Do I need to get certified?

[Cave Diver]

I've been kicking this topic around in my head for a while now. There's a lot of room for it there, but I'm tired of hearing it rattling and some recent threads made me decide to throw it out to the rest of you.

A lot of people hear the term "cave diving" and get chills. Just thinking of swimming into a dark, scary hole freaks them out. And if they swallow their fear and take the plunge, they find this waiting for them:

But wrecks. Wrecks are sexy. They're adventurous. They conjure up images of pirate treasure, lost cargo, forgotten souls. And there are no warning signs!

In many cases, all you need to dive a wreck is an AOW card. If you have your own boat, you don't even need that. Show up in a set of doubles and a well worn hog rig and some ops wont even ask your cert level.

So, why should I get a wreck cert? It's not like it's a cave or something...

Pool's open for discussion.

 

[*dave*]

Both are pretty alien environments for humans and mistakes in either can kill. Why take a course? Because we don't know what we don't know and that is often times fatal.

 

[Cave Diver]

Both are pretty alien environments for humans and mistakes in either can kill. Why take a course? Because we don't know what we don't know and that is often times fatal.

Do you teach a wreck course? Or cave?

 

[Tigerman]

For both you should have training, but wether or not it needs to be done with "agency x" is a matter of its own..

 

[*dave*]

No, that wouldn't be practical in my location(or with my experience). Kinda like being a technical rock climbing instructor in Nebraska.

Do you teach a wreck course? Or cave?

 

[Kevin Carlisle]

CD I think you should learn about it before you do it and I will tell you why. Unlike a lot of cave divers on here I live next door to cave country. I dive it all the time, 100 plus dives a year. I started doing it without certification as I could. There are many places to do it without having the cert that people out of this area dont know about. However I decided to make it official and after my cavern class I felt like I was lucky to be alive. I dont ever think I felt like more of an IDIOT as I did after that class. In my opinion you need training for any overhead diving.

 

[RikRaeder]

Funny. I've seen that same sign (replace "cave" with "wreck") at the opening of some wrecks before. Wonder what it meant....?

 

[HowardE]

I don't have a wreck cert; but I dive wrecks.

I don't have a cave cert; but I wouldn't dive in a cave without specific training.

It's not like I just went deep into a wreck my first dive on a wreck. Over time, I acquired the skills needed to penetrate wrecks. I learned from other experienced dive buddies new techniques, and also (gulp) I learned a lot from scubaboard, not to mention my skills acquired in my technical training (which happened to be from an accomplished wreck diver). All of these things opened me up to deeper wreck penetrations, and diving into completely enclosed rooms below the weather decks. So I guess - it's SOME KIND of training, but maybe not a formal training, like where I get a card for it?

Maybe it's possible for cave diving to also happen the way that it did for me with wrecks? I don't know... I live in South Florida, and we have a lot of wrecks. Maybe if I lived in cave country it would be different for me?

 

[Cave Diver]

Funny. I've seen that same sign (replace "cave" with "wreck") at the opening of some wrecks before. Wonder what it meant....?

Really? What wreck did you see it at?

 

[Cave Diver]

CD I think you should learn about it before you do it and I will tell you why. Unlike a lot of cave divers on here I live next door to cave country. I dive it all the time, 100 plus dives a year. I started doing it without certification as I could. There are many places to do it without having the cert that people out of this area dont know about. However I decided to make it official and after my cavern class I felt like I was lucky to be alive. I dont ever think I felt like more of an IDIOT as I did after that class. In my opinion you need training for any overhead diving.

Do you dive wrecks as well and have you taken wreck specific training?