Getting started

[rrjc5488]

A friend and I have been toying around with the idea of doing a Cave course. I'm currently and OWSI, and by the time we do it (hopefully within a year) he will be, too.

I'm hoping to have at least 250 dives by the time I start the course as well.

I've e-mailed the instructor who I did my DM with, who is a full cave diver and asked him for some advice. As any cave diver would say, he said work on buoyancy and that even though I may have good buoyancy in OW, I'll need work for inside a cave.

I also havent had any experience in doubles. Obviously, I'm not going to learn to cave dive, and dive doubles at the same time, so I'd learn on those beforehand.

I have been practicing my frog kick, flutter kick, back kick, helicopter turns and I think I've got them down pretty well while maintaining good trim. (By my standards, at least.) I do have volos, though, which I'll swap out for jetfins or slipstreams when I get home.

I'm also going to sell my balance BCD and get a BP/W set up. Next, I'll sell my kidney, then my soul, to pay for the rest of the equipment. Or at least a can light. Kidding, sorta.

I read Jim's "choosing an instructor" thread, and it helped me greatly.

This same friend, and I have been toying with the idea of practicing retreiving reels with blacked out masks to help us get comfortable doing it before we even start a course. If it matters, I'm very comfortable diving without a mask on my face at all. Of course, this is all in open water, so it could be different in a cave. Only one way to find out.

Does it sound like I'm headed in the right direction? Any advice, ideas, comments, suggestions, notions, gestures, or "you're an idiot"'s are all welcome, and greatly appreciated.

Also, are there any books I can pick up to read to give me a better knowledge or understanding of cave diving?

Again,
Thanks

 

[Meng_Tze]

I would say call a few cave instructors and talk to them. Get a feel for what is involved and how to progress. Jim is a great place to start BTW.

 

[karstdvr]

Also, are there any books I can pick up to read to give me a better knowledge or understanding of cave diving?

Go to Cave Diving Section of the National Speleological Society or National Association For Cave Diving on line store to find a list of books. Keep your eye open for "Cave Diving Articles and Opinion" which will be released in a few months-this will be a great resource from the proof I've seen.

 

[ucfdiver]

Careful changing gear around too much. Cavern can be done in rec gear, that's how I did it, and I'm completely happy with that decision. You'll see some divers switch to doubles after never diving a bp/w with 10 dives and now decide to go take cavern in them

As for training, consider the agency AND instructor! GUE/NACD/NAUI/NSS-CDS/TDI/IANTD all have some (small) differences, although many instructors go beyond the basic requirements for any agency and can give you more than one c card after you complete their course.

Since you mention doubles, be sure to find an instructor who will issue you a card that states you were trained in doubles, or else you'll find yourself back to an H valve at ginnie springs.

 

[stairman]

If you can hover underwater and your horizontal doing proper fin kicks your half way there for you first step which is cavern.Rec gear is fine at the cavern level except youll need a 7 ft.primary hose.Also two lights,not pistol grip lights because that makes reel usage hard.Youll learn how to cave dive in cavern class but wont be certified for it,and will need to continue on to intro/basic cave which takes you in the cave zone,on the mainline.Then if you chose next is apprentice and finally full cave.Again,I learned the most in cavern class,but other more advanced skills come with the rest of the program.The Cave Divers Forum is a good place to hang out to learn more and maybe get Different ideas.The rewards are huge.Swimming in submerged caves is awe inspiring looking at geology through thousands if not millions of years.If you dont know of a local dive shop that is more tec than rec then ask on one of the forums for one in your area.Good luck.Randy...P.S you will also need a cavern reel,which becomes a safety reel in cave diving.

 

[Dive-aholic]

First, being an OWSI has nothing to do with being a cave diver. Many instructors have died in caves because they weren't cave trained. Many cave divers are not instructors. (BTW, you may want to update your profile to reflect an accurate number of logged dives).

