I just got back from the Pacific Wilderness Dive Club meeting at an El Torito here in Long Beach.

The service at this El Torito was slow and the beers outrageously expensive – but as they pointed out at the end, the club has the worst tippers.

I had no idea how different the technical equipment is compared to recreational equipment.

The fins, tank set up, lights are all different, higher quality and a lot more expensive; the training is intensive and expensive also; you don’t need a snorkel when you cave dive for obvious reasons.

Terry has been more than a mile into a cave from the nearest entrance.

He’s dove in Florida where the cave diving is all fresh water, underground rivers and in Mexico where they’re salt water caves that have stalagmites and stalactites in them.

Cave navigation is done with running lines, following existing lines with arrows on them and “setting cookies” at T marks, or forks in the road.

You must have perfect trim and perfect buoyancy and be able to do a “helicopter” turn without stirring up the bottom.

Squeezing through the crevices requires side mounted tanks.

I’ll have to postpone cave diving until I strike it rich.

It was an interesting night with new faces.

I attended the apparently new NAUI Firsts Aid and CPR Course that was held at New England Divers in Long Beach.

The class was taught by one of the Instructors, Lea, who told me she dives every single day.

She must have half a million dives by now.

The class moved quickly with only four students, but we were still there all day.

This course covered briefly infant and child CPR, something that my previous Red Cross course didn’t teach.

With lobster season coming up and my plans to buy DM insurance, this course was well worth it.

Hopefully, I’ll never have to use any of these skills.