On March 20, 1999 I backed out of the driveway and started a journey towards my dream to become a cave diver.

This is Roger Oakey and our GUE instructor, Ted Cole in Ginnie Springs.

Monday, March 22

I met my instructor, Ted Cole, with him was Jarrod Jablonski, founder of GUE, who looked at lot like my friend John "Hooverman". I also met Tom Karnuta and Roger Oakey, my two classmates and dive buddies, and who would become the first honorary members of DDI-CDS. We started off the course with several lectures in the morning and equipment configuration and more lectures in the afternoon. As I would find out during the week, a cave diving course is a humbling experience. The lectures taught me a lot even if I have read countless text on cave diving, and the dives would make me feel like an open water diver again.

Tuesday, March 23

This are my two dive buddies gearing up at Ginnie Springs. That's Tom Karnuta in the black drysuit and and Roger in his yellow and black DUI.

We all met at Ginnie Springs to do some dives. Dipping my finger in the 72 degree water, I immediately knew that it'll be cold, little did I know that it'll be hypothermia week. As if the freezing water wasn't enough, as I bent over lift my gear, I thought my knees would give out from under me. Luckily, I had enough strength in my wimpy little body to stand up and haul myself with the 'amlost my body weight' gear to the water. 1st two dives were at Ginnie Springs, we did some line drills and air shares. The first dive went on without much excitement, I wasn't able to appreciate the cavern of Ginnie Springs since my brand new mask kept fogging up. Thankfully, Ted had a mask cleaner which cleared it up for the next dive and I finally got around to seeing Ginnie Springs. After the dive, I was extremely thankful that they built a stairway that comes out of the water, and thought to myself that it won't be so bad since the springs would always have stairs. Next we moved on over to Devil's Ear, and did our swim test, which zapped what little strength I had left after carrying the gear. We then suited up for our third and fourth dives, but this time with Jarrod in the Devil's Ear system. The strong outflow along with our new and heavy gear plus the task loading of placing a line, all combined to jack up our air consumption, as we got to our turn around point immediately after tying off our reel to the main line. Even though we saw very little of the cave, I found it to be quite beautiful and clarity of the water was unbelievable. As with almost all the other caves I went into, I have to return to explore the rest of it someday.

That's Ted giving us a lecture on sinkholes. That's not a grassy lot behind him, it's the duckweed covered sinkhole, Orange Grove.

Wednesday, Peacock Springs

1st dive was on the Pothole Side where we were able to go in and explore the cave. Although the visibility wasn't as clear as in Devil's Ear, the low flow was a welcome change of pace, even if we had to sacrifice the vis. With me in the back, my dive buddies' lights fully illuminated the big rooms and hallways of Peacock Springs, and I throughly enjoyed the dive. We were able to penetrate about 300 ft. into the cave before we had to call the dive. 2nd Dive was also at Peacock Springs, but this time at the Peanut Side. The tunnels were much smaller than the Pothole side, but the shallower depth enabled us to go to a 600 ft. penetration. The dive was longer and we were able to see more of Peacock Springs, and not suprisingly, is Tom and Roger's favorite dive. The exit was quite interesting as we had an out of air drill followed by a no lights drill. We had what you can call a clusterf#@% and needless to say that we would have been dead if that had happened in real life. I didn't realize that Tom and Roger were air sharing, and on the ligths out drill, I somehow manage to wedge myself in between them. Third dive was at Telford Springs. The area had bad visibility, lots of silt, and trash all around the cave. No one really enjoyed the site, we did however got to a sinkhole before turning the dive. Tom had the worst time since his fins mysteriously got loose twice. Those quick releases definitely do their job pretty well, making it easy for anyone to unclip them. ; )

Behind me is the view of Little River. Even from afar, you can tell that the water is exceptionally clear.

