Jay (00:02.167)
Welcome to the dive table. I'm Jay Gardner and with me is producer Daniel for this episode. We're doing kind of a special little series here, Daniel, that I'll let you set up. But I'm excited to be chatting with you this lovely evening and to have you and your voice and all of your hair that's not in your head, but in your beard on the show. So it's the elusive producer Daniel show and I'm excited about it.
Daniel (00:31.114)
It's the more and more less elusive, I think, is how it's going. Good man, good man, good to see you. Actually, I wanted to start this series because it was something we had talked about a long time ago and life, et cetera, gets in the way. So before we got any further, or specifically before you got any further, I wanted to sit down with you and discuss the path that you're on.
Um, in scuba diving, um, there's the overview, there's the big picture path, and then there's a, the smaller path, um, that, that you're on. Um, and I won't give any details until you're ready to start with the story. But, um, before we got too far down that road, um, I wanted to give you the opportunity to kind of take two steps back, talk about where you're coming from. Up to.
where you are right now, which is very different than almost cursed almost a year ago. I was a year ago this time. I would say it was a very different diver. So with that, I would like to hear what's going on with you, man.
Jay (01:46.759)
Yeah, that's good. So yeah, so yeah, man, when we first met a long time ago, but we won't talk about that story. We won't talk about that. Where you lost me in my open water class. You remember that as a DM? Yeah.
Daniel (01:54.513)
Oh, God.
Long time ago. Wow, what? No, that was a test and you passed.
Jay (02:06.869)
So that was DM Daniel, not producer Daniel.
Daniel (02:09.054)
Actually, the test was the conversation you had after you came to the surface. Ha ha ha.
Jay (02:15.379)
Oh man, that was not fun. Yeah. We won't, we won't go down that story, but I got yelled out by the course director and a brand new open water diver. I have no idea. I thought I did everything right in terms of searching for a minute and surfacing and, and I got lit into so.
Daniel (02:20.162)
Ah!
Daniel (02:32.455)
Yeah, well, opinions on how that should have gone down.
Jay (02:36.727)
Yeah, yeah. No, you know, it's, it's an interesting story, because we don't have to bag on anybody to tell a story. What's interesting is brand new open water diver, because I remember it clearly. And I remember in the course that they drove home, like, you know, safe divers, take your safety stop, like, was driven home, right? And that you follow your computer. Those are two things. So I had this weird moment where I searched for a minute.
in one direction because we had lost you and the other teammate in a, in a nice little kick up of silt in my face. And, um, and so I looked at my watch. I searched for a minute and then I was stuck in this conundrum when I got to what are 15 feet, which was, do I take a safety stop or do I not? Am I computer saying take a safety stop? And in my head, I'm hearing this replay of safe divers do a safety stop.
And so I decided to do the safety stop thinking I need to be a safe diver. So, so that added whatever three minutes to my, to my thing. And then I surfaced. So it was a total of four minutes or whatever it was for five minutes, how whatever real time was in that. So yeah, by, by definition, I was not on the surface in a minute, which was the plan, but that was totally unclear to me. You know, it wasn't explained to me. It was searched for a minute. Then come to the surface. Yeah.
Daniel (04:03.006)
Yeah, I mean, I would say.
Potentially some confusion on what the priority is at that point. I mean at that point You are the lost diver and you are fine. We just don't know you're fine and so It's your responsibility to let us know you're fine Without but also in theory Sacrificing health I don't know. Yeah
Jay (04:12.077)
Yeah.
Jay (04:33.343)
Yeah, there's I know it was a weird one. Yeah, so it was in retrospect now looking back, I can see both sides of that equation really clearly.
Daniel (04:43.142)
I can, I totally understand why that person was the way they were. Like I totally get that. But I got that at the time. This isn't nothing new to me. Like I think, I feel like that person's probably experienced some things similar and I was a little surprised at the reaction.
