dive spots

this time on on jonathan bird'sblue world, jonathan goes tothe bahamas for some special training! hi i'm jonathan bird andwelcome to my world! [ blue world theme music ♪ ] i'm deep in a cave. blindfolded. being spun around tointentionally make medisoriented. i'm completely lost. and now, i have to find my way out ofthe cave all by myself━blind. i start by tying off aguideline to a rock

by feel alone. then i grope around in the darkfor a while trying to find themain line out of the cave. eventually, ido find the line, and i tie in. then i followthat line towards the caveentrance. you might be wondering, what am i doing? in the past few years i havebecome really interested incave diving, so i thought itwas time to finally advance my dive training to a full cavecertification. full cave certification is kindof like the "black belt" ofscuba diving. it's not easy.

the training is intense,designed to test your nerves and your confidence. it has tobe, because underwater caves are dangerous.if you get lost and run out of air, you will die.the training is designed toteach divers not to panic, not to getlost, and never to run out of air.so obviouslychoosing the right instructor is important. that'swhy i contacted brian kakuk, one of the world'smost famous and respected cave explorers--known for hisimpressive discoveries andpassionate

efforts to protect some of theworld's most fragile andvulnerable caves. caves are his passion, butbrian also spent years as a dive safety officerworking on big hollywood filmproductions, like the pirates of thecaribbean movies, and manyothers. brian agreed to accept me as astudent, but he wouldn't goeasy on me because i'm a tv guy. infact, photographers often do the most damage to caves withbig, cumbersome cameras, so iwould have to work extra hard to earnhis approval. brian is based out of abaco, anisland in the bahamas known inthe cave

diving community as the home ofthe most exquisitely decorated caves in the world. so my training begins with a flight to the bahamas. and ihave no idea what i'm in for! brian picks me up and then it's off to his shopto show me how to get some ofmy new cave diving gear gear set up. the hardest thingfor me will be my new sidemountgear. sidemount diving is somethingcompletely new to me. brian: it's a lot easier to doit with a cam-band than it iswith a

stainless band. cameraman todd is already cavecertified but sidemount divingis new to him as well, so brian also helps set up his .brian: we want this to end upin the thorax right here. sidemount is a style of divingwhere the diver wears the scubatanks on the sides, instead ofthe back. not only is it a lot morecomfortable than wearing bothscuba tanks on your back, butit creates a lower profile, so you can fitthrough smaller restrictions like this. because the caves inabaco are filled with small restrictions and delicateformations, a lower profilemeans less damage to the cave andmore places you can go.

but before i can start diving,there is a lecture in the classroom. youare never too old to go back to school and learn something new.my progression from open waterdiver to full cave certification willtake at least 8 long 12-hourdays of instruction in both theclassroom and the water. otis has heard this one amillion times. brian: we talked a little bitabout signaling. diver 1,instead of having to turn around and ask everybody "are you ok?"he'll shine his light up hereand say "hey are you guys ok?" big circle on the wall, where e

is a critical skill in cavediving, we head out into theparking lot for some dry practice. brian: if you don't check yourbuoyancy first, you are goingto be doing is this: pushing off, pushing off,trying to get this undone, and you are going to keepfalling down or floating up, so the first thing you do whenyou find a tie-off is you comeup to it, and hover, neutrallybuoyant. now i can reach back, unclipthis and bring it forward. alright, so buoyancy first, alw buoyancy will become a commontheme in my class. cave divers mustexhibit near perfect buoyancy not only to keep frombreaking the formations in thecave,

but to keep from kicking upsilt. first brian runs aguideline around an imaginary cave. brian: what you're going to dois first, stop. buoyancy.then it's time for me to learnsome guideline techniques.jonathan: one, two...brian:yes. just like that jonathan: and then i'm goingto do one, two. brian: there you go! but i'm not just learning howto run a guideline. i also have to learn how to useit in an emergency, such as in the pitch dark. so i have topractice with my eyes closed. and no, i'm not cheating. brian: you really want to keepyour head down.

