"Full" Cave

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rjack321

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Location
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Definition of full
1: containing as much or as many as is possible or normal
2 a : complete especially in detail, number, or duration

And many more varieties. NOWHERE in the definition of full does it say anything is "left out" " for the future" "not quite complete" or a "specialty class"

If you took a "full cave" class and didnt have:
1) at least a modicum of accelerated decompression
2) one or more stage bottles
3) at least some introduction to cave surveying
Swimming around someplace like peacock doing a couple of jumps with no deco, no stages, and no survey lessons is not full cave.

You got a 3/4 cave course not a "full" cave course. If you are an instructor leaving these key elements of cave diving out of your 'full cave' courses all I can say is shame on you. Your students aren't prepared for the real world. They dont even have the basics to work with and mentor.

Rant over
 
Definition of full
1: containing as much or as many as is possible or normal
2 a : complete especially in detail, number, or duration

And many more varieties. NOWHERE in the definition of full does it say anything is "left out" " for the future" "not quite complete" or a "specialty class"

If you took a "full cave" class and didnt have:
1) at least a modicum of accelerated decompression
2) one or more stage bottles
3) at least some introduction to cave surveying
Swimming around someplace like peacock doing a couple of jumps with no deco, no stages, and no survey lessons is not full cave.

You got a 3/4 cave course not a "full" cave course. If you are an instructor leaving these key elements of cave diving out of your 'full cave' courses all I can say is shame on you. Your students aren't prepared for the real world. They dont even have the basics to work with and mentor.

Rant over

What about trimix, cartography, a couple scooters, a rebreather (or two) and a habitat? If we are talking full. ; )
 
I'm sure there's a reason for this rant, but I can't figure out what it is. "Full cave", still has limits. It doesn't train you to dive a rebreather in a cave, drive a scooter, dive trimix, etc. etc. Like OW, it should teach you your limits and prepare you to make safe decisions based on those limits. I don't know a single NSS-CDS instructor who fails at this. I'm not sure I would get full cave from any other agency. I know of at least 4 instructors for other agencies that couldn't qualify for NSS-CDS. I like that.
 
I learned to stage in the NACD apprentice course, but found stage diving had very little bearing on most of my early cave diving. Stage diving doesn't make you a better, safer cave diver. It just means you know how to stage. In fact, an argument can be made that a GUE or NAUI Cave 2 class is "too far, too fast."

I did the SDI Solo class with my TDI cave instructor in caves. I know the value I gained from that course, personally, so I could say that every cave diver should be required to take a solo cave class. But, not every cave diver will dive solo.

What I do see a lot is new cave divers who are over equipped for their experience level. They would benefit more from learning to swim well and being able to do the Grand Traverse at Peacock and the Bone and Bat Circuits at Ginnie. My belief is that once you are able to swim quite well, when you do not need to touch the floors or walls at Ginnie, when you can reach certain points of various systems where you need to start staging or scootering, then it's time to advance your cave diving. Hopefully, by then, you'll be a highly skilled cave swimmer, a wiser diver, more experienced, and disciplined. Low impact diving, teamwork, and discipline makes a cave diver.

I'm really confused as to why this would be a rant, Richard. You yourself have seen cave divers with stages, deco bottles, DPV's, even rebreathers who, well ... suck. Obviously, those things do not a cave diver make.

To be honest, I've seen videos of NSS-CDS sponsors who teach all those levels who can't swim correctly.

What sparked the rant?
 
Yeah, but this is marketing. Advanced Open Water. "Advanced" great than, highly skilled, better than ordinary. Yeah sure.

Go GUE. Cave 1, 2 and so on. Not an advanced or a full in sight :D
 
NSS-CDS, PSAI, and IANTD call it "Cave Diver." I think only TDI and industry slang call it "full."
 
It all is in the IANTD 'full' cave diver course. Staging tank, some survey, deco only in the technical cave course.
With TDI I did my user level and that was no deco, no stage tanks. But if you have an adv. nitrox or higher you can do stages and deco, with a full trimix cert you can do trimix dives in a cave. Or use the stage tanks to go further in the cave.
Scooter can be added later, if you wish. Same with sidemount/no mount restrictions. But never a must do.

