Is cave diving safer than Open Water

[NW Dive Dawg]

There seems to be too many variables here to come up with a solid answer. Like has been mentioned, there is really no way to come up with an "apples to apples" comparison.

Like this......... which of the following is safer.

1) An NDL full penetration (with no exit other than the entry) cave dive in fresh water where the water temp is 70F, their is 50 ft of vis, no current, and the cave has been totally mapped and previously dived by many others.

2) An NDL full penetration (with no exit other than the entry) wreck dive in open ocean water where the water temp is 70F, their is 50 ft of vis, co current, and the wreck has been totally mapped and previously dived by many others.

 

[Robert H. Diver]

There seems to be too many variables here to come up with a solid answer. Like has been mentioned, there is really no way to come up with an "apples to apples" comparison.

Like this......... which of the following is safer.

1) An NDL full penetration (with no exit other than the entry) cave dive in fresh water where the water temp is 70F, their is 50 ft of vis, no current, and the cave has been totally mapped and previously dived by many others.

2) An NDL full penetration (with no exit other than the entry) wreck dive in open ocean water where the water temp is 70F, their is 50 ft of vis, co current, and the wreck has been totally mapped and previously dived by many others.

The wreck dive isn’t an open water dive….that’s a penetration dive..with an overhead…that requires special training.

 

[arew+4]

A summer lake dive to 50 feet for 50 minutes vs. same lake same profile middle of Winter 3+ inches of ice, with a hole you cut to go diving.

Summer is open water, Winter is not.

 

[KevinNM]

It has been said that many incidents involving very experienced divers have stemmed from complacency and/or from over-estimating their abilities. The divers in the middle of the experience spectrum are probably the safest divers.

There is a pattern in motorcycle and private plan crashes that has a peak for inexperienced rider or pilot, then it drops significantly and then at the multiple years of experience it starts to climb again. The early peak is overconfidence or lack of knowledge of how to handle uncommon but not rare issues, the late ramp is complacency.

Don’t know how it works in diving, but some cave fatalities have happened to people with the right training, equipment and experience to be there, but they did something major wrong.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

The wreck dive isn’t an open water dive….that’s a penetration dive..with an overhead…that requires special training.

Really...... OK, OK..... So let's call it a penetration dive to a wreck that is located on the bottom of the open ocean.

 

[tursiops]

Really...... OK, OK..... So let's call it a penetration dive to a wreck that is located on the bottom of the open ocean.

Do you REALLY think this is what the OP was asking about, a wreck-penetration dive vs a cave dive?

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

Do you REALLY think this is what the OP was asking about, a wreck-penetration dive vs a cave dive?

Not specifically...... but sometimes threads here on SB can segway or "veer" off.....from the original question or topic. I actually thought that the OP's intent was asking if diving in the open ocean could possibly be less safe than a cave dive... and my initial reaction was basically something like "that would depend on the scope of the open ocean dive vs the cave dive". For the wreck penetration question I brought up here, I was just trying to make the discussion more "apples to apples" with the only real difference being that one penetration dive is in the open ocean and the other penetration dive is in an inland fresh water cave.

 

[The Chairman]

Wrecks collapse far, far more often than caves.

50 ft of vis in a cave is rare. Usually, it's over 150, unless a non-trained diver happens in. That's when the silt hits the fins.

 

[MrVegas]

There is a pattern in motorcycle and private plan crashes that has a peak for inexperienced rider or pilot, then it drops significantly and then at the multiple years of experience it starts to climb again. The early peak is overconfidence or lack of knowledge of how to handle uncommon but not rare issues, the late ramp is complacency.

Don’t know how it works in diving, but some cave fatalities have happened to people with the right training, equipment and experience to be there, but they did something major wrong.

There is a study out there entitled "Thirty years of American cave diving fatalities." (Not sure what the copyright is, but it is findable online.) In that study, from 1985-2000, the majority of cave diving fatalities were in non-cave-trained divers, but from 2000-2015, the majority of fatalities were in cave-trained divers. Potentially a lot of statistical reasons for this -- more awareness of dangers among divers generally, more availability of cave training, development of popular cave diving sites with posted danger points (grim reaper signs), and the simple fact that the cave-trained divers are, by definition, doing more of the exploratory and dangerous dives. The good news was that total fatalities went down.

Anyway to OP's point (and made by others) it's a tough comparison. It may also depend what definition he is using for "cave." All other things being equal, it's more dangerous to be somewhere without direct access to the surface.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

It may also depend what definition he is using for "cave."

Cave is defined as the section of a cavern where no daylight can be seen. A cavern is then by definition a cave at night.