Kudos to Bert Wilcher at Tampa Adventure Sports
This past week, I took my full cave training with Bert Wilcher who owns Tampa Adventure Sports. Bert was an awesome instructor. We dove at Ginnie, Peacocck (Orange Grove and P1), Little River, and we had the post training celebration dives at Cow.
Bert was thorough and patient. He help me to analyze each dive and find ways to fine tune my skills. He threw in plenty of "gremlins" to keep me on my toes (not literally, of course, that would be bad). Over the course of 5 days (4 training and 1 fun dives) we logged 14 dives. He definitely didn't skimp on the number of dives or the knowledge he imparted.
We started with simple jumps at Ginnie, then we built a circuit at Ginnie. We then moved on to some jumps and more complex navigational decisions at Little River, working with the T's and building circuits. At Orange Grove we completed our first traverse from Orange Grove to Challenge. Then we completed our second from Challenge to Orange Grove. At P1, we did a series of jumps that brought us back on the main line and completed a travers to Olsen. Then we went back the way we came. Finally, we completed a circuit using the jumps we put in going up Pothole, crossing over at the Crossover, down Peanut and took at little detour off to Waterhole and back. At Cow, we went downstream for a very interesting and snug experience. That completed the skills diving.
Then to celebrate completion, we went upstream at Cow. Talk about amazing. The restrictions were definitely the most, er, restrictive that I've been through so far and tons of fun. Fortunately for me, I'm told that flow was way down. Braving the restrictions was well worth it, as the cave had to be the most beautiful I've been in so far.
All in all, if was the best 5 days ever!! I look forward to lots of dives, and continuing to learn and train as time goes on.
I also have to give kudos to Rick Murcar. He did my Intro class, and without his thorough and challenging training, I am pretty sure full cave would have been a lot more difficult for me. Overall, I've been very lucky to have trained with two great instructors and two really great guys!!
Don