But a lot of cave divers will stay on the level of 'recreational full cave diver'. So they do jumps in Peacock, but don't want to do deco or survey. Nothing wrong with this. Diving is fun, and the fun can be on different levels of a 'full cave diver'. There is never a need or must to go 3000 ft in a cave. If you like to stay withing the first 1000, please do it and enjoy your diving.
 
Definition of full
1: containing as much or as many as is possible or normal
2 a : complete especially in detail, number, or duration

And many more varieties. NOWHERE in the definition of full does it say anything is "left out" " for the future" "not quite complete" or a "specialty class"

If you took a "full cave" class and didnt have:
1) at least a modicum of accelerated decompression
2) one or more stage bottles
3) at least some introduction to cave surveying
Swimming around someplace like peacock doing a couple of jumps with no deco, no stages, and no survey lessons is not full cave.

You got a 3/4 cave course not a "full" cave course. If you are an instructor leaving these key elements of cave diving out of your 'full cave' courses all I can say is shame on you. Your students aren't prepared for the real world. They dont even have the basics to work with and mentor.

Rant over
When I was doing cave, I was required to take Tec45 in between cave2 and cave3. That covered accelerated deco. It would have been a really really long class if we'd had to decompress on nitrox.
 
I'm in agreement with the general idea that "Full" Cave is just another license to keep on learning and is not a complete "do everything" certification or an end in itself.

I came to cave diving with more than a decade of technical diving, doubles, drysuit, DPV, AN/DP and Trimix under my belt, as well as about 10 years experience in no visibility inland commercial diving so I was better prepared that most students for Cavern and Intro.

I took Cavern and Intro to Cave and dove at the intro level for about 70 dives and during that time repeated AN/DP with a cave instructor in a cave environment because it is in fact different enough to matter. He did a great job of teaching stage diving specific to caves as part of that course. I also audited Marci's trimix course conducted in a cave environment, as again there are some significant differences - and more than one way to approach some aspects of it.

I also took an actual Cave DPV course about 100 dives after completion of Cave, and a CCR Cave cross over course after we transitioned to CCR - and then we spent about about 100 hours at the intro level before making CCR dives at the case level (and we put that time back at the intro level to good use mentoring new intro level cave divers).

I don't think 100 post "full" cave dives and knowing how to operate a DPV is a substitute for a cave DPV class because the critical elements of the class are not DPV operation or even cave diving with a DPV, but rather fully understanding and mastering the gas planning needed to get out when the scooter takes a dump on you.

I feel the same way about Cave CCR. Being a cave diver and being a CCR diver, even a technical CCR diver separately really are not enough as there are important subtleties in bailout, configuration, loop management and diluent use that matter.

In short, there are always ways to collect cards and progress just as fast as your wallet and poor judgement allow. But that approach creates poor divers who are under trained as they missed or ignored the opportunity to consolidate what they learned at each level before progressing to the next level. Unfortunately, there is a significant percentage of cave divers who over rate their own skills and abilities and demonstrate both poor judgement and poor skills in sections of cave where only "full" cave divers should be and/or using equipment (DPV, CCR, etc) that should only come into play once the diver has substantial experience at the "full" cave level. Since too many divers cannot seem to moderate or accurately self assess their own ability, I'm a big of the concept of requiring meaningful hours and dive numbers between Basic or Into to Cave and "full" cave, and between "full" cave and more advanced specialties including DPV and CCR. That probably isn't a popular point of view.
 
@rjack321

If you took a "full cave" class
1) at least a modicum of accelerated decompression-check
2) one or more stage bottles-check though only one
3) at least some introduction to cave surveying-checkity check

Could the course title be renamed? yes, absolutely. New thought process with divers vs. the 60's/70's, lots of new techniques and equipment with CCR's and DPV's that weren't in play at the time, etc. so I think a rename of the courses overall is actually very worthwhile to talk about, ideally with getting rid of the "4-step" courses since I think the concept is not applicable to current learning.
 
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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