Learning is often a multifaceted endeavor. Though the way people learn is different across the board, it can take a lot of patience, practice, willpower, and sometimes it even takes some humility and the ability to fail. This can be especially true for complex ideas and subjects. As for me, learning certain things (mostly math) had been a challenge and often took a lot of trial and error. In high school, I remember having to do a book report on what, after a few pages in, I’d deemed as one of the most boring books in the world, known as Plato’s Republic. However, despite how uninterested I was in the book at that time, there was an allegory within it that really garnered my interest. If you’ve ever dared read the whole book, you might not be surprised to find that the passage I’m referring to is Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave. It was a passage that really spoke to me and since it heavily involves caves, I figured the correlation was too appropriate and ironic to exclude.
For those that have not read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (and I don’t blame you if you haven’t), the story pertains to a group of people who have been trapped facing a wall in a cave for all their lives and have only ever been exposed to the shadows that happen to pass by here and there. As time passes these shadows are perceived as real and are classified by those trapped in the cave. At some point, one person is freed from their restraints and ascends out of the cave to discover the real world. Though overwhelmed at first by the light of this new information, the person soon learns the true nature of things, becomes enlightened, and returns to the cave to free the others and tell all of them the truth of things. Regardless of this new knowledge, the freed person is discredited by the cave dwellers and despite the enlightened person’s attempts, they refuse to leave the cave, sticking to their assumptions and their shadows.
While the story alludes to the idea that society can often train most people to be unwilling to accept things outside the realm of familiarity or, as Plato put it specifically, “The effect of education and the lack of it on our nature,” for me the allegory represented something else. After putting myself in the story, I had always imagined I had been one of the few lucky ones that had the chance to be freed from the shackles of the cave. Yet, despite my access to education and new information, there were times when I imagined myself to be stuck in quicksand or mud in my attempt to climb out of the cave. In those moments it seemed as if no matter what I did, even after trying to frantically grasp and claw my way out, I was doomed to be stuck in the metaphysical cave. What if I just wasn’t capable of climbing out and seeing the light? What if there were some things I just was never going to understand no matter how much I wanted to? It was unfortunately a thought I carried with me for a long time and I admit it’s one that still haunts me sometimes to this day.
Admiring the light at the end of the tunnel
However, as I got older, carrying my philosophical baggage, I eventually came to realize that I was not always alone and that others who were leaving and entering this theoretical cave could help me find my footing. People who had reached that light and cared enough to climb back in the cave to help others would sometimes see me and help me take one more step towards enlightenment. One of these people that helped me begin my journey to conquering the cave both literally and metaphorically was the legendary Cristina Zenato.
Cristina Zenato
I first met Cristina in the rain in Freeport on the Bahamian island of Grand Bahama under what might be thought of as unconventional circumstances. After doing some freediving and photography work in Florida, I turned my sights to cave diving. Notwithstanding Plato providing me a visual platform to express my fear of incompetence through the analogy of a cave, I have actually always really loved caves ever since I was a boy scout in elementary school. I felt there was no greater atmosphere of wonder, mystery, and beauty than the kind that a cave exudes. While I had only visited caves on dry land, I could only dream of the awe an underwater cave would inspire. The fact that I was already in the home of Cave Country, paired with my desire to become the best diver I could be in a sport where cave diving is considered in many ways the Ph.D. of diving technique, all but pushed me to laser in on Cave diving as my next objective. However, as things unfolded it seemed the initial route I was planning on taking wasn’t going to work.
Enter Cristina, who graciously allowed me to stay and work with her in her home in the Bahamas, amongst her busy schedule. Upon meeting Cristina I got to learn much about her. She was brave, caring, and really was just one of those people that you can’t help but to admire. I could tell that she fought tirelessly for what she believed in and though in many ways it had served her well, she was still humble about it, knowing that everything she had achieved wasn’t without sacrifice. I learned that she was just as passionate about the earth and the people in it as if they were part of her own family. Where others would dare not show emotion or would be burnt out by the sting of the world, Cristina wore her heart on her sleeve. She would get out of her car to move a spider from the roadway, stop to help a stray dog, and cry if she accidentally hit a passing bird (which actually happened twice. Poor thing). It was really endearing and in a sense, she reminded me of a younger version of myself (I was a complete and total tree hugger back in the day). Still, in that same spirit, Cristina could be fierce and brutally honest. It was something that I really liked about her and something that made her stand out.
Cristina and Me at Owl’s Hole
Along with Cristina, I got to meet the other parts of her family, which consisted of three of the most adorable pups, named Mac, Tino, and Blue! I also got to hear about the love of Cristina’s life and fellow cave diver, Kewin, who I learned had just left for Denmark only hours before I arrived! Though I was sad to have missed hanging out with him, I let him know just how much he was missed during his and Cristina’s virtual chats, as I would pass by in the background waving and confessing my sadness for him not being there. Still, regardless of Kewin’s absence and some other minor setbacks, Cristina and I carried on with our set goals. We drafted a pseudo-plan to help me start my cave diving journey. However, our first step before we could dive into any caves or caverns was going to be for me to get trained on Sidemounts.