Jay (05:04.311)
Yeah. So all the way from there to now, which is the funny part. All right. And, and, um, and, and I think it's a, it's a great cautionary tale, like the instructors out there. If you're teaching an open water class, that's a good thing to cover because simply saying search for a minute and then go to the surface. Doesn't account for the complexity of, I think it was dive three in open water. It was the deepest I had been, which I think it was like 60 feet, which was, you know, a big deal at the time.
Daniel (05:06.251)
Yeah.
Jay (05:34.263)
And you just there's so many things going through your head that you're not sure how to react. So I reacted in the best way I thought and then yeah, I got crushed for it. So that was that was not a great experience. But from there is that the tiniest little? Yeah, yeah, basically. But yeah, to kind of go from there. That wasn't the plan to talk about that. Not to where I am now is quite interesting. But I think specifically,
Daniel (05:49.55)
Touch your head.
Daniel (06:03.37)
Now you do the yelling. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding.
Jay (06:04.963)
Now I'll do the yelling. Yeah, exactly. Now I do the yelling. Exactly. No, I think specifically for me in my journey as a diver from that open water class, and I'm glad I continued to going and I kind of set myself out in my first hundred dives or so in just experiencing different things. Like I want to go and see what these reefs are all about. I want to go and try, you know, this type of diving, scientific diving. I want to try cameras and blah, blah. I didn't know what I wanted. So I tried a bunch of different things.
Daniel (06:34.126)
Sure, sure.
Jay (06:35.267)
and plan some trips that would have multiple types of diving in one single trip. And for me, the trip that really stood out to me, you know, however many years ago it was, you know, two or three years ago, two years ago was my first time in a cenote was like, Oh, and I remember it so clearly it was in dos ojos, which it means two eyes. Um, I was on what the, what's called now or what's been called the Barbie line, which is, it's funny because at the end of that,
Daniel (06:51.63)
Yeah.
Jay (07:05.783)
line is actually a Barbie doll and a gator. Yeah, so kind of funny. But I remember getting to go in there and you know, guided dive. I'm not a cavern or cave or anything like that. But at the end of that dive was this little swim through, you know, that technically was overhead. But didn't seem like it to me, but it felt like I was in an overhead environment, you're kind of enclosed big, big open, open area to swim through.
Daniel (07:07.294)
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Jay (07:34.487)
So next, it was probably, you know, I don't know.
25 yards, 20 yards, if not less. And it just, that environment lit me up. It was like, yes, this is the environment that I wanna be in that really, really lights me up for whatever reason. Wet rocks, underwater, was it for me. Ha ha ha. Wet rocks, lots of wet rocks. So that set me on a journey to say, look, where I wanna go as a diver.
Daniel (08:01.703)
rocks.
Jay (08:09.767)
is I want to learn how to be in this environment, which means I need to become a cave diver. And at the time, you know, the idea of being a cave diver was like trying to become a black belt ninja. You know, it was so far from where I was in that moment, but that really lit me up and I wanted to do that. So coming full circle to that journey and that path of improvement and
personal skills development, team skills development, all the things that I've been working on. I just last week or two weeks ago finished my first really, I don't wanna say it's my first step, but my first, I would say official step in that direction, which is completing what's called overhead protocols inside of the agency that I train with, which is really the foundation for then Cave 1 and Cave 2.
which is next. And so I think we wanted to talk about that and talk about that journey up until this point and how overhead protocols went and all that fun stuff.
Daniel (09:15.67)
Yeah, so who was your instructor?
Jay (09:20.491)
Yeah. So I've had a, um, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. Literally it's been two and a half weeks straight. And this is my first kind of day back from all of that, where I took some time off of real work, um, to focus on scuba work. And I, we had a four back to back courses. So some of these, I was teaching some of these, I was assisting. And the first one of these, I was a student in, and so, um, Ben boss, who's the training director.
