Cave 1 / Intro Expiration & Limits

[rddvet]

I don’t get the negative comments for wanting a course to allow thirds. Naui’s done it safely for years. An instructor will teach him though you can dive to thirds you don’t want to. My wife and I chose naui’s first for the instructor but second for the thirds. We knew we wanted to take it slow. Thirds with no expiration allows that. There’s nothing wrong with it if a student is taught to take it slow, not dive to full thirds, and progressively penetrate. We saw a ton of cave just staying on the mainline at cave 1 for well over a year.

 

[Caveeagle]

I get that most agencies and instructor see Basic/Intro/Apprentice as stepping stones, but I really disagree with the whole concept of an expiration date.

I also don’t really get why some people want to push everyone to Full Cave as if you are incomplete without it? Why not advanced cave, w stages then.

What if you like going couple hundred feet past the sign, but for personal reasons, just don’t want to do crazy long stage deco dives? Or even complex navigation?

We, as a group are pretty quick to drop the hammer on the ‘zero to hero’ crowd, but if someone wants to dive at the Intro, or Naui C1 Level a few years, we want to yank their credentials and make them start over?

I was someone who took a long break and when back, dove for at least a couple years at the Apprentice Level before completing full cave. By some standards, my lower level certs should have expired, even though I was diving actively, several times per month.

At that point I was happy to dive with one of Ken’s students who was Naui Cave1. He also was happy to dive very conservatively for a while before completing full cave. We both live close to caves, so this was easy for us. It would have sucked to feel like I had some artificial time crunch to have to deal with.

 

[SandyRobinson]

... if you would like to discuss these programs to understand the differences and nuances, I'd be more than happy to talk with you off-line and I can also refer you to a good instructor...

Cavesloth, some pretty good advice here. If I recall correctly, you may live within 30 minutes of me which puts you within 1.5 to 2.5 hours of a lot of caves and instructors. Ken is a standup guy and could help quickly without taking up several days on the forum (although you have gotten some good feedback).

Good luck!

 

[CaveSloth]

I am on the side of those who are saying that a mainline-following recreational cave tourist shouldn't ever have to get a full or advanced cave certification.

 

[kensuf]

I get that most agencies and instructor see Basic/Intro/Apprentice as stepping stones, but I really disagree with the whole concept of an expiration date.

I also don’t really get why some people want to push everyone to Full Cave as if you are incomplete without it? Why not advanced cave, w stages then.

What if you like going couple hundred feet past the sign, but for personal reasons, just don’t want to do crazy long stage deco dives? Or even complex navigation?

We, as a group are pretty quick to drop the hammer on the ‘zero to hero’ crowd, but if someone wants to dive at the Intro, or Naui C1 Level a few years, we want to yank their credentials and make them start over?

None of the agencies currently have an expiration date on the Cave 1 / Apprentice / Intro certification, but as I said, those certifications are not meant to be final destinations. The concern that many people (myself included) have is that individuals will eventually be tempted to dive beyond their training.

While many people will say "but I'll never dive beyond the limits of training," I can list several fatalities where people did just that. Heck, there was a 67 year old grandmother that was certified as an intro diver but died trying to complete a circuit in Peacock back in 2010.

Marion woman dies while cave diving in Suwannee County

 

[CaveSloth]

individuals will eventually be tempted to dive beyond their training.

———TOTALLY IGNORANT SPECULATION WARNING———

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think the traverse from Peacock to Olsen might be something someone could safely do with a “basic cave” certification.

As far as I know, it’s all on the mainline, one is never more than 700 ft from an exit, no major restrictions and it can be done with nitrox and no deco.

To me, that dive would be the most extreme dive I’d ever consider doing with a basic cave cert. If I wanted more I’d go back to school for the next course.

Unfortunately, even though imo it might be safely doable with basic cave, it probably falls outside of almost every apprentice level limit!

Btw, I’m not sure what kind of tanks would be required to make that traverse and keep 2/3 of air in the tanks. Might have to switch tanks at Olsen! Would LOVE to hear about any details or complexities of this particular dive that I have my eye on and why / if I’d need full cave to do it safely. Thanks.