so you want that hand to be thehighest point. back in the shop we make a fewlast minute gear adjustments. then it's finally time to headover to dan's cave for somein-water skills. we load up brian's bigvan full of gear. then it's off to the cave. dan's cave is located about 35minutes south of brian's shop near town. wedrive south a while and thenturn off down an old logging road to getthere. we travel into the middle of a huge pine forest.

finally, we arrive at a small clearing. brian keeps the placetidy, the grass mowed, and has even built some smallstructures to hang and dry thegear. for the ultimate in luxury, hesets up an awning to give us alittle shade from the hot bahamian sun as we put ourgear together. after years of anticipation, iget my first glimpse of thecave where i will be doing 90% of mytraining: dan's cave. it's beautiful and peaceful.and small. it's hard to imagine that thistiny opening leads to miles ofcaves that

brian has explored andmapped.smack dab in the middleof nowhere, this little oasis attractslife. birds are chirping, hundreds of butterflies flitabout, and a curly-tail lizard watches us intently. to a chorus of frogs, we carryour tanks down to the water. with side mount, you don yourtanks in the water, so we rig up our tanks withregulators, and then carry themdown to the cave entrance and set themwhere we will be able to reachup and get them once we are inthe water. cave diving requires a lot of

specialized gear. even theregulators. with cave diving you might haveto go through a passageway thatis so narrow that you have to go singlefile. what would you do if youhad to share air with a diver that was out of air? well, youwould need a really long hoseto reach someone in front of you. so one of theregulators in my sidemount kit is 7 feet long. i coil it uphere, and i can still breathe off ofit myself, but if its needed ican pull it all out and i can give it tosomeone that's out of air and follow behind them in a narrowpassage.

since the water is only around75 degrees, a wetsuit isnecessary to keep warm. then i don my sidemountharness, which is kind of likethe buoyancy compensator i normally use, but there's notank strapped on the back. in the water, i clip my tanks to my harness, run my hoses,check my gas, test my regulators and inflator valve,and test my lights. you might wonder why we wearhelmets. they look goofy but it's better than whacking yourhead on a rock ceiling, andit's a convenient place tomount a backup light or two.

when i'm ready, brian and i doa very careful check of eachother. in cave diving, small equipmentissues can quickly turn into big problems. so catchinganything small now is important. jonathan: are we good to go? br finally we are ready to submerge, and i have topractice tying off our reel, inwhat is called the primary tie-off. then we descend down into thecavern. i continue to make tie-offswhere brian tells me to. he is having me practice on allkinds of different shapes.

[ music ♪ ] finally we make the finaltie-off, called a "terminal" tie off right nextto the stop sign. the stop sign signifies the endof the cavern zone: the part ofthe cave where you can still see light from theopening. i can't go past thissign at this stage of my training.thefirst exercise i have to perform is asimulation of a blindnavigation in an out of air situation. i am breathing frombrian's long-hose regulatorwhile following the guideline with myeyes shut, and he is using meas his

guide by holding my arm. thenwe switch positions and he is the one out of air.normally this would be donewith our lights off in the dark, but we need light fortodd to film it, so i have topromise to keep my eyes shut. we navigate all the way back toentrance. doing it with my eyes closedbuilds confidence in the guideline system and it's myjob to practice retrieving theline by spooling it back up. getting out of the water is theopposite of getting in━you take your tanksoff before you climb out.

that was super awesome! we drag our gear out of thewater, and haul it back up tothe truck. cave diving is a lot of work,but at least you never getseasick! soon we take apart our portablebase camp and head back tobrian's shop. as the sun sets over marshharbour, i can rest a little, but thatwas only day 1. i have another 8 days oftraining still to go! every morning of my trainingstarts the same way. bright and early, i'm back inthe classroom trying toremember a lot of new terms,

definitions, rules and tips asbrian works his way through from the basics to the moreadvanced concepts. and after the classroomsession, we analyze our tanks,and load the van. finally we're on our way again! at the cave site, brian hasanother guideline exercise forme━finding a lost guideline in the dark. ihave to promise to keep my eyesshut again as brian spins me around so idon't know where the line is. if i cheat, i'm only cheatingmyself, because i won't learnhow this is done. the first step is to tie off tosomething so i can find where

i started. keep in mind, myeyes are shut, i have to do this by feelalone. then, i pick a direction, moving slowly while sweeping myarm up and down to try to catch the guidelinethat will lead me to safety. in my first attempt, i'm going the wrong way. jonathan: well, i feel like imight have gone too far. since i have gone far enoughthat i should have found theline by then, i go back to the starting pointby reeling myself back in.