UTD scuba diving, flew across from Denmark. He's from Holland, but he lives in Denmark. It's a funny story that he told, I think, on the podcast that we had with him. So he flew across and stayed with me for two and a half weeks here at our house. And we hubbed out of my garage slash shop. So I've turned it all into a shop now, and it is my garage, but it's my shop. It's my scuba shop dedicated to that.
And, uh, we hub data there. And so he flew in and I, you know, a lot of people talk about it's the instructor. That's true in a lot of regards. I think agency has something to do with it too, because they're, you know, the way that they approach training. Um, and the, the sequence of, so sequencing of that training is important. But for me, Ben also ran my tech one class. Um, and I just.
knew this is a guy I can learn from. He's done some incredible dives. The stories that he can tell are just phenomenal. And he had a way, I just really enjoyed the way that he instructed. And I learned a ton from him in that tech combo class that I took last year after Dima. And so I knew when I go into the caves, I wanted him to be my instructor. I want to learn from him.
Daniel (11:16.546)
We had him on the podcast. I think it was episode four. Right. Does that sound right? Yeah.
Jay (11:21.347)
Yeah, and he's coming back to do two more, which I'm excited about. So, um, but we've, we've just had some scheduling issues to get him back on the show, but, uh, but yeah, he, he's an incredible instructor, the way that he, uh, explains things and relates things. And, and it's just a bastion of knowledge. Um, you know, in depth to, you know, for me, I want to know why. And I'm never, I'm never satisfied with, well, that's just the way we do it. Or that's how I learned it from so-and-so.
Daniel (11:50.474)
or we've always done it that way.
Jay (11:52.035)
Or we've always done it that way. Yeah. Those, those answers just don't fly with me. Um, and I really want to understand the why behind things and, uh, Ben being in the position that he's in and the dives that he's done and who he's worked with. I mean, um, and who he's learned from. Everything down to, you know, the, the why, for example, you know, we typically cut the little dangly that is on your.
wings, uh, deflate a rear deflate. So, um, right on that valve and tie two knots. And we train finding the, the actual valve itself, and then basically pinching. And then you're going to have that string and the why behind that, you know, seems like, Oh, we don't want danglies, but that's not the case. The why the ultimate why behind that is those danglies will can get trapped in that hip D ring right there.
And then when you go to actually dump gas, right, you can't, it's stuck. Um, and it causes all sorts of havoc. The crazy part is that was explained as to why, I mean, every little thing has a why behind it. And it comes back down to either safety and, and the lessons that have been learned, or it comes down to configuring things for
Daniel (12:57.102)
stuck. Stuck, right?
Jay (13:21.075)
easing the team's burden in the dive when there's an emergency or something like that. And Ben came back, he's, I got, I got a video to show you. And he showed me a, a video of him doing a CCR one class with the diver and that exact thing happened. He got it on video where, where that dongle is trapped and is making it impossible to dump gas in that moment because he can't get it loose of, of the things that are clipped off of that D ring. So kind of interesting.
Daniel (13:38.42)
Hmm.
Daniel (13:48.97)
interesting. I would never have never thought about that. So that's kind of big picture. Let's narrow it down a little bit. Talk about the training itself. Because you've had similar training to that before. So how is this different?
Jay (14:07.039)
Yeah. So it's a great question. Um, I think within the, you're so good at this, uh, you've done this before. Uh, yeah. So, so overhead protocols, um, the prerequisites within the UTD are unified team diving, uh, standards and procedures. Um, I think you have to, you know, have, I think something like 75 dives somewhere around there. So, you know, you, you've gotten the water.
Daniel (14:10.198)
Thanks.
Jay (14:36.847)
a little bit, but then I think the prereqs here are essentials, which is UTD's version of what other people call fundies. But essentials is really a personal skills view. Yeah, fundamentals. It's really looking at the balanced rig or proper weighting, looking at propulsion. So the five different ways or techniques for propulsion.
Daniel (14:49.262)
That'd be fundamentals. Fundamental.
