Limits: Comfort vs. Training vs. Certification

[Duncan Price]

willanz once bubbled...
Comfort limits are developed from going diving.

I think it was Sheck Exley who stated that you don't know your own limits until you exceed them.

It brings us back to...if you don't have the certification regardless of how much training and comfort you may have then you are out of luck.

Not everywhere - in fact, in the UK and Europe you can pretty much go cave dving with no training or certification. In fact, that's the way I started....I am, however, NOT advocating it as THE way to learn to cave dive. I was lucky enough to come under the wing of some really experienced people early on.

I wonder why we get a bunch of UK divers coming to the US for training when they can do it for FREE back home?

Because:

a) They are generally technical divers with no or little intention of diving in caves in the UK.
b) They have too much money.
c) The CDG wouldn't have them (see a & b)*

Being British, but having lived and worked in the US, I realise that the Americans that I meet in the UK are those with enough money to vacation here and are not a representative cross-section of US citizens. Same principles generally apply in reverse to the Brits you meet in the US.

Duncan

* The CDG currently only accepts someone who is "a caver of considerable experience over several years and still be active as a caver. The group will not accept diving experience as a substitute for this." (CDG website). This is subject to review (and I would like to see an "opening up" of membership) though I am keen to stress that an absence of knowledge and appreciation of (dry) caving would be a practical handicap (if not even a hazard) to anyone considering diving in British caves.