Cavern To Full Cave Pace

[Germie]

You have Talahassee and Marianna in Florida. Then you have 2 areas. I think this is what they mean.
Also in France, the Lot and Dordogne are 2 areas, but directly near each other and mostly done in 1 course already. Jura is a little bit further. I know from iantd and tdi, they talk about different caves or divesites.

And then you have a liebook. so this is also no problem. Really, I have seen already strange things. People who said on facebook they went on oc without scooter with a twin12 to 800m in the Resselcave, posted a profile and I know this is not true. They putted a computer in the bottom at the only point around 500m where it is 53m deep in a sort of small hole and that is for most people the turnpressure on 1 twinset. I know the average swimmingspeed of divers, so know that it impossible to swim 1600m in such a short time. People who said they did the circuit in the Saint Sauveur cave by swim, but that is impossible. People who went to the 83m 'dropoff' in the Ressel cave, there is no dropoff, there is 1 from 30m to 44m at 450m in the cave (and then they went to that point as maximum penetration). People who tell others they do once a month a dive to 150-200m, but live 1000km from a divesite with such depths, and if they go somewhere, every dive over 60m is posted on facebook, but never a dive to such depths. People who can do 40 cave dives in a 10 day holiday in Mexico. Etc.

 

[HandsomeYoungPete]

Different systems makes sense to me, it's the two different areas I found strange:

25 dives in Cave rated sites for a minimum of 25 hours at a minimum of 4 different sites across two different areas (think Florida and Mexico)

I think the intent is to give a range of experience, if all of your experience is diving cold water no flow caves a warm water high flow cave could present a problem.

 

[mdwalter]

I know this is super late in the game, and you've probably already gone through all the trainings you wanted to get to the dives you want to do, but here's my two cents.

I live in the Mayan Riviera, been diving for 25+ years and I've been doing the caverns that my PADI Rescue Diver certification allows me to with a friend who is a guide. I was thinking of getting deep into cave diving (no pun intended).

I would say if you have been diving for 25+ years you may already have significant skills (not always) and should already at least be very comfortable underwater. If you have been cavern diving with a guide for some time, as I imagine you have since it's right there, you should consider skipping Cavern certification and start right in with Intro / Basic and see how it goes. Some agencies no longer list Cavern as a pre-requisite for Intro / Basic, but rather as a standalone for those who do not intend to progress to Cave at all.

I talked to an instructor and he suggested I should do all the courses from Side Mount/Cavern all the way to Full Cave non stop but after reading a bunch of threads in this forum I'm pretty much set on avoiding the zero to hero route.

Then go on to Full when you feel you are ready. If you feel like you need some Basic level dives first, do that. If you feel ready for the rest of the skills, go right to the next level class. Any time you feel overwhelmed or not ready to add more skills, even in the middle of a class, consider stopping there and doing some diving at that level until you're ready to learn more. Many instructors will be willing to pause you so you can practice and then finish later, especially if you are local.

I searched but I couldn't find anything on what would be the recomended pacing to do the Full Cave course or at least how many dives should I do before going into the next stage:
Side Mount
Cavern
Intro
Full

As for side mounting, I'd say this is not strictly required for cave diving. Until about the last decade, side mount was only used for the most advanced cave divers to access tight restrictions that could not be done in back mount. So balance your desire to switch to side mount with your goals for getting into cave diving. If side mounting is really important to you, learn that first, but if you'd rather progress into cave diving faster, maybe consider starting in back mount and then switch to side mount at some point in the middle of your cave progression or even after you finish Full Cave.

Any advice and diving center suggestions, particularly near tulum would be much appreciated.

There are many good instructors there, as well as in FL. I would suggest taking Intro / Basic from one instructor and Full from a different instructor, just for some diversity of perspective. Likewise, you may want to consider taking one course somewhere other than locally, like Bahamas, Florida, or even elsewhere to get some diversity of cave conditions (unless your intent is only to cave dive locally in Mexico, and not elsewhere).

 

[lermontov]

The Cave Divers Association of Australia have a reasonably solid approach.
To get Basic Cave (Cavern / Sinkhole) you need 100 OW dives.
To get Cave you need 20 logged dives in Cavern / Sinkhole rated sites equaling a minimum of 10 hours in at least two different sites.
To get Advanced Cave (Full Cave) you must have logged at least 25 dives in Cave rated sites for a minimum of 25 hours at a minimum of 4 different sites across two different areas (think Florida and Mexico)

Theres some further anomalies with the CDAA- eg if you want to go to the Nullarbor plains and dive Olwolgin cave you need 25 post Advanced cert dives before you can ( legitimately) go in.

Which indicates that being certified and being capable are different thresholds

 

[Germie]

Ok, as a cave dive instructor I see different divers. Some really can do all the courses in 1 week. I did the same myself. This was absolutely no zero-to-hero as some will say, I was a diver that could do it. So I was ready for it.

