Category — Ponderosa

Putting regulators on the tanks, carrying them to the water’s edge, and slipping them into the water is almost a meditative experience. Every time I get the opportunity, it is another awaking.

In April, I spent three days working with Steve Bogaerts on the basic side-mount class. The class included: lecture, building a custom side-mount harness, and skills & drills. He focused on gear configuration, safety procedures, tank handling and diving in side-mount configuration. I am convinced that those three days evolved my gear configuration by at least 50+ dives of tuning and experimenting. He condensed years of practical experience exploring into a well thought out task specific system. At the end of class, I was tasked with learning to reverse frog kick, improve my line laying, and diving in side-mount. We agreed to meet in a month for Advanced Side-Mount Cave Diving Class.

My Advanced Side-Mount class was scheduled for May. By this time, I had executed 29 side-mount dives, nailed the reverse frog kick and improved my line throwing skills. I felt very comfortable in side-mount; I was ready to continue.

Class started with a lecture at Steve’s place. He covered:

• Revised equipment list, tailored for diving in small passage.
• The need to be able to remove and replace every piece of kit.
• The recent fatality at Genie Springs, Steve is a local Safety Officer.
• More conservative gas planning rules.
• And discussion around knowing one’s limits, mental toughness and the things he has seen deep in the cave, such as abandoned equipment and erratically laid line. All evidence of people reaching their limit.

The revised equipment list included two new items for my Dive Rite Double Zip Pocket. He suggested that I carry a spare bungee to hang my tanks from in the event that I have to cut my normal side-mount bungee and a lanyard with a clip for no-mounting.

Steve is a hawk with regard to gas planning and management, which I suspect is why he is still alive and pushing. In previous training we talked about why the rule of thirds is not conservative enough here in Mexico. Locally, we have low flow caves that do not provide the benefit spitting you out. This was clearly demonstrated when Allie and I almost sucked my tanks dry during a drill in her full cave class. I surfaced with the gauge reading nearly zero after my safety stop.

For pushing challenging cave, the rule of thirds is not conservative. He suggests the rule of sixths or quarters. We discussed the actual usable volume in the tank, which I had never taken into account, and that we should factor that into our gas calculations. The point being, you can never finish a dive with too much gas. The conditions we will encounter include: zero visibility for extended periods, passing major restrictions in zero visibility, entanglements in zero visibility and equipment failures in zero visibility. Any one of these will delay your exit, take two and you’re going to be very glad you have plenty of gas. The extra volume will be a determining factor in your ability to stay calm, cool and collected. As you will read, I learned this lesson. We closed the lecture with an equipment workshop that lead to additional tweaks.

The first day’s diving was confined water skills at Ponderosa. I had the option to go to other sites, but Ponderosa is convenient to both of us. Be forewarned, I am not going to spoil the plot and reveal everything, just the highlights. To begin, every skill I performed I had to perform with visibility and without visibility. So, if I describe a skill, understand I did it at least twice.

The skills started off easy. I demonstrated my ability to swim with tanks on, one tank on and no tanks on. I needed to do this through restrictions. This culminated in having to pass a no-mount restriction in one direction with visibility and then pass it in reverse with no visibility. This was by far the tightest restriction I had ever negotiated. I had to breathe out to get through it. This is where the day got really interesting. I arrived at the restriction in zero visibility. I identified it and then backed up a couple of feet to prepare my gear. This included removing my right tank and butt-mounting it. As I did this, I forgot to clip the lower clip to off on the tank, so it “grabbed” the guideline. I figured this out quickly. I got the tanks into position while maintaining contact with the guideline. As I proceeded through the restriction, I was nervous because the first pass was really tight and I had to push myself through with my feet. It was a mental challenge. I made it through the restriction. I audibly celebrated and Steve heard me. My celebration was short lived.

Surprisingly, the line “came off” a large placement. I was left with ample slack line in the water. I didn’t realize there was slack line, so I started to replace my tanks. Almost immediately, I was entangled. Steve says he did nothing besides remove the placement. The entanglement was natural. As I swung my left tank back into place, I heard gas leaking. I thought, damn he is piling it on. Zero visibility, entangled and a leak.

My first stage was leaking from one of the LP hoses. This was a real equipment failure, must have been Murphy and his love of cave divers. I turned off the left tank and went on the right tank. I decided deal with one problem at a time, the entanglement. I couldn’t see working an entanglement and feathering the valve. This is where practice and a methodical approach really count.

