I got my first taste of cave diving in March of 2004 after completing a little over 100 open water dives. My local dive shop had several active cave divers that I hung out with from time to time. I decided I wanted to give it a try. I went down to Florida, the Mecca of cave diving, with a small group from my dive shop. I had signed up for cavern and introduction to cave. I took the cavern class with two other divers of similar experience. Cavern diving basically means staying within the area of the cave where daylight penetrates and no further than 200' from the surface (there are other restrictions but these are the most important). I remember the briefing before my first cavern dive at Jackson Blue in Marianna, FL. My instructor showed us the entrance to the cave and told us that it goes back into the wall over there and under that hill where my wife was sitting. I asked myself what the hell am I doing. Overall I recall having fun on that dive but it sure was a lot of work. It was a high-flow cave (lots of current) and running a reel in that current wasn't the easiest thing I'd ever done.
Several days and six dives later, we were all cavern certified. Now it was time to begin the intro training. Introduction to cave allows the diver to run a reel past the cavern zone and tie into the permanent line that exists further into the cave. The certified intro diver is allowed to follow that line until one of 3 conditions are met: he consumes 1/3rd of the gas in a single tank (or 1/6th for doubles); the permanent line has a gap in it (a missing section sometimes intentionally placed to limit an intro divers penetration); the permanent line forms a T or a Y (it splits). There are other restrictions such as depth, decompression and visibility but those are the major ones.
The other two divers I took cavern with decided not to go onto the intro level so it was just me. The first dive was at one of the more famous underwater caves in the country, Peacock Springs. This was to be a fun dive (no real drills). We entered the cavern and I tied into the main line which dropped down a vertical fissure and continued through some very large (and silty) rooms. When I surfaced from this dive I had an ear-to-ear smile across my face. This was the best dive I've ever had. I've since dove much prettier and more interesting caves but this was the first time really in a cave.
All was going well until I dove Catfish Hotel in Manatee State Park. This was a deep, high-flow cave. The walls were black and the visibility was poor. I was working very hard to make headway into the cave and was experiencing CO2 buildup (causing a massive headache when I later ascended). At that depth, I was also sucseptable to nitrogen narcosis. Nitrogen narcosis can have some off effects. Besides simply impairing your abilities, it seems to make a good dive better and a bad dive worse. This was a bad dive.
After my intro certification, I was unsure if I wanted to continue cave diving due to my experience at Catfish Hotel. This was compounded by the death of a cave diver that hung out with my dive shop several months prior.
My local shop would usually make two big trips to cave country a year, March and November. I was unable to make the November trip because of a wedding. By the time the next March trip came around, I was on the fence on if I should go. I talked to my intro instructor that was leading the trip and teaching another intro class about my concerns with being out of practice and how I still had a bad taste in my mouth from Catfish Hotel. He was teaching some other intro students on that trip and invited me to join them on some of their dives so I could get a refresher. I was paired up with one of the divers, Rick, who was in the class, for the ride there and back. The first several dives, I dove as a student for a refresher. Later I started diving with the other certified full cave divers (two levels above my certification at that point). I enjoyed most of the dives except for my first dive into the Devil's system - another deep high-flow cave (I was no longer hanging out with the class by this point). On my next dive there, I was able to relax and read the cave to get out of the flow and had a much better dive. After the students completed their training, we all went back to Peacock and did our own thing. I remember how much fun I had diving with others of similar skill level. I felt like I was more on my own, without a far more experienced diver babysitting me. I had finally gotten over Catfish Hotel and knew cave diving was going to become the focus of all my future diving. After the trip, Rick and I became good friends and have since done over 100 dives together in caves, lakes and on reefs.
Since that second trip to Florida, I had gone back twice more- once with my local dive shop and once with just Rick and James, another diver I had met along with Rick. On the trip with my LDS, Rick and I decided we were going to do our own thing (we remembered how much we liked the independence we had on those last dives at Peacock). We dove the caves we wanted to dive; we stayed at the motels we wanted to stay at (hanging out with my LDS gets expensive); we bought our own gas (the LDS brings down a trailer with a compressor for filling tanks). We kept in touch with them but only ran into them once during the entire trip.
In March of '06, after 35 post-training intro level cave dives Rick, James and I decided to go onto apprentice to cave and full cave - the last major certification in cave diving. At this point I was starting to become disgruntled with my LDS so we decided to seek out a different instructor for our full cave. We arranged the class with Mike O'Leary, at the time the president of the oldest cave diving certification agency. The three of us headed into Florida and did a few practice dives and then we started our class. With the limitations of 1/6th of double cylinders removed, we were able to penetrate much further into the caves. We were also taught complex navigation techniques such as jumps (leaving one line to follow another offshoot line), circuits and traverses. It was a challenging class but overall Mike was very pleased with our technique. All three of us passed his class (he usually has a 33% failure rate) and were able to get in one full cave dive on our own before heading back home.
I've made one trip back to Florida since then and recently made a trip to Akumal where some of the most beautiful underwater caves in the world are. I'm currently counting the weeks (seven more) until my next big Florida trip.