Side Mount and Apprentice

[gschaut]

Just got finished training with Jill Heinerth. Successfully transitioned from back mount to side mount, AND got my Apprentice level.

A REAL big thanks to Jill for all her efforts to bring me up to speed.

I would wholeheartedly recommend Jill to anyone looking for any level of training.

Thanks Jill.

Gary Schaut

[Tegg]

What would have been better then a generic advertisement type of post, would have been a nice dive report written about the class and put into the dive reports section of the forum.

[DA Aquamaster]

Which is to say it's still not too late to give detailed report of the class.

[gschaut]

Sorry. Forgive me for being a bit wasted and sleep deprived after 5 days of diving. Also, I'm in a hotel room using a tiny little notebook computer that is REALLY tough to type on with bandaged fingers. I may be missing a few details here due to sensory overload, but this is how I remember things going.

Due to shoulder injuries, I can no longer do valve drills on back mount doubles. So I decided to try to transition to side mount. After asking around, I made arrangements with Jill Heinerth for private training on side mount, followed by Apprentice class. Only problem is, up in Buffalo, NY I could not find anyone to help me with side-mount. So I spend a month in the pool playing with my new Nomad XT, but not getting it to work right.

Last Thursday, I flew down from Buffalo and settled in High Springs for the week. Brought both my dry suit and (as backup) my wet suit. Planned on doing the cave diving dry, but that did not work out. Picked up my rental tanks from Amigo's and met Jill at Ginnie on Friday morning. We were going to work on getting the side mount right, then doing some evaluation dives in Devil's Ear. Then I would brush up my skills on Saturday and Sunday before starting class.

First thing I did was slip and fall down the Little Devil steps while schlepping gear to the water. Full 1.5 summersaults down the steps to a belly flop in the water... While still in my street clothes!

Rule #1- Always get dressed for diving BEFORE going anywhere near the water. But the good news is- My supposedly "water resistant" cell phone REALLY IS waterproof!

Great way to impress the new instructor with my skill level!

Jill worked with me on getting the side mount rigged to my body, and gave me a laundry list of changes to buckle and D-ring position that would allow me to better reach my equipment without having "danglies". We did a couple dives in the Ear and the Eye. I was having serious trim problems. My dry suit was ballooning the legs and pulling me nose-down on ascents. So Jill made some more suggestions that I worked on over the weekend.

Saturday I met another diver from this forum (names withheld to protect the innocent) and we did a couple fun/check out dives at the Eye and Ear.

I added gators and fin straps to my dry suit, and they helped. But the trim was still not perfect. I even let the suit "vacuum pack" me to the point of having some bruises. But I still could not maintain horizontal trim on ascent. The gators reduced the air-shift into my legs, BUT also prevented the trapped air in my ankles from shifting BACK up into the torso when I went head-high for a second.

So I called Jill and checked with her. Put the dry suit back in it's bag, and dove wet for the remainder of the trip.

Sunday- had to re-adjust all the straps and ring positions for the wet suit. Much smaller than the dry suit. Did a couple more dives in the Eye and Ear, and things seemed to be improving. Also my speed and SAC were much better. I had never dove dry in a cave, or high flow environment. Mostly just wreck and reef diving. But that dry suit REALLY does add a lot of drag.

Monday morning- Met Jill at Little River for Apprentice class. There was supposed to be another student, but he canceled, so I ended up getting private lessons. Jill was very supportive and we were able to conduct the activities at a comfortable pace without so much of the time-pressures that occur when trying to keep a group (even 2 or 3) working at the same speed.

For the first dive, we jumped to the Mud Tunnel to practice jumps. I found out that even though I spend hours practicing with reels in pool and silt-bottom quarries in Buffalo, I did not get enough practice with thumb reels. I was a bit sloppy and slow with my thumb-reel handling. Then we took a left at the first T and went thru the Serpentine Tunnel to the Florida Room. A couple hundred feet up the Florida room, then turned the dive prior to thirds, to keep the deco within plan.