I started to work out how I was entangled. I tried to untangle myself but it seemed hopeless. In retrospect, I should have spent another four or five minutes working the tangle and the slack line. If I were patient and removed some of my gear, I could have gotten through it. But at the time, the only option was to cut the line. When I was sure I was on the exit side with the line wrapped around my hand, I removed my Z-knife and cut the line. Ping! The other end was gone. I put a loop in the line and looked for a spot to secure it. I couldn’t find one immediately, so I move with the line and finned. Later, I found out that the fining blew the other end of the line away from me. I my search for a spot to secure the line, I realized I was on the cave side of the line. I smacked my head and grumbled to myself. Steve later told me that I had rotated through 180 degrees prior to cutting the line. I was disoriented and didn’t realize it.

Steve hovered watching with amazement. He told me that he really enjoyed watching; he couldn’t have planned it any better. It was the real deal, all natural in the course of a dive. It was a lesson I could never have planned.

I am on the cave side of the severed guideline with a leaky regulator. I thought, “This really sucks.” I collected myself, deployed my safety spool and attached it to the guide line. I started my search for the guide line, making another mistake; I neglected securing prior initiating my search. So after a minute or two, I returned and secured the line properly near the exit of the restriction. I knew approximately which direction the next tie off was from the exit of the restriction. I did a very methodical search and after 25 minutes, I found the errant end of the line. If you have spent anytime at Ponderosa, you can image how difficult this task is with the pond weed and the rocks. The restriction and the tie off are about 15 feet apart and I was looking for the loose end of a cave line in pond weed.

At one point in the drill, I briefly considered quitting. Twenty five minutes is a long time and I started to feel hopeless. However, I remembered something I had read, “Never giving up and don’t waste time scribing notes, just keep going till it is over.” I knew for a second why people surrender and are found lifeless with gas in their tanks.

With the line in hand, I had to connect my safety spool to close the gap. This is when I discovered that I had too much line on the spool for it to be useful. I was already under a lot stress, and then I had to fight with my spool to get it clipped off. Once it was clipped off, I chose to leave the spool inline, instead of making a proper repair. I wasn’t sure how long it had been or how much gas I had left. My tank was getting very light. Later I learned this was a mistake. If I had another entanglement, broken guideline or missing jump spool, I would have been without the piece of gear I needed most. Steve suggested that I make every reasonable effort to take my safety spool.

After I passed the next restriction, I switched to the leaky tank and feathered it all the way home. The drill was a HUGE success. I learned some huge lessons:

• Be on the right side of the guideline when you cut it. Seems obvious, right?
• If you can, hold onto both ends of the line.
• Have plenty of gas. You may have to do a lost line drill with only one cylinder available.
• Failures never come alone. Gotta love Murphy.
• The only option at this level is calm cool persistence. If you don’t have it, do not proceed.

The most difficult skill I had to master was to swap regulators between tanks underwater. This is a three part drill: breath from a free flowing regulator while feathering it, breath from a tank valve underwater and perform the regulator swap.

This was a very difficult set of skills for me to master. My breath holding ability is weak, less then one minute. And this decreases as the CO2 builds up. This skill took me 5 attempts over two days before I was able to get through it in zero visibility. One attempt I had to ask for a regulator from another tank. One attempt I ended up bolting to the surface because I panicked a little, which is exactly what we are trying to train out.

I have been tasked with practicing this set of skills till I have it nailed. Steve also suggested I seek some apnea training to increase my breath holding skills. We agreed 2-3 minutes is a reasonable goal and will provide ample time.

The class included two cave dives. The skill was to complete the dives. We did two dives down stream at Grand Cenote. This was a pleasure. The benefit of going downstream is you are the only team in that part of the system. There wasn’t a single hand print or fin slash. The system is in great shape. The two dives included a handful of major restrictions that required passing with a single tank and a high flow major restriction. We turned the second dive when we got to a silty no-mount restriction. We were nearing our turn pressure. I have to admit, the cave diving was a relief compared to the skills in confined water.

Steve video taped me during the dives. We reviewed the video and talked about: my strengths, my blunders and bad habits.

My homework for stage/multi-stage side-mount class next month is:

• Become more aware of my tank position. I am letting them get too high on my body.
• Work on my frog kick. I am doing half a frog kick with just my ankles. I am wasting a lot of energy.
• Work on my kick selection. I am capable of doing all the kicks, I just don’t always chose the best one. I frog kick when I shouldn’t.
• Work on my apnea skills.
• Work on my ability to breath from the tank and swap regulators.

