Is cave diving safer than Open Water

[arew+4]

Is this a serious question? Are you HONESTLY arguing that cave diving is SAFER than open water diving?

Thought this was the intro thread and I was being nice, but...
Yeah, what he said!

 

[Marie13]

Not sure if the OP is trolling or not. From what I’ve seen on FB diving groups and YT comments, OW trained divers can get some odd notions about cave diving.

 

[oya]

To folks dismissing the conversation completely as absurd or a stupid question...

In my experience (recreational guide and instructor for 10+ years, technical instructor and guide for ~10, cave instructor and guide for ~5) OW divers tend to be a LOT scarier in terms of their safety or lack thereof. Many frequently not even realising the amount of danger they put themselves into and needing to be pulled out of it by a DM.

Cave divers, on the other hand, by and large tend to be able to keep both themselves and their team safe.

Again... this is not the absolute, unvarying rule. But it's often enough that I simply expect it.

So in my opinion it's a very fair question and an interesting thing to explore. Perhaps in the context of, "Why is Open Water training more demanding so that people ARE capable of taking care of themselves and a team properly?"

 

[arew+4]

To folks dismissing the conversation completely as absurd or a stupid question...

In my experience (recreational guide and instructor for 10+ years, technical instructor and guide for ~10, cave instructor and guide for ~5) OW divers tend to be a LOT scarier in terms of their safety or lack thereof. Many frequently not even realising the amount of danger they put themselves into and needing to be pulled out of it by a DM.

Cave divers, on the other hand, by and large tend to be able to keep both themselves and their team safe.

Again... this is not the absolute, unvarying rule. But it's often enough that I simply expect it.

So in my opinion it's a very fair question and an interesting thing to explore. Perhaps in the context of, "Why is Open Water training more demanding so that people ARE capable of taking care of themselves and a team properly?"

While I fully agree with you on the quality and skills of many open water divers. The level of risk for open water diving is much lower. All the risks associated with OW are present in cave plus a "Few" more.


Two newly minted OW divers go it alone from a beach on Curacao, vs. a spring in Florida. Which one has higher odds they both get out of the water safely.

 

[Joneill]

Apples to oranges. Cave diving is inherently more dangerous than your typical OW diving. Hence, why cave training is so rigorous compared to your average OW and AOW training. You can take a cave diver and put them in the OW, but you can't take an OW diver and put them in a cave (well, you can, but it will most likely be a one way trip).

Not sure I fully agree with the last part - put a cave only diver in bad OW conditions outside of their training or past experience and they won’t do well either… but I do agree that an OW only trained diver in a cave will not ever go well.

 

[tursiops]

So my arguments were that cave diving is generally safer because it lacks the hazards of the open ocean:

strong currents

The strongest currents I've ever experienced were in a cave.

storms

OK

boat propellers

OK

dangerous marine life

OK

unreliable visibility

Absolutely wrong; the visibility in a cave can go to zero in seconds.

weird water conditions like downcurrents

The are other weird water conditions, not just down currrents; for example, haloclines so you can't see the line.

An overhead environment can be an advantage because it prevents you from shooting to the surface in a bout of panic

This can be a disadvantage if you really need to get to the surface.

I'm afraid a little knowledge is a dangerous thing....

 

[Divin'Papaw]

To folks dismissing the conversation completely as absurd or a stupid question...

In my experience (recreational guide and instructor for 10+ years, technical instructor and guide for ~10, cave instructor and guide for ~5) OW divers tend to be a LOT scarier in terms of their safety or lack thereof. Many frequently not even realising the amount of danger they put themselves into and needing to be pulled out of it by a DM.

Cave divers, on the other hand, by and large tend to be able to keep both themselves and their team safe.

Again... this is not the absolute, unvarying rule. But it's often enough that I simply expect it.

So in my opinion it's a very fair question and an interesting thing to explore. Perhaps in the context of, "Why is Open Water training more demanding so that people ARE capable of taking care of themselves and a team properly?"

You're comparing OW trained divers to cave trained divers. That is NOT the same thing as saying CAVE DIVING is safer than OPEN WATER DIVING. It clearly is not. The environments are as different as night and day from a risk perspective. The level of training, thankfully, is fundamentally different. After all, why is cave training so rigorous? Because cave diving is inherently more dangerous than open water diving thus requiring the additional training.

 

[MtnDiverColorado]

This strikes me as one of those threads where someone is trying to argue that Darth Vader and the Empire were really the good guys in Star Wars or something...

Which if you want to play the game, may be amusing.

I just hope someone doesn't come away from this thinking cave diving is safe....

 

[Eric802]

Cave DIVERS may be, on the whole, safer than open water DIVERS, because their environment is exponentially more dangerous and they have to be to avoid the eternal surface interval. But cave DIVING is most certainly not safer than OW.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Is this a serious question? Are you HONESTLY arguing that cave diving is SAFER than open water diving?

Is this a troll post or are you actually serious?

I can't speak for the OP, but I interpreted the original post as more of a philosophical or theoretical question.