Don't worry about retrieving a reel with a blacked out mask. If you have no visibility, the reel stays in place. You go back for it later if you can. No one retrieves a reel in zero visibility.

Start changing out your gear. Get rid of the Balance BCD and get yourself a bp/w and start diving it. Get a long hose and start practicing air shares with that. Get rid of the snorkel on the mask. Move onto doubles in a controlled environment after you've worked on your buoyancy in a single tank with the bp/w. ucfdiver suggests taking a cavern course in rec gear. I will go one step further to suggest doing it in a bp/w with long hose. Single tank is okay. You will learn a lot in a cavern course and come out of it with a much better understanding of what you need to practice for the next course in the series. Visit Florida a few more times and dive the caverns. Keep practicing diving in doubles in NY. When you feel comfortable in the doubles, take an Intro/Basic course. Come back to Florida several more times and dive the caves to those limitations. Your gear will continue to evolve. When you've done several dozen Intro dives, take the Full cave course. Your gear will continue to evolve. And, hopefully, so will your diving. It's a long process. Don't count on having your Full cave in a year. I'd plan on beginning over the next year and continuing over the next couple of years.

 

[OneBrightGator]

I'd get with someone in the water who would know and practice skills with them. Hammering out a bunch of skills the wrong way or technique isn't going to be very helpful. Taking it slow and easy is the best approach, but you can't do anything if you don't start, so if you're comfortable in your Balance, come down and take a cavern class.

 

[carolrose]

One big suggestion I'd have since you are in NY is to do as much preparation as you can before you get down there. If you are reasonably close to Dutch Springs, the shop out there (Lehigh Valley Dive Center) has a boot camp class that is excellent preparation for cave training. You work a lot on buoyancy, propulsion, maintaining buoyancy while task loaded, using a reel, working as a team etc. Even though my team 'died' on the final challenge, we came away much better divers than we went in as.

Alternatively, depending on how far you are from Hartford CT, Ed Hayes at Scuba Shack has an awesome buoyancy class that will give you an excellent foundation to build on.

Since you (like me) are so far away from cave country and will probably have limited time to spend there, good preparation is really key to getting the absolute most out of your class. It is so much easier to have the basics down and just have to focus on the cave specific things (and enjoying the awesomeness of the environment) when you get there.

 

[TSandM]

It sounds as though you are thinking along the right lines. You WILL want to do as much as you can at home, so that you can maximize the value of the time you can spend in cave country (I know, because I have the same problem you do -- I don't live where there are caves). So getting your equipment set up for cave diving and learning to use it at home is an excellent goal.

I am going to recommend a preparatory class. GUE's Fundamentals class is a superb way to get a good foundation for cave diving. There, you will see the bar you're aspiring to, in terms of buoyancy and precise control in the water, as well as getting a good, solid introduction to the management of a manifold, and valuable feedback on how you are doing with your kicks. (It is very easy, for example, to develop the habit of dropping the knees on the loading phase of the frog or back kicks, and it is a hard habit to break once you've got it). Bob Sherwood is based in NY, although I don't think he's there very often any more, and Ed Hayes, as previously mentioned is in CT.

What I did to prepare for cave diving: GUE Fundamentals, followed by a wreck workshop that gave me a professional introduction to handling a reel and running line, as well as the issues pertaining thereto. 5thD-X's Rec 2 and 3 and GUE Rec Triox, all of which gave me practice managing failures and maintaining buoyancy and situational awareness while doing so. (Most people probably wouldn't have to do three classes to accomplish that, but it took me that long. ) I then took Cavern and Intro from a TDI instructor, and recently took GUE Cave 1 (which was a FANTASTIC class). Cave 2 will be on the menu, probably next summer or fall, depending on how many cave diving trips I can get in in the meantime.

Doing it in bite-sized pieces worked well for me, although, as I said, most people wouldn't require quite as much work. But start with Fundies -- It will be money well invested, and your cave class and the instructor's requirements won't be quite as much of a shock when you get to Florida or Mexico.