 

[kensuf]

Traverses are full cave skills because of the effort and planning that should go into them. Things can change in caves. It's possible that an exit side may become blocked, or something else. For example, several years ago the sinkhole at Challenge (in Peacock) had a boulder that fell in and made it unpassable -- anyone trying to traverse there may have found themselves having a bad day.

Intro to Cave / Apprentice / Cave 1 are all about learning to walk before you try to run.

 

[rddvet]

I am on the side of those who are saying that a mainline-following recreational cave tourist shouldn't ever have to get a full or advanced cave certification.

This I don't agree with. There are skills honed or picked up in full cave that aren't going to be there with cave 1 alone. I do however believe if you want to take 3 years to hone skills before moving to full cave you should be allowed to. This is taking into consideration the person stays within their limits.

 

[elgoog]

the traverse from Peacock to Olsen might be something someone could safely do with a “basic cave” certification.
As far as I know, it’s all on the mainline, one is never more than 700 ft from an exit, no major restrictions and it can be done with nitrox and no deco.

To me, that dive would be the most extreme dive I’d ever consider doing with a basic cave cert. If I wanted more I’d go back to school for the next course.

Unfortunately, even though imo it might be safely doable with basic cave, it probably falls outside of almost every apprentice level limit!

Btw, I’m not sure what kind of tanks would be required to make that traverse and keep 2/3 of air in the tanks. Might have to switch tanks at Olsen! Would LOVE to hear about any details or complexities of this particular dive that I have my eye on and why / if I’d need full cave to do it safely. Thanks.

There's already a lot been mentioned by far more experienced cave divers but I'll add a bit about this specific dive because it was one of my first post GUE Cave 1 class dives so definitely possible at "first level" cave training.

You can't plan this dive as a traverse regardless of what level of cave training you have. The definition of traverse I'm using here is that you can exit at Olsen when you complete the dive - this is an emergency exit only. You can surface but not get out of the water. Hence, you can't plan on this dive being "never more than 700ft from an exit". Your distance from an exit is how far you are from Peacock 1.

I guess if you considered surfacing at Olsen the end of dive 1 and the way back dive 2 then, technically, it's a simple traverse but there's no changing of tanks allowed (leave aside that it's not even possible to change tanks at Olsen). In this example, you would have to complete dive 1 before you hit 1/6, 1/3, 1/3 of 2/3 or whatever your first level gas limits were.

Specifics of my dive - We did this with a full fill of 3500psi in double HP130/LP104 and reached Olsen Sink in 35min and slightly before hitting turn pressure using C1's 1/3 of 2/3 gas limits. Again, you can't plan this as being 700ft from an exit. P1 to Olsen should be considered 1400ft from P1.

 

[tmassey]

I am on the side of those who are saying that a mainline-following recreational cave tourist shouldn't ever have to get a full or advanced cave certification.

That is a wonderfully clear, concise statement.

I completely disagree with it. I think many others do too.

Trust me. We understood exactly what you were asking for without you actually asking for it. I don’t think it’s fair at all to label you a troll. You weren’t trolling. You genuinely want that.

The fact that we disagree does not mean we didn’t understand what you were asking for without asking for it. We just think it’s wrong.

Of course, we are all free to disagree. Dive and let dive: but I can tell you, I personally don’t plan on doing the level of dive you are describing with someone with less than a full cave certification: at least eight days of training, and a few post certification simpler dives. I don’t care what the certifying organization says they’re allowed to do.

Any cave dive that goes well would allow anyone to do it properly: even single tank equipped open water recreational divers. All that training isn’t so you can do the dive when it goes well. It’s so you can do it when everything goes poorly.

I am a baby full cave Diver. I have probably 20 post full cave dives. And not a dive goes by where I don’t think about how hard it would be to get out of even the simplest dives with no viz. Forget gas sharing no viz. And if I were unlucky enough to do that at the extreme edge of thirds...