile I was diving dry with 300 gram thinsulate … still impressed!
This time we even managed to visit 6 different sites including Xunan Ha were we encountered hundreds of coaties.
Definitely a great course with lots of cool dives!!!
Then the last days I was back again in Sistema Under the Bridge and with the help of Mauro managed to extend it to 4000+ft as of today connecting 3 different Cenotes.
In the next days I plan to take a break from exploring and instead take my Megalodon and the Scooters out for a spin. Its a hard life I live… =)
Then next week from Monday I have a cave course with Chris and Joram, followed by a Multistage course with Tristan and the later in the month some deep dive training with Normoxic Trimix and Advanced Nitrox on the schedule.
Until then, happy diving!!!!
Patrick