then, using my hands and the position of the line itied, i pick a new direction. success! i find the guidelineand tie my reel in! now i haveto figure out which way is out.jonathan: okay, so this istied in now. line arrows on the guidelinealways point the way out of thecave. i don't know which way is outin this particular case,because you just made it up. so i guess i'll just go this wa.brian radar, radar! so i feel along until i feel aline arrow and figure out which way it's pointing. jonathan: yup. going the

wrong way. the way out is thisway. brian: awesome. jonathan: i swear i did notcheat, i had my eyes shut! somehow i have a sneakingsuspicion that i'm going tohave to do that again underwater. with the lost line drill overwith, it's time to startputting together our gear forthe dives. once again, we huff our gear tothe cave. [music ♪ ] today, which is the third dayof my training, we will begoing past the stop sign. i'm now past thecavern part of the training.

it's real cave time! brian has me lead for a whileand just when i'm thinking thisis going to be an easy dive, he springs another blindout-of-air drill on me. my training dives are not allblind exercises though. throughout the course, as iprogress from intro to cavediver to apprentice cave diver, andfinally full cave diver, briantakes me and todd to see the sights,practice our sidemount skills,and sometimes snake our way throughthe swiss cheese limestone. everywhere i look, dan's caveis full of wonders.

moving through crystal clearwater, we pass innumerable extremely fragileformations that took thousands of years to form. in one room, a massive column, 30 feet tall, and ornamentedlike a huge candle of dripping wax--but made of solid stone,deposited over a thousand years or more. dan's cave is a treasure chestof formations the likes of which ihave never seen.

on one ceiling, the stalactites are short andknobby. not far away, they are long,and smooth like icicles, formed of thepurest white crystal. in a large room some 700 feetfrom the entrance, a formation brian calls aristotle's head.see it? to me it looks like his head ona duck. further in, we enter a forestof tall, slender columns. ever so gently,

todd and i follow brianthrough. if i ever broke one of these ancient, beautifulformations i would neverforgive myself. we move gently and carefullywith absolute buoyancy control. soon we reach our thirds━onethird of our air supply, and it's time to turn aroundand head back towards theentrance. on the way out, brian spots aremipede, a type of rare blind crustacean that onlylives in caves. with its two large antennae,this little guy is called thehammerhead ramipede. we also find a blind bahamiancavefish━the super-predator

in the cave━only a few incheslong. we pass the stop sign, backinto the cavern zone and i can see the light above fromthe opening. we do a safety stop at 15 feet for three minutes, just as wewould in open water, to be surenobody has any decompression sickness issues. and then, it's back to thelight of day! brian: we had to do morelights-out drills, where he hasto follow the line by feel. and then we kinda stepped up

the difficulty by having anout-of-air situation at thesame time. and then we stepped that up tohaving to go through a tiny little hole single file withzero lights and also sharing air too. jonathan: honestly it was fun, but i know i'm with the guythat knows the way out, youknow what i mean? so i'm not too worried. brian: well, you did all thenavigation coming out on yourown, right? jonathan: we made it back to th! on the last day of my trainingi have to take the final. it's not just a multiple choiceexam, but in fact has mostly

essay questions. it has been awhile since i have taken anexam and this one takes three hours! just to make it even morenerve-wracking, brian reads and grades it whilei sit there. but fortunately, he likes it,and.... brian: congratulations! jonathan: yes, i'm a cavediver! i pass! i get my cave divingcertification card! cave diving isn't for everyone.it requires a lot of trainingto be safe, and a tolerance forclaustrophobia.

but for the people who chooseto venture into these remoteunderground worlds, the rewards are immense. my newcave training has opened my eyes to new divingtechniques and paved the way for many more futureadventures. you just might beseeing a few more cave stories here inthe blue world.