barth
Contributor
That depends on the agency..." I simply ask "What is your bailout radius at an average depth of 30 feet with a set of aluminium 80s?"
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
That depends on the agency..." I simply ask "What is your bailout radius at an average depth of 30 feet with a set of aluminium 80s?"
Those divers have no business getting into a cave with a rebreather, but they are going to do it anyway so as an instructor we have to try to do our best to make sure they're no likely to kill themselves or destroy the cave.
My SAC is 0.65 cfm if I'm excited, 30ft is basically 2ata, and I use 70cf for an AL80 to make sure the regulators behave properly since I use Poseidons so I like to leave a 300psi buffer. I use 1cfm for bailout planning because it gives a bit of buffer so I'd give a 70min radius on a set of AL80's. That is something you shouldn't have to calculate because we are still cutting with an axe so you should be able to do at least a 1cfm rough cut off the top of your head.
I kinda have a hard time buying that, that many cave divers don't undertand how to calculate BO gas. Do you ask them how they usually do it? I mean, even as a OC cave diver you would have a pretty good idea how far an 80 will get you. At least on your home turf you would know.The most common answer is, "Huh?"
That's actually why I posted the poll. I've asked around and people told me it was just talking about BO plan and a couple of fun dives. A friend told he I could just read up on BO planning on the internet and get the same information he got in class.Unfortunately, the minimum agency standards allow the crossover to be done in just a couple of days, so many instructors do just that. "Here's how to plan your bailout radius, now let's go fun diving for a couple days".
Makes sense too me but doesn't seem to be the case. I see more an more newish cave divers on CCRs in France and people doing cave class on CCR. I reckon those classes are not tailored to long or deep diving.A CCR is a tool for long-range diving, and a CCR Cave class should be tailored for that.
By 'worth it' I meant if they actually learned something new, not about justifying cost.I always find it interesting when people are trying to justify the value of paying for a certification when polling on scubaboard.
You mean it depends on the agency if people know it at all or that different agencies calculate BO differently?That depends on the agency...
So what do you think should be in a crossover that's not already been covered in CCR and in cave class? I guess my question is, what's new other than BO planning (even though BO planning shouldn't be new either)?Personally I don't think anyone who is genuinely ready to take a cave CCR class should actually have to take it because if you are actually ready it should be more of a demonstration of skills type class.
You can just do a ccr cave instructor class on vacation with IANTD? No internships with other instructor? No co-teaching? How long was that course?I did my ccr cave instructor course with Tom Mount in Florida without ever been in Florida and without ever been diving in high flow caves.
No no. I was already OC cave instructor for some years. This means you have done and teached courses and been evaluated by 2 IT's. Did that with 2 IT's in Europe in several trips. Also I was already ccr instructor, this with other IT's. And you needed to have a least X experience in teaching courses. I decided to do the ccr cave instructor course in Florida as I haven't been there before and I wanted to see how it all works there. Did it there with Tom on paper and also 2 IT's. Did dive with Tom, and then the rest with other It's, but the name on my cert is Tom. I believe I was his last student. He was old, but could tell a lot about his experiences in earlier times. How it started, what went wrong, etc. And I can tell you, it was not a holiday, it was hard working. But I liked it. All was done according to standards. Also I had to show my ccr skills again and had to do some reviews.You can just do a ccr cave instructor class on vacation with IANTD? No internships with other instructor? No co-teaching? How long was that course?
Unfortunaty this doesn't seem to mean much. There was a cave instructor course in Italy a few years ago were a student died and instructor still passed. I think that was with IANTD too.All was done according to standards.
Why are you bashing IANTD?Unfortunaty this doesn't seem to mean much. There was a cave instructor course in Italy a few years ago were a student died and instructor still passed. I think that was with IANTD too.
I find it a rather odd that an instructor would nonchalantly say 'some divers need a course and others don't'. Sounds like there is not much to it then, if I can just teach myself.
That story from Italy actually happened.Why are you bashing IANTD?