Out of Caves for a while - Drills?

[FW]

I live in Israel, No caves here...but lots of shore dives, and some wrecks...

You could do some "sneak" diving in Saudi, lots of first magnitude springs there. They call them Oases

[pink arrows]

I feel like diving gets in the way of online posting. I typically try to spend as much time out of the water as possible - there's no underwater internet connection.


Post more, dive less.

[Wizard]

There's nothing like running with a set of 104's to warm up for diving.

[JE]

"When the dive is done cold beer and campfires rule the night"! & Pizza or Suwannee River_ fried catfish/chicken !!

[Sludge]

Post more, dive less.

Seeing as this is your first post in six months...

[nakatomi]

What is your favorite way to 'warm up' for cave diving?

Cave diving is a good warm up for cave diving. In the absence of caves, OW diving is a good warmup. In the absence of that watching cave diving videos is

Do you have favorite drills?

Yes, run a line into the cave, try not to touch anything or make silt. And enjoy the dives.

What preparations?

Good sleep, hydration and a light meal.

[oya]

My wife runs guidelines and jumps all over the house. I keep finding the cats dangling in them like a spiderweb.

[FW]

My wife runs guidelines and jumps all over the house. I keep finding the cats dangling in them like a spiderweb.

I sure am glad I just finished my soda!

[v101]

Ive used pool time and bricks or other negative buoyant items to tie to running a line in a circle.
Then I swim the line mask free right and left handed, practicing shut downs, feathering, etc.
I place a arrows in uniform midpoints on the circle then mask free place a jump reel and run it to other arrow.
Doing this right and left handed.
Once I wish to end the session I try to take up the entire coarse blacked out or no vis.
Ive had some pool sessions last for a couple hours.

The only way I can stand being in a pool that long is eyes shut and forewarn your life guards if you have them you can safety dive for quite some time.
In our local quarry we do quite the same type of a coarse in 20-30' only on a much larger scale.
Our dives usually are well over 2 hours and always while one is working a skill the other is shadowing.
In many circumstances the shadow is not needed but what we have found in the quarry is that other divers either unknowingly get tangled or take up our lines.
This prompted us to make laminated signs on cloths pins.
Ive found that most if not all of my dives have become cave oriented even outside of limestone.

As you will understand we have gotten some strange looks at the quarry we enter the water then hours later come out.
One diver asked how many dives a day we do? Usually two 4-5 hours total underwater.
This is in the summer when water temps are in upper 70's.
Again in full cave rig.

I miss my buddies who trained with me the bond you form on these dives can be close.
Only those who dive hours at a time get it, some buddies are like gloves they fit just right!
When the dive is done cold beer and campfires rule the night!
Safe training friends.

JCG

Cam.
Good post.
I've found the pools to be helpful also.
I've rigged up several different sized rocks and put them into buckets and filled them with concrete. It gives the illusion of a rock protruding so I can do my tie offs on in a pool.
They work well. The other thing I do is to start my simulated cave dive by tieing on the ladder. (Tell the lifeguards ahead of time)
Then I tie the secondary to the rock on the bottom. I bought a cheap no viz blinder at wall Mart (sleeping mask) and use that to cover my mask and practice lost line drill.

The quarry is good for practice as Cam said. Working on buoyancy trim and swimming along the bottom without silting it out is a huge help.

I typically don't go more than 1-2/months for diving a cave, but in between practice is a good thing.

[diver42]

Run a line in 15 to 30 feet of water. Do on-the-fly stage pickups (swimming and scootering). Maintain a particular depth while you swim (or scooter) and rotate bottles. Pick a depth and hover for five minutes while you rotate bottles.