Thursday, Little River Springs

Little River is hailed as one of the best cave dives around, and after our dives, I can see why. The strong flow kept the water crystal clear, but made our entrance quite hard. Nevertheless, we clawed our way in, and got to the chimney before calling the dive. In our second dive, we were able to go down the chimney and do about 300 ft. of penetration to see for ourselves the beauty of Little River. Our thrid dive was just a quick in and out just to get the reel. Little River offered more than just diving, it was the complete entertainment for us. Before our first dive, I forgot my safetly spool and Tom's pressure guage gave out. Tom, being the kind soul that he is, went back up the 3 storey stairs just to get my spool. : ) As we were about to start our second dive, a woman came tumbling down the long flight of stairs leading to the spring. She was screaming 'You don't care about me' in between falls. She made it down the stairs quickly and started to walk to deeper waters in an effort to drown herself. Whether her husband managed to haul her out of the water or not is unknown since we went back in as the fiasco continued. The prelude to our third dive managed to be equally entertaining. An instructor and student were getting ready to go in, but both had dangerously misconfigured gear; while another was shouting 'I've found the cave' impatiently waiting for his dive parter whom he met at the parking lot. Side shows aside, I really enjoyed the dive, although I couldn't say the same for my fingers. After the third dive, all the clawing around took it's toll on our fingers as we all got skinned. Luckily for the local police, we weren't criminals, we could have easily done any crime as we didn't have any fingerprints left!

That's Me and Tom in the clear pool of Peacock Springs, waiting for all the traffic to get out of the cave.

Friday, Peacock Springs System

After our exams in the morning, we went back to Peacock Springs but this time dove Orange Grove Sink. This pool of water was almost completely covered in duckweed, which hid the clear water below. The low flow and twisting tunnels made it very enjoyable, and my fingers were quite happy too. : ) Nevertheless, the constant shivering and teeth clatter finally took it's toll on me as one of my crowns fell out! I noticed my tooth missing after surfacing, but a quick shake of the regulator quickly disspelled my fears of spending the rest of my stay in the US toothless. Ted opened the regulator and gave me my tooth back, I then clumsily dropped it, but luckily Roger was able to find it underwater. As if the tooth incident wasn't enough punishment, I was faced with a daunting climb back up as the sink didn't have any stairs, natural or manmade. Eventually, I made it halfway back up before my body finally gave up and I slumped to the ground. I took out all my gear there and decided to haul my gear piece by piece. Which is when I realized that I had harvested with me quite a big portion of the duckweed even though I was the last to get out. But, all in all, it was a good day, the dives were great and we passed the course.

Behind me is the view of Little River. Even from afar, you can tell that the water is exceptionally clear.

Saturday, Our first ever cave dives as certified cave divers!

We decided we wanted to do a couple of cave dives before heading out our separate ways. We picked out Peacock Springs as the site to do our first certified cave dives, and we chose to go to the Peanut side. Unfortunately, it was only me and Roger doing the dive, Tom had the job of being topside support and official photographer. Which turned out to be a good thing as I got jinxed again and my light wouldn't function as we were about to make our dive. Tom, again, saved my butt and replaced the blub and helped me back into my gear. After everything was fixed, we were able to start our dive. Our 1st dive was just to lay our line and come out, as we have noticed that we spent too much time and air on the line alone. Our dive went perfectly and we got out with over 3000psi left in our twin steel 95s. In our second dive, we were able to penetrate deeper into a cave than in any of our previous dives. Our alloted 500 psi. of usable gas and the shallower tunnels enabled us to go to the 1000 ft. mark just past the offshoot tunnel to Waterhole Sink.

That's another shot of me and Roger at Peacock Springs, needless to say, we had a lot of time on our hands as we waited for the crowd to get out.

In closing, I enjoyed the trip very much. I got the pleasure of knowing and diving with my two buddies, Tom and Roger. I seriously don't think that I would have finished the course without their help.

Yup, you guessed it... Roger and I at Peacock. Still waiting for our turn.

THANKS GUYS!!!