Tina and I woke up much more refreshed after getting to bed early and having a reasonably good night’s sleep. It was Sunday September 30th 2018, the last day of DPV Cave with Dan Patterson. We were to meet him at 7:30 in front of Manatee Springs State park, which is located about 40 minutes Southwest of High Springs, near… Read more »
Tina and I took GUE DPV 1 May 2018, which certified us to use a scooter in open water but not in an overhead environment. That being said, we have less interest in scootering in open water than we have in caves for now. So the real goal even back in May, was to get cave DPV certified in the… Read more »
We’ve been wanting to dive Peacock III or P3 as it’s called for quite some time. This cave system is adjacent to Peacock I or P1, in Peacock springs state park in North Florida. It’s considered a more advanced cave dive because of a number of factors. First, the system often siphons, which means it gently sucks you into the… Read more »
Tina and I have been putting off Tech 1 for a while. Partly because we both felt like we didn’t need it, and partly because we didn’t think we were ready. But as much as we cave dive and feel somewhat proficient in that, we also realize that we had a major deficiency for diving in the ocean doing the… Read more »
Technical and cave diving has always seemed to be such a distant goal for us. I can remember the feeling I had when starting to discover Global Underwater Explorers back in 2013 while living in Houston. I was in awe of the divers that I would watch in videos. They just made it look so easy and fun. They had… Read more »
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It’s been just about 6 months since Cave 2 and we have been busy diving as much as we can. Tina and I have spent a fair amount of time exploring a little bit of Madison, a lot of Peacock, and a lot of Ginnie springs. We pretty much try a different dive or try to see something new every… Read more »
Cave 2 has been a different class compared to other GUE classes we have taken. The challenges were there, the struggle with new skills were there, but the learning was different. Mark and Mer gave us the tools to make good decisions underwater; in a positive and controlled way. Of course there are a number of ways to deal with… Read more »
It’s the 4th day of Cave 2 training. We are sore and tired. Our fingers are chewed up more than normal. I suppose it’s because of trying to mess with gear in the cold and dragging extra equipment that we aren’t used to in the caves. So far class is going ok. It’s certainly challenging and fun. But at the… Read more »
December 28, 2017 It’s day 3 and we finally got some sleep last night. However the weather doesn’t seem to be cooperating with us. It was really cold this morning, and analyzing tanks with cold fingers was not fun. Now have even more tanks to analyze, ( 4 sets of doubles, 2 AL40 deco bottles and 2 AL 80’s) it… Read more »
December 27, 2017. Both of us slept poorly again last night, and this morning Tina was feeling worse than yesterday. She had a lot of congestion, and was up coughing all night. However, we managed to get moving fairly early. The morning started with the usual gear prep and breakfast. We analyzed gas, and I did some fixing of any… Read more »
With the anticipation of GUE Cave 2 training starting bright and early the following morning (December 26, 2017), Tina and I went to bed at our normal time-ish (10pm). Unfortunately neither of us slept very well. I ended up sleeping on the couch because we were tossing and turning keeping each other up. I suppose we were just anxious about… Read more »
We’ve been really busy cave diving, averaging about 10 cave dives per month, since completing our GUE Cave 1 class almost exactly a year ago. We have learned a lot this year, and are lucky to have such beautiful dive sites in our back yard. Now we are on the cusp of taking GUE Cave 2, and we are… Read more »
Tina and I have been wanting to get some professional pictures taken of us in the water for quite some time. We always seem to be taking pictures or video of each other, and never have any of both she and I in the shot. So I contacted Lauren and Jon Kieren to see if they would be interested in… Read more »
Tina and I had been working hard all week and Mer was gracious to give us an open ended schedule. We pretty much agreed that it would take what it took to do the class and at this point we were just happy to be learning and growing as divers. As with fundies, we grew so much in just a short amount… Read more »
After actually getting some sleep and waking up at a reasonable hour to prep gear, Tina and I hopped into the truck and drove towards Wes Skiles Peacock Springs. It was cold and rainy but eventually it was supposed to clear up (we hoped). We met Mer at the gate around 8am and she showed us to the parking lot… Read more »
We had trouble falling asleep from just being wired and anxious, and on top of that, we woke up cold in the middle of the night. The temperature outside had dropped to the mid 40s and the thermostat was set for the low 60’s. I couldn’t figure out how to reset it in my half-a-sleep stupor, so I just tried… Read more »
We have been using the Light Monkey 9W 5.2 canister light for a few years now and it’s been pretty good for what we needed. And what we needed was to have a reliable LED light to dive in the murky Texas lakes, and on night dives. We used the 9Ws mainly for communication if we got separated enough that… Read more »
Tina and I decided that we needed a change to shake things up a bit. We had been tossing around the idea of moving out of Texas for a little while, but it was always a fleeting discussion. Let’s face it, moving sucks! The process is stressful and the comfort of living and working in a familiar area turns into chaos of… Read more »
We find ourselves at the end of another year. Where does the time go? Since becoming a diver in 2010; this year, above all the previous years has been the craziest. It’s also a year that we didn’t get to do much fun diving despite having been in the water a lot. The training and gear changes have basically… Read more »