Full Cave with CCR -- not OC?

[happy-diver]

Yeah I'm pretty much done with boats can't stand boats done them to death over the past few years
crashing from wave to wave and then you miss one and just crash, and then there is the squeeziness

so it was on to greener ponds, give the bones a break, popped in here on the way to the shop today

Saw some swans, but didn't take a photo this one is 6 mths old, I wonder if The Queen owns these ones also

It's a bit different once you get in, I actually have a well of this stuff under the house

piccaninnie ponds - Google Search

How time flies but moves at the same speed

 

[Imla]

Have a chat with Jani Santala at Plura Valley. Finnish instructor, living with his wife on their farm with the entrance to Plura Cave in their back yard. Airport 35mins away. Dive - Plura Valley

 

[Jacob BV]

The mines in the UK are brilliant you could do full CCR in these?

 

[rjack321]

Can full cave be done on CCR easily? Have cavern & intro to cave but on OC. Would much prefer to do full cave on CCR as that's what I'd be diving with anyway, so would be good to learn the CCR / bailout gas rules.

The intention is to do some guided cave diving afterwards, mainly in Mexico, or some more simple stand-alone cave diving. Am getting a bit long in the tooth so my future cave diving career is only a couple or few years and definitely not heading into exploration nor wriggly caves. Have a couple of hundred hours on the unit down to MOD2+ depths.


Thoughts?

CCR cave was pretty much just a check box for me after 300ish OC cave dives (not living near many caves). If you just want to tourist cave dive I don't think CCR cave is some monumental challenge. The warning flags go up when people talk big like they are headed to Eagle's Nest or whatnot. For swimming around at <30m/100ft for ~2 hours with a couple of Al80s or lp85s of air or 32% CCR cave can be a fun way to spend a vacation.

What units are you considering taking CCR cave on?

 

[rjack321]

Have a chat with Jani Santala at Plura Valley. Finnish instructor, living with his wife on their farm with the entrance to Plura Cave in their back yard. Airport 35mins away. Dive - Plura Valley

Would recommend Jani too, not that far and Plura is a nice system. Unfortunately I don't think there's much variety for CCR cave training in this area and your depth of experience is going to be limited, plus the dives are short.

 

[billgraham]

When I took my CCR training, I don't think the CCR cave cert existed (or CCR Trimix). I was already cave trained so I just went cave diving with it. Same with Trimix. Now, I'd obviously do things differently. I would probably give the unpopular answer of finishing with OC sidemount (if that's what you were doing), and then taking the cave CCR class. Cave diving adds a degree of difficulty to the CCR and I see people get overwhelmed frequently. If you come to sunny Florida to do it, my friend Edd Sorenson is an excellent instructor. The shop is Cave Adventurers and it's right on top of the cave systems. Cheers!

 

[Imla]

Would recommend Jani too, not that far and Plura is a nice system. Unfortunately I don't think there's much variety for CCR cave training in this area and your depth of experience is going to be limited, plus the dives are short.

Not sure what you mean be short dives in Plura... Standard variety for dives in Plura for me has been 70mins to 3,5hrs... Pre-chamber sump has a max depth of 34, and quite the variety of fun jumps and passages. Post-chamber sump provides a really nice variety of dives. Basically you are mostly limited by tolerance to cold and potential decompression.
Not very far from Plura is Litjåga, which is also a really nice squeeze.

 

[Dark Wolf]

Yeah I'm pretty much done with boats can't stand boats done them to death over the past few years
crashing from wave to wave and then you miss one and just crash, and then there is the squeeziness

so it was on to greener ponds, give the bones a break, popped in here on the way to the shop today

View attachment 755807

Saw some swans, but didn't take a photo this one is 6 mths old, I wonder if The Queen owns these ones also

View attachment 755808

It's a bit different once you get in, I actually have a well of this stuff under the house

piccaninnie ponds - Google Search

How time flies but moves at the same speed

Holy smokes, that is gorgeous. Thanks!

DW

 

[rjack321]

Not sure what you mean be short dives in Plura... Standard variety for dives in Plura for me has been 70mins to 3,5hrs... Pre-chamber sump has a max depth of 34, and quite the variety of fun jumps and passages. Post-chamber sump provides a really nice variety of dives. Basically you are mostly limited by tolerance to cold and potential decompression.
Not very far from Plura is Litjåga, which is also a really nice squeeze.

Most full cave courses require the student to experience multiple systems, usually 3 different caves. Plura is just one cave. There are perhaps 5 jumps in the front part of the cave. Jani seems like a legit instructor but diving Plura for all your full cave dives isnt a very diverse course experience.

 

[Wibble]

CCR cave was pretty much just a check box for me after 300ish OC cave dives (not living near many caves). If you just want to tourist cave dive I don't think CCR cave is some monumental challenge. The warning flags go up when people talk big like they are headed to Eagle's Nest or whatnot. For swimming around at <30m/100ft for ~2 hours with a couple of Al80s or lp85s of air or 32% CCR cave can be a fun way to spend a vacation.

What units are you considering taking CCR cave on?

Would be on my Revo.

I really appreciate the comments here. Agreed that using OC wouldn't be such a bad thing in the warm and shallow Mexican cenotes. Could pretend it's bailout

Since moving over to CCR I just prefer it to OC. Sure, the simplicity of OC is something to behold: test & label gas; check pressures; breathe... Jump. However, in the water the CCR silence is lovely along with the buoyancy stability and the effectively unlimited gas supplies** which keeps the pressure off should you get a bit stuck/lost/need to let any silt settle***.

I was thinking that doing full cave on CCR would basically be the same as on OC with the exception of subtly different gas planning and monitoring (effectively constrained by your bailout reserves, not your remaining gas). Now thinking about it, CCR bailout reserves are much harder to calculate than simply "drawing" the 2/3 mark on your backmount/sidemount gauges for turning (yes, subject to flow, etc.) and the 1/3 mark saying you should be on the surface now -- and adding a buffer margin...

OK. What have the Romans ever done for us... CCR's great, but if it's just a little guided mooch around the cenotes then if everyone is on sidemount/backmount then it makes life a lot more simple as a team. And it'll save a small fortune in flying the CCR kit over -- would probably half fund the full cave course!

Damn it. I now realise I've turned into a CCR snob! The only cure is to use OC as it's the right tool for the job.



** no; not talking of doing that kind of diving nor extending the dive, just nice to not worry about the gas limits should you *need* more time.

*** We've just had a couple of deaths in the UK on a wreck where three divers got silted out in an engine room. Possibly only on singles; laid no safety line, etc., etc. If on CCR you could just take an hour more for the silt to settle or tie off your safety line to work around to the exit.