Not everyone thinks cave diving is the pinnacle of SCUBA!

[HIGHwing]

To the OP: Curious - How many times have you been past the sign by as much as a fun kick or more?

At a certain point you have to acknowledge cave diving is a separate sport and you're essentially going to a specialty store which uniquely supports it. By asserting you're a DM I'll assume you've had say one professional level course, and possibly no technical training. One key difference in recreational training and technical training is the "assumed pass" like you get with recreational courses goes out the window. Exactly how many PADI courses did you actually fail?

As a moment of perspective, the technical/cave diver must assume a modern day apprenticeship to succeed and the mindset is somewhat exclusionary versus inclusive. I can imagine many dive shops in cave country worry they are arming you by filling your AL80s. As a DM and someone in a leadership role you almost owe it to your students to get a full compliment of training which meets the demands of the environment for which you work. Say a student ignores you and goes down the tunnel, what do you do? Your third is coming fast at 2000psi on the gauge as we're talking 1/3 of 77 cubic feet is what you have to work with.

Regardless of your training level or capabilities, I think you'd do well to reevaluate your tanks and think about how you can better support yourself and those that are in your care. As demonstrated the AL80 is likely an insufficient tank when guiding others in the cavern/cave environment.

My recommendation: Take Intro to Cave or equivalent and then up your DM fees, you'll be worth it.

PS: I'm looking to hire a DM in Cave Country (April 2013) for gear support and general topside assistance for a weekend. If you aren't cave diving by then drop me a PM for details.

 

[cb5150]

I went to Carlsbad Caverns once and was bored outta my mind. Same thing with the Grand Crack...er, Grand Canyon. I can't imagine that either one would be less of a snooze fest if filled with water.

Personally, I encourage more people to go stuff themselves into caves, then there will be less traffic at the good dive sites.

 

[Superlyte27]

Christmas eve me and a buddy were suiting up at Ginnie Springs when two obvious open water divers were getting geared up. They were quite a bit ahead of us and I knew they would enter the water first. We followed them by probably 30 minutes or so. When I got to the water over Devil's Eye, I could see bubbles coming through the sand off in the distance, signifying that there were divers in the cave (not just the cavern). I immediately swam down hard and fast to find the two guys nearly at the gold line in Devil's Eye. They were searching unsuccessfully for the exit, but when they caught a glimpse of my cave light (they were in single tanks with just as single light that was going dim as hell) they turned towards me and shot for open water. Their eyes were as big as salad plates. I followed them all the way up where they stayed at 10' doing what seemed to be a 5 minute safety stop. After they didn't surface at 3 minutes, I signaled to my buddy and my buddy and me made our cave dive.

Had I not been there, two open water divers (or cavern divers) very possibly would have lost their lives on Christmas Eve.

I'll go ahead and offend you at the possibility of saving your life. You'll just have to deal with it. If you are cavern trained and in a cavern dive, and someone is looking out for you, at least they have your best interests at heart. But too many times we watch these guys with no training, improper gear, and improper mindset enter a cave.

I would rather mistakenly try to save your life, than to ignore you, assuming you had everything under control and find out you perished.

 

[Snake101]

To the OP: Curious - How many times have you been past the sign by as much as a fun kick or more?

At a certain point you have to acknowledge cave diving is a separate sport and you're essentially going to a specialty store which uniquely supports it. By asserting you're a DM I'll assume you've had say one professional level course, and possibly no technical training. One key difference in recreational training and technical training is the "assumed pass" like you get with recreational courses goes out the window. Exactly how many PADI courses did you actually fail?

As a moment of perspective, the technical/cave diver must assume a modern day apprenticeship to succeed and the mindset is somewhat exclusionary versus inclusive. I can imagine many dive shops in cave country worry they are arming you by filling your AL80s. As a DM and someone in a leadership role you almost owe it to your students to get a full compliment of training which meets the demands of the environment for which you work. Say a student ignores you and goes down the tunnel, what do you do? Your third is coming fast at 2000psi on the gauge as we're talking 1/3 of 77 cubic feet is what you have to work with.

Regardless of your training level or capabilities, I think you'd do well to reevaluate your tanks and think about how you can better support yourself and those that are in your care. As demonstrated the AL80 is likely an insufficient tank when guiding others in the cavern/cave environment.

My recommendation: Take Intro to Cave or equivalent and then up your DM fees, you'll be worth it.

PS: I'm looking to hire a DM in Cave Country (April 2013) for gear support and general topside assistance for a weekend. If you aren't cave diving by then drop me a PM for details.

I do not have any students or work with any one as a professional. 99% of my dives are with friends that I trust will stay with me in the open water or divers of equal training. I have never failed a class and do have some technical training but not any tech certification. I took an AAUS class that taught me how to use doubles, full face mask, side mount, etc but not to the point that I am comfortable diving with it- just familiar enough with it that I could use it in a pool a few times.

I will be in Belize from mid April through the end of May working on some land based research for my degree so I will not be available at that time but thank you for the offer.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I think what Highwing was making a point of is that's it's damn near impossible to fail a PADI class. And that's a problem. If it was possible and a few people did, especially at the higher levels, there might be more respect for this activity.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Rich Keller]

Snake101, The pinnacle of diving for you is whatever YOU say it is not anyone else. I have been deeper then any diver you are likely to ever meet and have spent more hours underwater in a single year then most divers will in their lifetime but it is the simplest dives that I like best. My pinnacle is a healthy reef, with lots of life, in 20'-30' feet of water, with 100' visibility, 80+ degree water temps and the least amount of equipment needed to make the dive. Forget what anyone else thinks and do whatever it is that you got into diving to do.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Are wreck divers as evangelical as cave divers? From what the OP said, it sounds like if one lives in cave country, they might feel bombarded by cave diving evangelism. What about someone who lives in an area where there's a community of serious wreck divers? Do they feel just as bombarded? Or do wreck divers tend to keep a lower profile than cave divers?

Or is my premise wrong that cave diving and wreck diving are analogous?

 

[DevonDiver]

I predominantly dive wrecks. I understand that they're not for everyone (although I don't understand why...)

 

[mdax]

Surprising, when I run into OW divers I never recommend cave training unless they ask...or are talking about wanting to dive in the cave.
It does make sense for local OW divers to take a cavern class, but only because caverns/caves are everywhere in our springs and rivers and it'd be great to be more informed about their dangers. My wife and I initially pursued cave training only to learn the skills, we had no intention of continuing to dive caves...

I think the snootiness is more human nature/social grouping than anything else. When mountain biking the downhillers would look down on the x country guys who would look down at the downhillers.

 

[drbill]

I believe the ultimate achievement in diving, is finding your happy place underwater and doing it safely .

Exactly... as they say, "different strokes for different folks" (pun intended).

Although I have done many dives that some would consider technical, I have almost zero desire to enter a real cave. It's just not my thing. I dive to enjoy the marine life, to film it and share it with others (especially non-divers) so they will learn more about the undersea world, hopefully come to love it and want to protect it.

I have no problem with those who enjoy diving caves, they should have no problem with me (since I have no intention of entering one other than the few "caves" here in SoCal.