After reflecting on class and the skills practiced, I am convinced that training at this level is as much about mental toughness and learning personal limits and capacity as it is about learning specific skills. By this time, one must possess excellent watermanship, commitment, confidence and dexterity as a prerequisite. You shouldn’t be learning these at this level; they need to be in muscle memory. The drills we executed and the dives we performed provided the grounds for me to hone my mental toughness, assess my limits, and determine my ability to function effectively as the failures pile up.

Eastern Sunday brought some very hot weather and little wind. Clearly this was a sign to flee the urban center and head down to the Cenote for a dive. Katie, Patrick's girlfriend, Allie and myself headed to Ponderosa for a cave dive. Truth be known, Allie read while the two of us went for a dive. Allie starts her full cave class tomorrow and doesn't want to over load this week. I am very happy to report if all goes as planned, she will be full cave certified at the end of the week. That means the end of the intro restrictions and many more possibilities!

I am sure she is going to do great. She is an excellent cave diver already and a natural athlete! She is amazing, she sees someone do something or has it explained to her and she can do it. No weeks of practice, she just does it. I have to earn everything through lots of practice and asking repeatedly how to do it. As luck would have it, she is in class alone. So, I will be shadowing the class and playing buddy. I am very grateful to have this opportunity to hone our team skills.

Now back to the dive report, Patrick gave Katie and I a little briefing on his white board and he suggested we head up to Cenote Sask Leem Ha. He said there is a consistent halocline and lots of percolation. He said he hadn't seen anyone up in that area of the system all the times he has been there. He was right, the system looked very nice and wasn't that trashed. Katie and I headed out, she wa in back mount and I was in side mount again. So, I had the long hose with me.

The dive started by heading to the cavern line over to Cenote Corral. We followed the line to the double arrows. We jumped on a gold kermantle line and followed the line up to an unmarked jump Patrick described. We took the jump to the right up and over a big piece of break down. The line ran up into passage that was getting smaller and T'ed into another line. We were not expecting the T, we were expecting a jump, and so a little confused we turned. A post dive examination of the map revealed the likely destination of the T to the right was Cenote Uchil Ha (acient waters) the left was our original planned path. The fact is, the lines here in Mexico are changing all the time. You really need to be a thinking diver here. From day to day, the line might be in a totally different place or a different material. T's turn into jumps, jumps turn into T's. The end of lines move. You never really know, until you are in the water looking at it. No trust me dives here, you must pay attention or you will perish.

Luckily, we had planned an alternate route to continue our dive. We picked up our gear and headed further into the cave on the gold line to the next marked jump and took it. This line runs to a depth of about 50 feet and then goes up vertically about 15-20 feet. I thought it was very cool. We swam past some marked jumps and the line to Cenote Sask Leem Ha. We continued a couple of minutes and I had to turn on thirds. Katie had about 10bar left.

As soon we turned, we entered into a storm of percolation and halocline. The silt is very dark in this section of the cave and the light gets eaten up right away. Almost immediately, a knot developed in my left calf. Damn, another cramp. I stopped Katie, and went to work on my leg, all the while more percolation fell on me. After a couple of seconds, this started to clear and we continued. I have this on going cramping problem. I had attributed it to dehydration and an electrolytic imbalance. I am starting to believe it might be my breathing pattern. I had an intuitive thought that cramping can be the result of CO2 build up, so I decided to take a couple of very deep breaths and clear out my lungs. Guess what? The cramp cleared. All the massaging and pulling did little compared to a couple of deep breaths.

I am going to talk to Steve about breathing tomorrow. Maybe this is the root of my relentless cramping issues?

The end of the dive I spent practicing swimming in all the orientations and backwards. I am getting better!

This dive was fantastic. The cave is really beautiful. Lots of big break down and shelves of huge stone. The cave doesn't run straight all that often here, so there is always something to tune into. Plus you get to do the cavern. I think the return trip through the cavern with the lights off is absolutely breath taking! Some people might complain about all the time on the cavern line. I think it is worth it.

Katie and I agreed to go back and finish what we started at the T. This would be a great dive to take a 40 stage on and leave it at the start of the gold line. Just enough gas to deal with the cavern section.

One closing thought about Ponderosa, if you are not registered with them. Don't bother coming to dive without a guide! They will not let you in. We were there with Protec and they still gave us a hassle. We got it, but it took a little haggling by Katie.

Max Depth: 50ffw
Run Time: 85 minutes