Practicing in the Pool
For those who may not be aware, Sidemount is a scuba diving equipment configuration that incorporates two scuba tanks that are held alongside the diver, rather than on the back of the diver. One might wonder why and how having two tanks on either side of your body would help or matter. The answer to that question translates to a multitude of reasons and explains why Sidemount first originated as a configuration for advanced cave diving. In overhead environments such as caves and wrecks, Sidemount not only allows easier penetration of tighter areas but also allows easy access to cylinder valves, allows tanks to be easily removed when necessary, provides divers double the amount of gas for longer dives, and provides an extra gas supply in the case of an emergency. These benefits are all exceedingly important for operating in confined spaces.
Another thing that was going to be extremely important to master was going to be my buoyancy and trim. While both were pretty decent from an open water diving perspective, for cave diving I needed to put in some real work. We started out by adjusting Cristina’s spare Sidemount harness to my proportions and went from there, making sure that both tanks were level with my body. Though that was a task in itself, it was even harder keeping my trim and buoyancy together with a completely new system and way of positioning myself in the water. I struggled a lot at first in handling this new form of diving. It was difficult to remember all of the tasks and steps that went into not only making sure things were in the right place but getting used to the constant hooking and unhooking of things while keeping perfect buoyancy, and balancing the air in both tanks. I worked hard to improve, even taking an evening to float around in the pool behind Cristina’s apartment to practice. Believe it or not, we hadn’t even gotten to the real cave stuff yet!
After diving a while in the open cavern of Owl’s hole, working in the open ocean and in the pool through various skills, I finally succeeded in gathering the basics of how to operate the side mount configuration with some sense of competence. There still more work to be done on it but it was now finally time to try to work within the actual cave systems! We headed over to mermaids lair to begin our actual cave dives and got started. The cave systems were beautifully decorated with stalagmites and stalactites. There were even hollowed pillars that practically glowed when you pressed your light against them. It was absolutely incredible to witness and a constant reminder of the beauty and wonders of the earth. Yet no matter how beautiful the caves were, training in them was no walk in the park.
One of the stalactites that light up
To put things into perspective, if Sidemount and Cavern diving were akin to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Fuji, cave diving was to me like climbing Mt Everest. One might think that it can’t be too hard to swim through a cave and they would be right. It’s not hard, but swimming through while keeping track of everything, and I do mean absolutely everything, was hard for me. Now, not only was I trying to stay cognizant of my Sidemounts, but I was also trying to keep track of how to manipulate the reel underwater, practicing what to do when I need to switch my lights or how to keep track of the mainline while blind, how to correctly share air if need be in a condensed or low visual environment, how to correctly tie each kind of tie off, how to deal with deco, how to remember all the new signals and signs, and keep tabs on my buddy. While there were many things that I did well and was improving on, there were so many other things to be mindful of that I was overwhelmed by it and sadly, it showed. There were moments when Cristina would just shake her head at me. She would go over the plan and I would understand each part as she explained it but as soon as my mind switched focus I would forget about something else that was just as important.
It was frustrating and would only be made worse by more compounding mistakes. As we continued to do different drills, Cristina began to notice that if I forgot or messed up one thing on the first dive, my mind would go into hyperfocus to correct that one thing on the next dive but then miss other things, which is one of the worst tendencies to have when cave diving. In a cave, it is important to be fully aware of everything that is going on around you and I was subconsciously putting blinders on, doing just the opposite of what I needed to.
Before I knew it I was back in Plato’s cave, crawling, begging to just get to the light, the fear of my own incompetence creeping in like the monster under the bed you thought you had put away. Could I actually do this? For a while, I wasn’t sure and based on some of my performance, neither was Cristina. She was candid enough to tell me her worries about me getting through the class with the time left and though I was glad she was honest with me, it hurt to think that my worst fear might be coming true and as our time together was coming to a close I was steadily falling into despair.
Despite all of my doubts and frustrations though, Cristina was also sure to remind me she had worked with a lot of students in her life and that though I was having some troubles now, all I needed in order to get out of my own head was time and practice. Even if things weren’t going perfectly now, it didn’t mean I wasn’t worthy, capable or competent. She reminded me that it’s ok to take the time to get better. Rome, as they say, was not built in a day.
On the inside, I knew she was right, as one of the things that I learned was that sometimes failing is the best way to learn and get better. Though we may try and often fail, true failure is when we stop trying.
On our last day of diving, we worked on some more things and with a more positive outlook in my mind, I was able to maintain more of a broad awareness of the things happening around me and accomplish more than I was leading myself to believe. In the end, I wound up getting certified in Sidemount and with an Apprentice Cave Diver certification. Thanks to Cristina, I not only learned much about what it takes to be a better cave diver, but also I learned more about myself. So while not perfect, it was a sign of hope. Even though I definitely know that I still need more work… perhaps that’s ok. Perhaps my fear of the monster under the bed that manifests as the potential of failure is unwarranted because honestly… that’s how we grow. Thanks to the likes of Cristina, Fourth Element, Aqua Lung, and all those who have supported me through this scholarship, perhaps in this sense, I finally had taken my first step (or froggy kick) to get out of the cave and into the light.