Jay (15:06.455)
It's looking at, you know, personal buoyancy, breathing for buoyancy skills. And it's looking at, you know, your other skills. So five minutes sense and shooting an SMB procedures for that, all those things and a basic six and all these things are, are taxing like SMB basic six are taxing on your buoyancy and trim. Right. So, you know, you're task loading a procedure of shooting an SMB, but it's really testing not whether or not, you know, the procedure.
but it's testing that buoyancy balance trim while you're task loaded. And so it's a personal skills. And my essentials class was a little bit more than that. You know, it was also, it was old school instructor who I loved to death and he gave it to us because we, you know, we needed more than just a personal skills class. And so we got the heat turned up in my personal one, but essentials is that. And then...
The other thing that I think kind of gets into the mix of prerequisites is, you know, doubles. So being able to understand the, the configuration of a set of a twin set or a set of doubles, um, understanding how to react to failures on those doubles. Um, right. The plumbing that's happening behind your back, all of those things. So those are really the prerequisites that exist for this course. For me, my path was.
No, I went through essentials. I went through a full IDC, uh, and became a dive master first with UTD. And, uh, I went through tech, creational tech one on a big course. I did side Mount, um, you know, technical side Mount training on that as well. So the side Mount doubles and, um, and then from there, um, was presented with this opportunity and the cool part about all this is, you know, my 2023.
As you and I have talked about a lot and I think I've talked about on the podcast, my whole plan for 2020, 23 was I was moving and I was going to move and get established. That was it. Like move and, and get my own personal diving established. And I was going to push cave diving and all those other things that I want to do out to 2024, because I just felt like I don't have the bandwidth to try and plan these things and figure it all out. And
Daniel (17:29.57)
How's that going?
Jay (17:31.399)
Yeah. So I've mentioned this on, um, on another podcast. I think we did with Sarah, like my strategy for dive travel often is, uh, I call it the coat Taylor, like, Oh, you're going to, Hey, can I come along? Or, Hey, you know, I get called and the, Hey, do you want to come on this trip? Yeah. You've already, how much does it cost this? Okay. You've already got all the logistics. I got to book a flight and show up. Yeah. I'm there. And so this was kind of the same thing where it was, I mentioned it to Ben.
Daniel (17:43.366)
Oh yeah, yeah.
Daniel (17:55.211)
basic.
Jay (17:59.899)
Ben was coming out here. We had multiple things going on. And I said, Hey, well, this is already happening. What do you think about adding OHP to this? And he's like, that's fantastic idea. And then one of my really good friends who will have on the, on the show, uh, in the next few weeks, I think in four weeks or so, um, Kevin would, uh, had a clearing in his schedule to come out. So he came and stayed as well. And we did OHP together.
And then we have the plan for doing cave one and cave two, which is a combo class um, in Florida after Dima. So we're going to go from Dima is in Louisiana this year. We go from Dima, drive ourselves down to Florida and then do cave one and cave two, um, there in Florida with Ben.
Daniel (18:48.142)
And Kevin Wood has a pretty boring day job, right?
Jay (18:52.067)
Yeah, he does. He, he gets to sit in the cockpit of a B 52. And, and train others how to how to fly that thing. So pretty boring. I love to see pictures that he sends me of another day at the office. Yeah. Although I did find out that the B 52 does not have a restroom on board. So there's that.
Daniel (19:06.498)
You take off, you fly, you land like what?
Daniel (19:18.002)
Interesting. Isn't that what the bay doors are for? Bombay.
Jay (19:21.487)
Yeah, it's gotta be a Pilot's P-valve, I think, installed somehow.
Daniel (19:27.606)
I was gonna say, don't they have pressurized suits? Just.
Jay (19:32.375)
Yeah, basically I think P is not the issue and we'll leave it at that.
Daniel (19:36.778)
No, no, I'm different kind of bombs we're talking about. Yeah.
