Learning how to Cave Dive...........

In October Small Hope dive masters Joe and Antonio were lucky enough to go to Abaco and learn how to dive in caves. Here is an account of how the training went from dive master Joe

Cave Training Day 1
01/10/2010

OK Antonio and I arrived on Abaco Island Friday afternoon and spent the evening in the classroom looking through the manual and watching the slide show. We are doing 4 courses Cavern Diver, Intro to Cave, Apprentice Cave Diver and Full Cave Diver. Our instructor Brian Kakuk who runs Bahamas Underground has been exploring and surveying the caves of the Bahamas for 20 years.

We started today by getting all our equipment together and running through some of the drills for laying lines, low visibility and gas management issues in the yard where questions were easy to ask...

Trying on all the gear



Antonio



Joe










We then went down to Mermaid reef a shallow 10’ dive to practice what we had learnt in the yard and get used to the new equipment setup. We spent over an hour doing line drills, practising buoyancy and doing out of air situations.
After lunch we did our first cavern dive at Dan’s Cave which was spectacular...

Cave Training Day 2

02/10/2010

Today has been a busy day we have done 3 dives in 3 different caves all staying inside the cavern zone. The first was at Magic Blue Hole which is an enormous cone with the top cut off the pool is about 30’ across but just below the surface it opens out to about 100’ and it is DEEP.

Magic Blue Hole

For the next dive we went back to Dan’s Cave Which is a MASSIVE Cavern but it is silty so you have to be careful with buoyancy and fining.





Brian showing us Dan's Cave



Then we did Reel Breaker which is one of the ocean blue holes as our last cavern dive. This one was flowing so hard you had to drag yourself along the bottom to get in but the ride on the way out was fun and the amount of lobsters in the cavern was staggering.

Once we got back to the shop we tidied up and then took the test.

Cave Training Day 3

03/10/2010

WOW started Intro to cave today and did 2 mind blowing dives in Dan’s cave. We are allowed to go past the STOP sign now and into the dark. WOW Check out this video I found of Dan’s Cave they go much further than us... We got to about their 03:40 mark http://vimeo.com/897430

Cave Training Day 4
04/10/2010

OK so today we have finished off intro to cave with two amazing dives the first was at Dan’s cave and the second at Ralph’s cave.We PASSED the exam so we are starting Apprentice Cave tomorrow. Yeah!!
http://vimeo.com/10402471

Cave Training Day 5
05/10/2010

Now its all starting to come together we did 2 dives at Dan,s Cave today the first was 120’ for 75mins and the second was 74’ for 104mins. We are allowed to go deeper and stay longer now and do some more complex navigation which opens up much more of the cave. Today we went to the Good Lands and the Bad Lands.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg_FIWUsd94&feature=player_embedded

Cave Training Day 6
06/10/2010

Two more dives out of the way today and we are done with apprentice cave. Tomorrow we are starting Full Cave which means that we will have to do more of the planning and navigation ourselves. Today we dived a new cave called Lost Reel it was darker and spookier than the others. There are the remains of crocodile skeletons and giant tortoise shells preserved in the oxygen free water it was a strange place. The second dive was back at Dan’s cave, here we did the second half of a circuit that we had set up the day before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iFBKxvcHq4&feature=player_embedded

Cave Training Day 7
07/10/2010

Full Cave started today and we were back at Dan’s Cave for 2 dives. Now we are doing more complex navigation with multiple jumps and we are going deeper in to the cave system.

Cave Training Day 8 LAST DIVES
08/10/2010

We have done our last two dives for the course today and all has gone well. We dived at Dan’s cave this morning and Ralph’s Cave after lunch, both dives were spectacular and I am going to miss not diving in caves every day.
We have still got to take the final exam but we are going to do it tomorrow which gives us time to study up It is also good to have a night off book work.
Tomorrow Brian is going to take us on a special dive which we are excited about it will be much longer and more challenging than the dives we did for the course but there will be no skills to do which will be nice...

Fangorn Forest

09/10/2010

Today we have gone deep into Dan’s cave to an area called Fangorn Forest. It is about 2000’ into the cave and you have to drop down to 150’ for a bit so it is a long dive with some long deco stops on the way out. The dive was 120mins long and there was a lot of swimming to get there and back but it was amazing

http://vimeo.com/3528068

Small Hope has two more cave certified dive masters. So a big congratulations to Joe and Antonio. Pin It Now!

Captain Bills In-Land Blue Hole Clean Up

Group Picture of helpers on the day

Mel

                                                 

                                                 Joe

Aidan

                               

                                          Silt and Algae where all the trash was hiding

On Saturday 25 September the dive masters of Small Hope Bay Lodge helped clean up Captain Bills In-Land Blue. We found The following is what we collected:
Plastic bottles: 21
Glass bottles: 742
Aluminum cans: 458
Shoes: 4
Pull tabs : 5
Toys; 2
Shut gun shells; 1
Bait containers: 1
Buoys/ floats: 1
Ropes : 3
55 Gallon drum; 1
Lighters; 2
Chair: 1
A big thank you to Gabrielle from  Ancat  Andros Conservancy and Trust for organising it all. All so a big thank you to Andros Island Divers, Greenforce, Forfar and Bahamas National Trust for their help.

55 Gallon Drum 

Pulling up the trash

Sorting the trash

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Andros Island Blue Holes.....

Diving an Ocean Blue Hole

Blue Holes are unique geological formations created over thousands of years and multiple glacial and interglacial periods.

There are many types of Blue Holes, but they are essentially caves that formed in a air environment when sea levels were low as a result of  glacial retreat. When the ice retreated the caves flooded and this process of being dry and flooded was repeated several times over as the glaciers came and went.

In Land\Ocean Blue Hole Conch Sound Andros Island

As the caves tops grew thinner from erosion or experienced mechanical stress many of them collapsed leaving large holes often leading to hidden cave systems. These holes got the name Blue Holes due to the fact that the bottoms of the collapse is deeper than surrounding land and when viewed from the air appear rich blue in colour in the ocean, some are dark blue and even black in appearance inland. The inland Blue Holes collect a less dense freshwater lens on top of the ground seawater and are connected to the ocean Blue Holes by cracks and fissures typical of the limestone composition. Imagine a sponge.

Diving an Ocean Blue Hole

The tide moves seawater back and forth between the inland Blue holes and the ocean Blue holes via these cracks and fissures during the high and low cycles of the tide.

Often the Blue holes have strong inflow and out flows as water is exchanged. The cooler hypoxic/anoxic inland water (caused by oxygen dissolving into the limestone)flows out of the ocean Blue holes and this mixes with the warmer sea water. Where the two meet it creates a mixture of haloclines, chemoclines and thermoclines often referred to as a "density interface"

Each Blue Hole has its own personality and offer an opportunity for divers to experience a glimpse of the past geology and formations. Proper training is a must to dive these beautiful structures in safety. Even the cavern portions require experienced guides.

Check out the August edition of National Geographic Magazine for more great facts and pictures.

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