How I started and why I continue to cave dive

[Cave Diver]

This is a spin off from another thread where I made mention of my response to the "Why do you cave dive?" question. Several years ago I was asked this by a friend and this is the response that I gave to her then. It's just as true for me today.

My question regarding cave diving is.....what do you really see that's so amazing that draws you back into the hole? Is it merely the adventure? You aren't going to see a shark! (I still enjoy shark hunting! )

A quote that I've seen attributed to Tom Mount seems to sum it up best. "Either you're one of us and you get it, or you're not and you don't."

As far as what I see, well, you wont see any sharks, but I still like it anyway. There are beautiful rock formations. Sculpted and etched out over time by a restless artist. Nooks and crannies that beg for exploration, tempting you with the promise of new passages that no living soul has ever seen. Contrasts of light and dark in the different layers of rocks. Fossils from hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of years ago, frozen in time. Its the wondering what you will find just around the next corner, and so much more...

And yes, it is the adventure. I like the challenge, the concentration necessary. The planning, the checking, the knowing that it's up to me to make sure the dive goes flawlessly. Knowing that failure or sloppiness is not an option. It makes the senses keenly aware, it heightens the experience. It's the tension, the anticipation and the relief when you come back into the cavern zone and you know that you had a good plan, a good dive and everything is okay.

Another analogy that I use is when people ask me why I dive is the Grand Canyon. It's a different experience to everyone that visits it.

Some people walk to the edge, look down and say "Big deal, it's just a big hole in the ground."

Some people walk up and catch their breath from the stunning view, the wonder of nature and the power of water that caused water to carve out such a huge chasm.

Some people are enthralled with the different layers of exposed rock on the face of the cliff. Moments from the history of our planet captured and preserved by the varying veins and sediments that make us seem small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

And then, there are those people who don't think the trip is complete until they climb on the back of a donkey and take the perilous trip down the steep and winding rocky path so they can reach the bottom and stand at the shore of the Colorado river.

That is what cave diving is like for me. Strangely enough, I didn't start out to become one. As a fairly new diver with AOW, Rescue and Nitrox under my belt I was tired of long trips out in the Gulf to spearfish on the rigs and the local lakes with 5' of vis on a good day. My instructor, who also became a good friend, kept telling me we needed to take a road trip to Florida and dive the clear water in the springs, so we decided to go Vortex Springs.

While we were planning the trip, I found out there was a cave there and I thought it would be cool if I could take a cavern course while there. Several fruitless phone calls to them failed to locate someone who could do Cavern instruction while I was planning to be there. So I turned to the web and found several instructors in cave country. After talking with one, I decided to stay an extra day and to the 3 day cavern/intro course instead of just the two day cavern.

At this point I was more interested in wreck diving than I was in learning to cave dive, but thought the skills would be useful for that. This ended up prompting me to go ahead and just take the full 7 day cave class. Yes, I took the "Zero to Hero" course and after the first two days my instructor made it clear that it was questionable whether I was going to make it or not. But I dug in, showed drastic improvement in the cavern/intro portion and was allowed to continue on with the full cave training. Believe it or not, people can learn to cave dive this way.

It was one of the most physically and mentally demanding things I've ever done diving. But at the end, I was hooked. I eventually ended up getting two other friends to take a cavern class at Vortex from another instructor, while I sat in and audited the class. One of them went on to take full cave from my original instructor and I tagged along as his buddy. Another friend took the cavern and intro class from this same instructor and I tagged along with him as well, so I've actually gone through cavern and intro 3 times and full cave twice.

Since that time almost 10 years ago now, I've done a lot of different dives in a lot of different places. But it's caves that always draw me back as my first choice of places to go.

Either you're one of and you get it, or you're not and you don't.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Vortex did nothing for me, thought cavers were stupid.

I stuck my head into Morrison a couple years later and all my money and time seems to have dissappeared.

 

[TSandM]

Either you're one of and you get it, or you're not and you don't.

I think that's so true . . . although sometimes people don't know if they're one of us until they try it. I knew, from the moment I first watched Andrew Georgitsis's Mexican Cave Video on the now defunct ScubaGuys site, that this was something I HAD to do, no matter what it took. My husband, on the other hand, was uninspired by videos or photographs, and did his first cenote tours reluctantly and at my urging. He came out an entirely different diver -- the caves got him.

I suspect there are as many reasons why people cave dive as there are reasons why people dive at all. Some dive for the beauty (and it's real), some for the challenge (and that's real, too, and can be a very appealing part of the sport), some for the gear, and some for the teamwork. Some of us dive for a little bit of all those things. Cave divers also seem to experience the same evolution as open water divers . . . at first it's enough just to do it, then you have to do bigger and longer and more difficult dives, then people turn to photography or video, instruction, or exploration.