Jay (19:41.339)
Uh, yeah, you know, so, so yeah, different kind of, yeah, we get, we'll ask Kevin about that when he goes to the show. So anyway, so for me, um, the fact that this was even a possibility was, was pretty awesome, but I know you, you asked about the course so I can explain the course, but I want to kind of set it up with how excited I was that this is even in the, in the mix for 2023 and if things all go well, um, and I'm able to form well, then I will be a full.
cave diver on my full cave card in November, which is pretty exciting.
Daniel (20:14.894)
I mean, no, that's not, no. Hey, so are you willing to humble yourself a little bit?
Jay (20:17.283)
Yeah, you done the dive.
Jay (20:23.188)
Oh yeah, absolutely, always.
Daniel (20:25.358)
So I was just talking about a book I read earlier and the case studies in that book. That's my favorite part. And it's probably a lot of people's favorite parts. So if you had a book full of case studies, it would probably be boring, but they're spaced out just enough at the end of each chapter. So not that you're a case study, but if you could maybe, I don't know, let us know when there was a time when you're like, well, that didn't go well or.
I should have done this and I should have done that, or not that you were surprised you passed, but something along the training that maybe you hadn't been taught yet just didn't go quite the right way.
Jay (21:08.899)
Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, to set this up, um, cause it's pretty funny is the, the way that overhead protocols takes place. This course particularly is in open water. So we're not actually in an overhead environment and the goal of this course, it's a prerequisite to either rec penetration or cave diving is really to teach us the protocols for.
that type of diving in an open water, quote unquote, safe environment where we can surface in 20 feet of water, surface, talk about it, go back down. So essentially the setup here is that a cave quote unquote gets built. So a line is run, a main line is run in open water. And we are learning the protocols for following that main line to making jumps to marking, you know, those jumps to.
Um, you know, setting a, just even getting into the cave, right. You, you tie, you take a reel and you tie a, a primary tie off and you do a secondary tie off and there's depths and requirements that we want for that. That are ideal. And so it's, it's learning how to deal with all that to, to read the navigation of a cave or to lay line in a wreck, right? The, the number one rule in cave diving is a continuous line to the surface, right? Your continuous line to the surface, a path back.
the surface. So we're planning it from the exit. And so there's a lot that you're learning in how to read, what do opposing arrows mean, for example? How do we mark our exit side? How do we tie into the main line? So there's these sorts of things that are happening. And it's cool because it's all happening in open water. And so we can get a ton done in a day.
four or five days, but we can get a ton done over the course of a day because we're not diving down inside of the cave and trying to figure this stuff out. We're doing it right there in open water. And then you're also learning how to deal with failures. So everything from, you know, a valve bubbles on the back of your, on your back. And how do you respond to that as a team? How do you reposition to, you know, a lost diver or lost teammate?
Jay (23:33.671)
How do you actually deal with that? What are some protocols there? And to get to your humble pie here, one of those failures is what's called a lost line drill, or what happens if you lose the line in a no visibility situation. So set the scene a little bit here. We're in open water in San Diego, which in our case, we went to this awesome dive site called Marine Room, which is in La Jolla.
And the weird part about it all was that there was surge. So you're dealing with surge, which you wouldn't be dealing with in a cave environment, right? I mean, maybe some flow, but you're definitely not going to probably deal with surge unless you're in an ocean cave. And even then, you know, it's not going to be like an open water search. So the surge would pick up of course, at the most inopportune times. And you just have to learn when you're diving in surge, as a lot of people that dive in surge know, like.
Yes, it's going to blow you 10 feet that way, but then a minute later, it's going to bring you right back. So just chill out, let it do its thing and then continue. But it makes following the line kind of far right. And all these sorts of things. So it was, it was a good challenge, something that, um, that we had a lot of fun with for, for all the times that we were diving there, but in this particular instance, a lost line drill, the protocol for that is simply, you know,
Daniel (24:48.006)
Ha ha ha.
