Saturday
I tagged along with Mark and Ling on a guided cavern tour round Chaak Mool. Sadly Ling decided that cave diving was not for her, but it was very pleasant to have no drills on the dive.
A Kiss diver in silhouette 
Janos going through a restriction 
Sunday
Last time I was in the Yucatan (about 7 years previously with work) I didn’t see any ruins so this time I was determined to. The ruins at Tulum were superb, and I’d recommend them. I spent the afternoon brooding about Monday, the final day of the course.
Indiana Chase 
Monday
D-day arrived and it was much better. I was Kirk, Howard was Spock, and Mark was Uhura. The dive went to plan until I noticed that Mark was missing. I told Howard, then started a lost diver search. I didn’t know that this was a drill, but Matt seemed calm and Patrick was also missing so I suspected it might be. Howard and I kept our cool, found Mark and lead him back to the safety of the line.
Then it was touch drills, SCR drills, and air sharing drills all the way home. We surfaced, and I was pleased with the way it had gone.
We debriefed each other and Matt and Patrick gave their comments. Then Matt turned the subject around to cave diving generally and asked us whether we felt we could do that last dive on our own. When we replied in the affirmative. He then shook our hands, told us we had passed, the cards were printed up and back home, and we were free to go for a dive on our own!
This came as a huge surprise to me, and I was speechless.
Matt told us he would be getting out of the water, and suggested that we do the second dive on our own. This is an excellent idea, and so we did. We went to see a room known as the cathedral. This is a massive room which is well decorated. It was really nice to have a proper cave dive without the stress of being on a course.
Mark Underwater 
Team Chaos tie off 
Tuesday and Wednesday
Mark and Howard flew home and I did some guided dives. On Tuesday I dived Dos Ojos, and on Wednesday I dived the Room of Tears in Carwash and the Cavanah Loop in Gran Cenote. These were all superb dives and I really enjoyed them, but I’ll put more detail in later as I want to focus on the training course.
However when told that my guide was going to be "Bernie", I assumed he'd be a 20 stone hairy arsed diver. I was wrong.
The Dude packing his kit. Note the three cool boxes 
Summary
The road to being a top notch cave diver is a long one, and I’ve just started out, but certainly I feel competent to start exploring the caves with Mark and Howard. I think we’re in the position of a PADI AOW who’s done 30 dives in the Red Sea. Yes in theory we might be qualified to jump into a 30m dive off Dover in February, but we need to build up to it.
This was the best course I’ve ever been on. I learnt shedloads about myself, and also Mark and Howard. I learnt not only in-water skills, but also much better communication skills, and most of all I learnt about my own personality and behaviours underwater, and how they positively and negatively impact on the dive. I’m a perfectionist, and in my passion for perfection I can be too bossy, too controlling, and so I need to let go occasionally. Chatting with Patrick he hit the nail on the head when he told me that it was obvious I was an instructor. I’ve learnt that sometimes not every opportunity should be a teaching opportunity.
A lot of what I’ve learnt it going to be very useful when diving in the UK, and I can’t wait to put into practice.
If you are interested in learning to cave dive, or just want to be a better diver, then I would thoroughly recommend doing this course with Matt. It’s hard going, and I’d definitely recommend a few confidence boosting days of diving afterwards, but you will learn a lot.
My main reason for going on the course was to learn stuff that would make me a better diver. I came away with more than I thought possible.
Janos
We passed! 