We stopped at 20' for 6 minutes, and again, I had not spent any time working in Buffalo on dropping and picking up deco tanks on side mount. So again, a bit of fumbling around to get the tank clipped on and off. Finished our deco, and when we broke the surface Jill said "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Schaut. I saw someone who looked like you at Ginnie, but he was a klutz". I still had quite a way to go, but Jill thought I had made some serious improvement in my skill level over the weekend. I give Jill the credit. I had no idea what I was doing until after she showed me how to do things the right way.

Second dive, we took the opposite paths to the Florida Room, bypassed the mud tunnel,and went right at the T. On the way back out, did some basic drills. Lights out and air sharing. I'm still getting the hang of side-mounting, and don't have the muscle memory perfect. When Jill turned and gave me the OOA hand sign without warning, I grabbed the regulator I was breathing from, and handed it to her. The problem- I was breathing from the SHORT HOSE at the time. (and on side-mount the "short" hose is EXTRA-short, because the reg is under your armpit). So I took one good breath from my long hose, held it in front of her, and hand signaled for a swap. Made sure none of the hoses got foul'd and we maintained a good swimming airshare. Everything else went ok, and we wrapped up after the second dive with more suggestions for skills and minor equipment changes.

Second day at Peacock 1. The plan was to do a circuit in two dives. Go up the peanut tunnel to the crossover, then leave a cookie on the main line near Olsen Sink, thumb the dive, and go back out the peanut tunnel. Then second dive, come up the mainline, and thru the crossover while pulling the reels we left behind on the first dive.

At least, that WAS the plan. Jill walked me thru the SAC numbers and said that I would probably have enough gas to make it to the crossover, but if I didn't, just call the dive on thirds. So after studying the map, off we went. Between sensory overload (I am still overwhelmed by the beauty of the caves), miss counting the number of double-arrows we passed, and NOT paying attention to the distance markings... I missed the crossover jump! I saw the double arrows, and looked to the right
but could not spot the line I was supposed to jump to! I also checked my tank gauges, and I was NO WHERE near thirds (my SAC really improved) so I kept going down the peanut tunnel looking for the crossover. I made it to the Peanut Restriction without hitting thirds, Jill thumbed the dive, then showed me where the crossover was, on the way back out. Back in the breakdown room, we went thru lost line drill.

After a bit of polite and supportive lessons on the value of navigation skills, and paying attention to landmarks, we did a second dive up the mainline to the crossover tunnel, just short of Olsen Sink. Again, sensory overload at seeing so much new cave tunnels I had never been in before. I thought I had done the same thing again, and passed the crossover tunnel. But since the crossover was supposed to be about 100' before Olsen Sink, I just thought I would keep going to Olsen, then double
back. I actually found the crossover with no problem, it was very obvious from the mainline side.

And again, the lack of practice at thumb spools and hovering became VERY clear as I tried to tie in jumps on top of a pile of silt. The good news, is that as a volunteer firefighter, I have spent 40 years learning to work in zero vis. But normally crawling on the floor of a burning building!

So I got both jumps in place, as if we were going to complete the circuit on the next dive. Then we thumbed the dive, and pulled all the spools and cookies out, as that was the last dive of the day.

Jill gave me another list of improvements she wants to see from me before I go Full Cave and said I passed Apprentice. Number one on her list, was for me to slow down, relax, and stop being so hyper. I told her, this IS relaxed for me. If you want to see my "hyper", watch me at work! But I will try and do everything she asks.

So now, I'm still in High Springs for a couple more days, and hope to get a few "fun" dives in before heading back to Buffalo and greasing up the snow-blower for the winter.

[FW]

Congratulations Gary! Sorry I am not down there to dive with you today.

[JillHeinerth]

Gary is his own toughest critic. He worked really hard and has the right dedication to practice. Humility and perseverance are great attributes for a successful cave diver!

[ac28962]

Congrats Gary! I enjoyed diving with you this weekend. Mike

[sskasser]

Fantastic report, congratulations!

[flyguy199]

Congrats!!!!!!