Jay (25:02.907)
get to the bottom, essentially find something to ground on. And you take out your safety spool and you find something to tie off to. And in our case, you tie off that primary tie and you try to find the secondary tie. So that way you have directional view in your search. So you can have a line. And then from that line, you can say, okay, I'm gonna search this way. And then literally it's just kind of roll the spool out a little bit.
search with your hand, roll it out a little bit more, search with your hand, right. And go as, go as far as you think, okay, this is not going anywhere. And then roll it back up and now you have directional case search that way. I'll search the other way. Right. So on and so forth until in a lot of ways you get lucky, uh, you know, and unfortunately that's, that's the, there's no protocol for, you know, I can't see and you'll find the line this way. You have to search for it. So to, to do these drills, um, we then get put into a blackout mask.
So we can't see anything. Yeah, so no visibility. So literally we get, it's always fun to see your instructor pull out the mask and go, hey, here it is. And you're like, oh man, here we go. So yeah, he asks you, here you go, put the mask on. So you put it on and then when we're ready, you pull it over and then all of a sudden it's all black. I mean, you really can't see anything. And for me, I'm sure some people might cheat and have a little.
Daniel (26:00.862)
I was going to ask you about that actually. Yeah.
Daniel (26:13.381)
I was hoping you were going to forget this part.
Jay (26:29.227)
You know, I want, I want it blacked out because I want to know what this would feel like. And so to, to add a little bit more to the mix, um, then we kind of get disoriented. So we get spun around. So we don't, you know, we're disoriented like it. I mean, you wouldn't probably get completely spun around in a cave like this, but it's disorienting when the lights go out. So it gets spun around, flipped upside down or whatever. And then bam, the drill starts. So boom. Okay.
I have no idea where I am. Right. I have no idea. I'm no sense of what's, you know, left right around me, a sense of what's up and down because I breathe myself down to the bottom and go okay. And so I start searching. And in this instance, there just wasn't great, anything to grab on to that I felt like I could tie off to and so I'm searching, searching. And of course, as soon as this kind of starts, the search picks up like crazy.
Daniel (27:26.178)
search. Knew it.
Jay (27:27.987)
So boom, I find something. I found something finally, a rock. I'm like, yes, this is it. And then boom, I'm blown 20 feet that way. I'm like, okay, I hope I come back 20 feet the same way. And boom, I come back. Oh, it's not there anymore. Great. So I'm looking, and I have to admit, like in those moments, even though I know I'm in 20 feet, like, logically, I know I'm in 20 feet of water. I'm in a blackout mask. You're everything's fine. My instructor's right there.
and knows where I am, you still feel that panic a little bit that rises up, like I don't know where I am, I can't see, this surge is crazy because I really have no idea where I am, and I can't get this tie-off to happen. I just can't find something to tie off on. And so this goes on what felt like an hour to me. It's probably three minutes, four minutes when you look at the video, but it felt like
an hour and I had a few of those moments where it was just like, okay, stop and breathe, like stop and breathe. Like that panic was, I wouldn't say I'm panicked, but that feeling was setting in. I'm just like, woo, you know, this is tough. And so finally I found a, you know, I tried a few different times to tie off on something and get blown off of it or my tie off, you know, just wouldn't, it wouldn't sit in the spot that I thought was working. Finally, I found, I don't know, something that was bigger, like big.
big rock it felt like and I just held on. I held on to it and it blew me this way and it blew me that way and I'm just working with my safety spool and got that thing wrapped around that rock, the big old rock rolled around, tied it off finally and then I went searching for the secondary tie off and found something and was just able to wrap it real quick around there before the surge blew me. And then I go off on my search. That's that, no, no.
Daniel (28:59.778)
Hahaha.