If I get good students I always advice them to do all at once. The reason:
The intro to cave (everybody skips here cavern) is a cert that invites you to get over the certification limits in less than 5 dives after the cert. If I had to stop after intro and do some cave dives on that level I had done the same. And then directly more than 1 thing I got over: the 1/6 or 1/3 from 2/3 would have been the 1/3. No deco would have been deco and jumps of course. Everything that is 'forbidden' is nice.

From divers who stop at intro level I see that going over their limits is done almost every new cave dive. So it is better to teach people all the cave stuff and explain the risks etc.

If you want to do a full cave course in sidemount, there is NO sidemount cert needed. If an instructor tells you that, that is than because he wants to earn more money. OR you are a bad sidemount diver. But sidemount is something you can learn yourself too. But you must be critical, otherwise it will bit diving with sidemount equipment instead of sidemountdiving. It costs for sure more time to teach yourself, but it saves money. But if you instructor tells you that you have to do a course, it is up to you: do the course, or practise on your own and go back later. But to start a cave course in sidemount, you must be a stable sidemount diver and have no problems with the cylinders etc.
The skills from a diver to start a course with is the reason I always try to do a 'let us know each other dive' before I start a course.

Because the caves in France are a little bit deeper than in Mexico I prefer to have students with at least an adv. nitrox cert. You can do the course on ean32 and stay in the NDL zone, but having an adv. nitrox cert also means the diver has some experience with decompressiondiving and a stage.

 

[Wibble]

Theres some further anomalies with the CDAA- eg if you want to go to the Nullarbor plains and dive Olwolgin cave you need 25 post Advanced cert dives before you can ( legitimately) go in.

Which indicates that being certified and being capable are different thresholds

As my dad said to me upon passing my driving test: “Now you can learn to drive”

 

[rjack321]

No need to take "forever" (or two years like me) but also no point in rushing through it.

I took 3 or 3.5 years between C1 and C2. Nobody told me not to and I had about 65-70 cave dives between them. I had no great sense of urgency to get "full cave". That said, full cave was pretty easy for me and in a number of "situations" my buddy and I rolled our eyes and did it a "mistaken way" just to have something to talk about. Then repeated the scenario Danny's way without prompting just to show that we were not actually clueless and over stimulated and effing it up. Fun times, but the mosquitos slayed us in June.

 

[rjack321]

I think the intent is to give a range of experience, if all of your experience is diving cold water no flow caves a warm water high flow cave could present a problem.

Warm water and bare hands makes EVERYTHING so damn easy. The other way around not so much. It's hard to stay alive in Plura's 1C water even without the rock over your head.

 

[steinbil]

Every time this kind of discussion comes up, I'm perplexed that the perspective of learning is not more emphasized. Of course some divers will learn faster, be more comfortable and skilled, while others need more time to meet the minimum requirements for passing the course standards. I'm sure some divers are able to complete the full cave course in one go without failing or killing themselves. However, I'm quite certain that everyone will LEARN MORE in the second class if they have time to gain experience, let the knowledge acquired mature and have time to reflect on what they learned in the first class. After internalizing the knowledge and gaining more experience, you know what to ask and what you need help to work on, giving a completely different learning outcome.

Being a music and dance teacher, this is obvious to me. When I studied music, I would practice 10-25 hours between every weekly 45-60min individual lesson, and if I didn't I wouldn't get as much out of the lesson. I see the same thing with my students, having back-to-back lessons without practice in between is vastly inferior to spacing out lessons and letting students practice.

Considering the investment of time and money to get high quality instruction in SCUBA, it baffles me that people are not more concerned with getting the best return on investment in terms of learning. Instead of focusing on development of personal skills and knowledge, a lot of divers seem obsessed with quickly getting certification cards...

 

[Lorenzoid]

What I realize in hindsight was that doing the same dives over and over between C1 and C2 reached a point of diminishing returns. I probably had done about 50 C1 dives when I took C2, but they were all along the same three or four main lines. GUE's stated minimum of 25 dives between C1 and C2 is probably about right as a minimum, and doing some more beyond that is worthwhile--from what I've heard others say, around 50 seems pretty common. But if you find yourself doing the same dives over and over and feel like it's getting repetitious, like handling the reel is no longer a big deal, and you have played around with various routes to run the line into the main line, then maybe you're ready for the next course. Sure, there are still more things you can do if you're determined to really take your time and are a bit of a masochist. For instance, someone told me a mentor had them run the reel hundreds of feet into the cave, in high flow (Ginnie), before tying into the main line (at the Lips, if you know Ginnie), just to push their reel skills. Impressive, but I'm not sure that would have helped me that much in preparing for C2.