I spent today catching up with mundane matters, particularly paid work which of course was put on hold for a whole week while I was underwater. But I realised I had better get my Reflections done before I forget all of the points I wanted to make.
Reflection 1: Primary Lights
I'm sure you saw this one coming. Well, of the most likely reasons that a cave diver might have to cancel or turn a dive, having a primary light failure ranks up there at the top. You see it now and again but to have so many in one week was downright freaky. And it gave me pause for thought about my own situation: I am carrying a high-power light with a filament that is literally made out of glass. One drop, one bad tap, one sudden impact and it's out of service until I can get the $140 HID bulb replaced. I baby my light: pack it inside my wetsuit or clothing for land trips, insist I take it on my carry-on for airline travel, and I don't let anyone else use or even handle it. But the inevitable is coming. It will one day quit working.
So after a lot of hee'ing and haw'ing I've decided to get a Dive Rite 500 lumen LED flashlight (the one piece unit without the cord) which is strong enough to use as a primary light, yet nigh indestructible. This won't be the end-all-be-all of primary lights, but it is like someone wrote in a magazine recently: LED lights are in their infancy. LED's themselves are not. They've been commercially available since the 70's and ultrabright technology has been in consumer products since the mid-90's. But as dive lights go, the manufacturers still have a long way to go to make a reliable product that stands up to the brightness and versatility of HID's.
I need a bright spotter light I can take on a dive boat or liveaboard and not worry about it getting knocked around. I need a backup light which is bright enough to continue my cave dive if my primary goes out. (Of course, to do that under the guidelines I would have to carry a total of four lights, not three.)
Reflection 2: Guided vs. Buddy vs. Solo dives
Yes, I will admit it: I have been solo in a cave. And I enjoy the experience more than having any number of other divers with me. But there is great prudence in having at least one other diver with you when cave diving so most of my dives will be in teams of two or more. "The more the merrier" does not seem to apply to cave diving, an axiom made obvious by my experiences of the past week. Each diver has their own speed, limitations, intentions. As the number of divers increase, the likelihood of some kind of incompatibility increases.
My best dive of the week was in Labna Ha where my team had only 3, all of like mind, good air consumption, and thoroughly enjoying the dive. My worst dive of the week... well, I'm not going to say there was any "worst" anything because all the dives were good. But larger teams increase the probability that someone will have a primary light failure, someone will call the dive because they're cold, or have a "bad feeling." And of course, a dive gets called when the first person reaches their 3rds, not the last person. Thus it can be said that cave diving teams follow the "weakest link" principle. I can honestly say that of the 10 cave dives we did last week, none of them were called by me.
Who you choose as a dive guide also makes a difference, though in more subtle ways. A guide has more training, more experience and in all likelihood better equipment than others on the team. So he or she will probably not be the weakest link. But what I think sets one guide apart from another is their own motivation for why they cave dive. Connie clearly loves caves and she takes a solid, practical manner in which to lead teams. She takes her time and has worked out some excellent routes to lead people into some of the best parts of the best caves. Lena by contrast is more goal-oriented. It seems she chooses a route and executes it to get from Point A to Point B, not so much to smell the roses along the way. Case in Point: on the traverse dive from Dos Ojos to Monolito, Connie takes two breaks at cenotes Dos Palmas and High Voltage. Lena takes only one break, at Dos Palmas. I got the impression she wouldn't have stopped there either except that it is somewhat traditional.
I see a less subtle but very similar contrast when comparing open-water dive masters. The really good ones seem to take it upon themselves to be "ambassadors of the oceans" and enjoy finding interesting fish and pointing them out to divers in their charge. These dive masters truly enjoy diving and sharing with people the things they love. The not-so-good divemasters are the ones who are there because it is a paycheck. They drift along, doing only the minimal amount of watching over the other divers, counting the minutes until they can call the dive and be done with it. The less scrupulous of them will even choose deeper profiles so as to cause air and/or bottom time to run out faster.
Reflection 3: First or Last
Cave diving as a team is an entirely tandem experience. Although the rules can be redefined based on needs or plans, usually a team maintains a specific order throughout the dive. Dives other than traverses (i.e. one way only: go in one cenote and come out another) the team simply changes direction when the dive is called, thus the last person in line then becomes the first going out. Because of how powerful our lights are, and sometimes because of characteristics of the cave such as haloclines, which position in line you are can radically change your visual experience.
When diving in large teams (more than 2) I sometimes prefer being the last diver. That is because there is so much light from everyone else's light that I get a great panoramic view of the cave. If you've studied photography you'll also know that light sources at angles to your line of sight produce better contrast and definition to irregular surfaces. The effect is especially true when cave diving, and I can see a formation like a wall of stalactites much better when another diver lights it than if I light it up with my own primary.
Another reason I like being in the back: I love to turn my light backwards or cover it with my hand, then glide along behind the team. This always gives me this awesome "I'm watching a real-life movie of cave divers in a cave" perspective. I disappear as myself and become a 3rd person observer; the cave seems to gain a personality of its own as if it were part of the movie. Unfortunately the disappearance of my light sometimes causes concern for the person ahead of me. Quite often Mike 1 would look backward searching for me when my light beam would disappear from his vision for a minute or two. I'd then uncover my light to allay his concern.
Reflection 4: Fitness Makes A Difference
I'm going to be brief about this because it is now late, and I've got to be on the dive boat at 8:00 AM tomorrow.
Last year I went on Connie's trip and was exhausted at the end of most days. I hadn't been exercising all that much leading up to my trip to Mexico and I guess the lack of muscle tone made it much harder on me to slag the 100 lbs of tanks 'n gear through muck and mire. This year I had made a commitment to do some kind of break-a-sweat exercise regularly for a few weeks before the trip. This was part of my initial motivation to learn rock climbing.
What a difference good fitness makes. I knew even after the first day that all that climbing had paid off. Even the torturous rides in the van to and from the cenotes didn't bother me. This year even though I brought ibuprophen and naproxen, I never took a single painkiller. There was no pain to kill!
You can be sure that I will keep up the regimen of climbing when I get home, for as long as I can retain interest.
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