Jay (29:24.867)
And then I get tapped like, okay, you're out. I never found the line. And so it felt like I failed, you know, I never found the line. Whereas my teammate had found the line in his drill. And we look back at the video in the video review after all this. And again, it felt like the line was like, if, if you're looking at me right now on the video, or if you're at home listening to, or in the car listening to the radio, imagine the big rock. Um,
Daniel (29:41.014)
close for you.
Oh.
Jay (29:54.947)
And I went right when I went to go look. I don't know why, but that's where I went. The line was actually tied to the big rock directly to my left. So if I had just like even held onto the rock and done a little search with my left, I would have found the line. But I went way off in the wrong direction, which is again, in a no vis situation, how in the world would you know, because you're disoriented. So that one, it taught me.
It had been a minute since I'd been in a situation where it felt like I don't, I don't have, it's not that I didn't have control is that I am not in control of the situation. I'm disoriented. I can't see, don't know where the line is and I can't tie off. And it felt like usually you could force yourself into like, you know, the situation like fine, like breathe out, whatever. So feeling that
brought back that feeling of saying, okay, when all this stuff happens, remember the primal thing is to breathe and stop. And it's okay that you're feeling this, but breathe and yeah.
Daniel (31:08.071)
There's a couple things going on there, right? So there's the humility of it all, right? If you are one who thinks they know more than they do, maybe ego is a little bit bigger, and then the water is the great equalizer, right? And if, you know, if there would probably be some people out there who would look back at that video, see that the line was tied off on the left and say,
Oh, that was dumb. Not that they went right instead of left, but why is the lion tied off on the left or not blaming or taking responsibility for themselves? And how many times has ego or complacency, not to bring it down a notch, but how many times has that killed the diver? Because they didn't have the proper training going into a scenario that they shouldn't have been in, or they didn't have the complete training, or...
They just thought everything was fine. They didn't need to do double checks, triple checks, redundancies, any of that. So I think it's just a healthy, anytime we're in a situation where we're in that situation to learn in the first place. And if we get it right the first time, we're not learning anything. So with the failures comes the learning. And it always helps to have that humble pie every once in a while.
Jay (32:32.727)
Yeah. I mean, I think on top of that, I think putting yourselves yourself in that situation in a safe environment, right? So experiencing these things in a safe environment gives you then a reference point when this might happen for you. Hope to God, it never happens. Right. And you do everything in your training to make sure that you don't end up in that situation. Right.
Daniel (32:42.667)
Yeah.
Jay (33:00.099)
Um, in a, in a complete lost line, no vis situation, but when it happens, my brain and my body have a reference point to refer to even as, you know, far back as whatever this happens five years from now, there's still some experience that I'm carrying with me because I've trained it and we'll continue to train it. These, this is not over cave one, cave two. We do the same thing. Um, in, in the environment at that point.
So, I mean, I can't stress enough that for me, when you have experiences or experiential training, that one of the rules that I love at UTD is that there are no training dives, all dives are real dives, because we're diving. And that's something that's unique about scuba diving in general, is that when there is no simulator,
So you're learning to fly a plane, you can get in a simulator and crash it 50 times, which is exactly what I'll do when I get in Kevin's B-52 simulator at some point. Because he said I could do that at some point. Yeah, exactly. I'm sure I'm gonna crash the plane, but so what? Right, at that point, I'm not in the environment. If you're learning to skydive, you don't start by jumping out of a plane by yourself, right? You going tandem.
Daniel (34:05.998)
When does that happen? Because I will be there.
Daniel (34:11.574)
Yeah.
