Steve Berman's map of the Devil's Eye. The grim reaper sign in the Eye.
GUE Cave 1 / NSS-CDS Apprentice
Page 4
Day 3, we start the day by reveiwing our tests, everyone passed. At this point I am frustrated that I always have to call the dives. Since I am the only one in the team with the little baby tanks, I want to rent the 120s if I can't get some 104s. Tamara says she will try to find some 104s for tomorrow. I also ask Tamara about getting NSS-CDS Full Cave cards at the end of class since we are moving into Cave 2 stuff. In the end she says we might get Apprentice cards in addition to Cave 1 cards if we do all the skills and dives for it. We do some more lecture, and then head over to Ginnie Springs.
Steve Berman's map of the Devil's Eye. The grim reaper sign in the Eye.
[8-7-02 Devil's Eye] For the first dive, Pat leads, then Francis, then me. Some point after the lips, we turn the dive. After we got back through the lips, it is my turn to do a lost line drill. Pat and Franscis go up to the roof of the cave, I turn off my light and Tamara spins me around and set me down on some rocks. I had a hard time finding a primary tie off. Finally I pick up a large rock, tie off to it, then do a secondary tie off on the wall. I slowly make my way up the wall inspecting it for the line. When I reach the top of the cave I run into two floating bodies. Then one of the bodies squeezes my head a few times. Great, I am lost in a cave with no lights, I find two bodies floating in the cave, and one is touching me. Unable to get past the bodies, I drop back down to the floor and start off in a new direction. I was worried about my primary tie off coming loose, so I pushed the rock into a large crack and head off to find the line. Luckily "the force" interveined, and I found the line quickly.
Open water diver.
[8-7-02 Devil's Eye] For the second dive, Francis leads, then me, then Pat. The plan was to head into the Catacombs, but none of us really knew how to get there. After some wrong turns, "the force" showed us the way. I was a little startled to see some large catfish in the Catacombs, I have never seen any life in the Devil's cave system before. One of the last restrictions was tight, I think I scraped my canister light squeezing through. We made it to the main line, tied off, and headed towards the lips. At the lips, Tamara asked Francis to check his pressure. Francis opened his isolator, and a metalic equalizing noise echoed in the cave. After the lips, I turned the dive on thirds. Then I ran out of air, and started sharing with Francis, and Pat lead us to the reel. At the reel Tamara stoped the exercise. On the way out in the Catacombs Francis' left post failed, and bubbles shot out. He closed the valve and signaled me, I tried opening the valve, but it started bubbling again. I used my middle finger to indicate his valve was non-functioning. I should have let Francis move into the #2 postion, but his reel was falling apart, and I didn't want to deal with it (actually, I just forgot).