Swimming, weightless, in gin-clear warm water, surrounded by fantastic formations that resemble illustrations in a fantasy novel, watching the steady movements of my teammates' lights, listening to my breathing, and looking to see what's around the next corner . . . while monitoring my buoyancy, my kicks, my trim, my pressure, making my bookmarks, doing a flow check. It's an incredibly seductive blend of emotional and rational satisfaction. Elegance, discipline and beauty, and perhaps a little ego, as you realize that what you are seeing has been seen by very few people before you (maybe, in some cases, by none!)

I love to dive in general -- all dives, from pool sessions with students to stage dives in caves. But if I had to choose one kind of diving to be all I could do for the rest of my live, it would be in caves. I'm addicted to wet rocks

 

[DennisS]

Either you're one of us and you get it, or you're not and you don't.

We took off for cave country during a long thanksgiving weekend back in the early 70's. There was open water folks and the hard core cave divers. We hit a half dozen or so cavern/caves, some at the end of dirt roads with camping next to them. The caves all had the grim reaper or skull and crossbones warning, along with the total numbers who died at the entrance. I'd shine my light into the darkness and watch the cavers disappear. I couldn't figure out why anyone would go back in there, and headed back to my S Florida reefs. I haven't had any urge to go back in over 30 years. It was nice to see the springs, but once was enough. I'll take the sunshine and coral reefs.

I'm definitely one of the ones who don't see the attraction.

 

[LiteHedded]

i got cavern trained after a CF at paradise springs.
I got hooked on cave diving after my first cavern dive into the ear at ginnie watching scooter teams go in and out of the cave

 

[Cave Diver]

Either you're one of and you get it, or you're not and you don't.

On a related note, my CCR instructor said:

There is a difference between cave divers and people who cave dive.

 

[OldNSalty]

I get it (I think). I just don’t want to do it. I look in the caves and sure, I wonder what’s in there. I just don’t have the money, the time, nor the desire to spend the effort to find out. Given the amount of planning/preparation that I assume goes into one of those dives I would much rather role out of bed and decide on the spur of the moment if I was going to go do an ocean dive that day.

Still, for those of you who do it, thanks. I am sure that some of the skills, techniques and equipment improvements that we have seen over the years has come from people doing different types of diving, including the cavers.

 

[TSandM]

Given the amount of planning/preparation that I assume goes into one of those dives I would much rather role out of bed and decide on the spur of the moment if I was going to go do an ocean dive that day.

Oh, you can do this in the caves! The hardest part of the planning and preparation, for those of us who don't live where the caves ARE, is getting there. After that, which cave, how many dives, how long, and all the rest, can literally be figured out at breakfast . . . except, of course, for the ones that require gas blending

 

[boulderjohn]

Long ago, possibly before the Florida caves were formed (okay, okay), I was a teen taking part in an organization that taught a variety of wilderness-type skills. I learned to forage for food in the wild and take long canoe trips with minimal gear. I was introduced to rock climbing.

And one day we wriggled into a spectacular non-commercial cave. I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful. Although nothing came of it for decades, I was actually hooked then.

Many years later I was an OW diver, and that long-held, distant memory led me to take some "cavern" dives in Yucatan Cenotes. (The quotation marks are because I now know we violated the actual rules of cavern diving. They were very much cave dives.) I knew I wanted to dive caves, but I doubted it would ever happen. I was starting loo late in life, I could not afford the training, I didn't have the time, etc., etc., etc.

Colorado has relatively little technical diving of any kind going on, so when our shop started dabbling it it, I immediately thought of caves. But, once again, I was too... [see list of excuses above]. I did start general technical training, first through our initial TDI work and then through UTD when the shop crossed over. I was in theory training exclusively for decompression diving, but I always had my eye on caves somewhere in the distance. I knew that all the skills I was learning would be applicable if I were ever to make the move. I even visited cave forums and scouted out potential instructors, just in case.

Finally, as I was completing UTD Tech 1, I impulsively took the leap. I set up a trip to Florida and arranged to go NSS-CDS Cavern through Apprentice--at least in theory. The instructor advised me that completing that was no guarantee. Well, I finished that at the end of January this year. I was exhausted but thrilled.

I planned fairly carefully for the next step. First I focused on the Tech training, completing Tech 2. Then I practiced the cave skills and arranged to go back and give Full Cave a shot. I completed that this past Saturday.

So, here I am, a newly minted cave diver looking excitedly for a place to dive. I am already scouting out options for our local group of tech divers. Hopefully I can find a place where we can all go together and allow each of us to follow our own bliss. Those who are into the caves can do caves, and those looking for ocean deco dives can do those. Right now I am scoping out the Bahamas, and I would welcome any ideas.

 

[wrybosome]

I planned fairly carefully for the next step. First I focused on the Tech training, completing Tech 2. Then I practiced the cave skills and arranged to go back and give Full Cave a shot. I completed that this past Saturday.

Congratulations John.