Jay (34:21.399)
You're now there's indoor skydiving teach you a lot of the stuff, right? There's all these things, almost everything else that you train. There's, there's a way to simulate that because it's all on land. Well, when we do diving by the nature of diving, we are in the environment. We are under the water, even if it's 10 feet of water, we're under the water. And so again, the, the value of experience and there's two fold experiences, one, it happened.
to me not during training. It's one experience. And then another experience is it happened to me on purpose during training. And it gives me a reference point. And that's the thing that for me I value so much is that it's not theoretical. And it wasn't me sitting, showing off skills on a line. It's me in the environment as close to what it's going to be minus the surge.
than building experiential knowledge and reaction to that situation. And I think when it comes to scuba training, there, there is a lot of sit on a line and show me a skill and that skill doesn't correlate to the real diving because it's simply happening on the line rather than in the actual situation you'd be in. And that's one of the things I really appreciate about the training that I've received is that training is happening.
in the context of really diving and the instructors are then using the little mistakes that you're making as a team or as a diver and showing the logical conclusion of those things for a stupid example of this, not stupid, but a good example of this is, you know, a teammate of mine was running a really loose line. And if you've ever seen, you know, a spool under the water line takes on a life of its own underwater, right? It just, it is.
So if you run a really loose line as the lead diver or as the captain who has the reel, you've got two divers behind you who are dealing with that loose line. And if you get a little too close to it, right, the line has a tendency to do its own thing. And sure enough, I got a little too close in one of my courses and it started to kind of look like it was gonna go around my fin and the instructor used that.
Jay (36:50.679)
It went around my fin. I got stuck right in that moment and off go my other two teammates down the line, still lining and running their line. And there I am. And he filmed my reaction, their reaction, see what would happen. And you know, the protocol there is try to free yourself once. And if you can't do it, stay put. And my initial reaction was like, okay, I tried to free myself and now I'm sitting here and I know.
I've got enough gas to sit here infinitely almost for them to come back. But that panic kicks in and I had the, I had the want to cut the line. It cut me out of line. Yeah. No, this was just a tech one or tech recreational. Um, I should, I think that was essentials that happened in, I don't remember exactly which course, but the idea here is that we're running a line. You know, to get back to the exit point on thirds.
Daniel (37:27.734)
What? Were you, were you cavern at that point or?
Daniel (37:39.414)
Ahem.
Jay (37:48.591)
like you would off an anchor line, if current's really strong or something like that.
Daniel (37:53.526)
Yeah, I've lifted enough pumps. You go down with enough rope that if it's not, if you don't have control of that rope, it's just, and then you can't just go, oh, let me just grab it and coil up, because then it will get you. It'll take you. The other thing was, I think, and I've listened to enough podcasts on any kind of training that the harder you train,
Jay (38:07.867)
Ha ha ha.
Daniel (38:23.682)
or maybe not the harder you train, but the more variables you have in your training, then when something actually happens, it's not as difficult or you've been there before or so the surge in your training, you're never likely to come across that when you're not, at least not in that intensity in a cave necessarily. So that was sort of an element that if you can do it with that surge,
Just remember to go left, not right. No, I'm just kidding. And then, you know, you should be easier, should be, when you actually come across that type of situation.
Jay (39:04.107)
Yeah. I mean, again, it's, I don't think the attempt was to make it artificially harder. It just, that was the logistics of how things worked out, you know? Um, and, and you deal with, with it as you want to deal with it. Um, and I'm still learning San Diego in terms of where to dive. So, you know, find us a 20 foot clear water and calm water spot. I mean, didn't exist. Tried, uh, you know,
Daniel (39:12.858)
Sure. Yeah.
Daniel (39:32.324)
Yeah.
Jay (39:33.051)
And, uh, I mean, we had to do all kinds of interesting things to build the cave out with lots of sandy bottom areas that. That don't have places to tie off. Um, so, so it was a challenge in that regard, cause I just don't know the area well enough to say here. I got to know it over the course of two weeks. We dove in a lot of different locations and checked them out for training. Um, you know, dive sites, but yeah, I mean, I, again, I think, I think the value of
experience, get seated. I mean, I kind of think of it as like, maybe a good analogy here is the flu shot, right? In the sense that you're, you're giving, I mean, you know, not to go into the science behind flu shots, but essentially, you're giving a, or does it make a stand because I know there's a whole anti-vac.
Daniel (40:28.967)
Yeah.
