O2 Bottle for Cavern, Cave or Deep OW

[tbone1004]

I'm not planning on violating anything, I'm asking a question. I'm guessing that "probably not something that was ever thought about" is probably the reason it isn't something people get certified to do by the classes. Perhaps it is just a case of "the standards never considered or made an accommodation for someone that is certified to do deco as they were written assuming the cavern class was just one of many that would be taken before doing deco in caves, and potentially doing deco in just caverns was never thought about". Maybe the answer to my question is as simple as 'it's probably perfectly fine and you should have all the skills necessary, if you are certified for both cavern and deco, to safely do deco in a cavern, but the certification wasn't written to show that. Perhaps there's some skill that isn't covered, however, and it isn't safe. I don't know, but I like to understand things, so I'm asking the question.

the standards actually predate most decompression courses believe it or not, but deco was also part of the full cave courses.

 

[jlcnuke]

the standards actually predate most decompression courses believe it or not, but deco was also part of the full cave courses.

I didn't know that. Thanks

 

[lermontov]

I'm aware of what each course teaches, as I have done AN/DP and cavern. I'm getting ready to do my Apprentice Cave course, but I'm having a hard time understanding what would be unsafe about diving in a cavern, in the light zone, with a deco bottle and incurring a deco obligation there that I satisfied prior to surfacing. I can easily see hopping in Paradise springs, taking a bunch of pictures of the fossils in there, accumulating some deco time, and satisfying that deco obligation before surfacing. Taking an AL40 deco bottle with me doesn't seem like it would impact my ability to follow a line, run a line, or otherwise make being in the cavern area unsafe. Using my AN/DP training to do a gas switch and perform my deco before surfacing doesn't seem like it would be unsafe there. As such, I'm not getting understanding the reason, being trained and certified to be in a cavern, and being trained and certified to perform accelerated decompression dives, that doing those things at the same time like the scenario I just posited would be unsafe. Of course, I don't know what I don't know, so maybe something about the training I'm moving towards will make a light click in my head, but I just don't see the reason so far.

im sure there a lots of divers in your situation, me included. The problem is in order to accomodate everyone's different skill sets there would have to be dozens of variant courses and it would be unwieldy, it would also be difficult to run a group course with one person having done a deco course and one not etc imagine one person quite comfortable with deco and the diver next to them stressing and the diver next to them still trying to get buoyancy sorted , so its easier to just have cookie cutter requirements. I did my cavern course a couple years ago and now decided to continue to get full cave, Im certified OC to advanced trimix and ccr to mod2 and have done around 300 no light wreck penetration dives but discussing with cave instructor he still wants me to do a few more "cavern" dives.
Its frustrating I know, and the only practical way i can see around it is to have cross credits but even then there will be some overlap . Agencies probably wouldnt agree to it either because theres a certain amount of competition between them as having the 'best' training schedules

 

[ChuckP]

Im certified OC to advanced trimix and ccr to mod2 and have done around 300 no light wreck penetration dives but discussing with cave instructor he still wants me to do a few more "cavern" dives.
Its frustrating I know, and the only practical way i can see around it is to have cross credits but even then there will be some overlap . Agencies probably wouldnt agree to it either because theres a certain amount of competition between them as having the 'best' training schedules

That does seem a little strange, I'd think a wreck penetration is no less difficult then a cavern dive but I ain't there yet either.

I'm finally getting around to reading @Manatee Diver thread, hopping his way to full cave which is a great read so far but was sorta suprised that on one dive, his instructor had a deco obligation and that was more than a cavern dive - I totally get the no deco while training in a hard overhead environment, is there a cave class set aside for that??

 

[Manatee Diver]

I'm finally getting around to reading @Manatee Diver thread, hopping his way to full cave which is a great read so far but was sorta suprised that on one dive, his instructor had a deco obligation and that was more than a cavern dive - I totally get the no deco while training in a hard overhead environment, is there a cave class set aside for that??

I am slightly confused? We routinely had deco after the first level of cave certification. Once you get past intro level, Florida cave diving is deco diving. This isn't like Mexico where after a 2 hour dive your gradient factor is less under 2%.

 

[rjack321]

I'm aware of what each course teaches, as I have done AN/DP and cavern. I'm getting ready to do my Apprentice Cave course, but I'm having a hard time understanding what would be unsafe about diving in a cavern, in the light zone, with a deco bottle and incurring a deco obligation there that I satisfied prior to surfacing. I can easily see hopping in Paradise springs, taking a bunch of pictures of the fossils in there, accumulating some deco time, and satisfying that deco obligation before surfacing. Taking an AL40 deco bottle with me doesn't seem like it would impact my ability to follow a line, run a line, or otherwise make being in the cavern area unsafe. Using my AN/DP training to do a gas switch and perform my deco before surfacing doesn't seem like it would be unsafe there. As such, I'm not getting understanding the reason, being trained and certified to be in a cavern, and being trained and certified to perform accelerated decompression dives, that doing those things at the same time like the scenario I just posited would be unsafe. Of course, I don't know what I don't know, so maybe something about the training I'm moving towards will make a light click in my head, but I just don't see the reason so far.

What you're saying is that, through your extensive experience, you have concluded that your line skills and ability to manage failures in an overhead is at the full cave level (you leapt past the Intro cave limits for this dive too). And that you need not worry about the fact that every cave agency recommends avoiding ENDs >100ft when diving in caves and overheads. And that at least at Paradise to get below 100ft you will be beyond the cavern line - another new thing for you. And if you actually have deco, I don't see how you can plan this dive on 1/6ths either.

So minus any cave training and minus any trimix training, you have decided that both the cavern standards, the gas limits, the cave ENDs, and the skills levels expected to pass those higher courses don't apply to you. The whole point of cavern is to practice your skills in a comparatively benign environment - not do stuff like this.

I remember some AN/DP students (possibly) but they were cavern trained. They decided, against shop, instructor, and mountains of online advice that their cavern skills were fabulous. So they went to Cow a few years back. They had to sneak in at night too cause everyone knew them and would have yelled at them. Their skills self assessment was wrong; they died.

 

[ChuckP]

I am slightly confused? We routinely had deco after the first level of cave certification. Once you get past intro level, Florida cave diving is deco diving. This isn't like Mexico where after a 2 hour dive your gradient factor is less under 2%.

I guess from reading up earlier, it seemed like no deco was allowed and I'm not really confused by it, I can see why - but it was just more of what I read above.

I'm only on page 8 of your post, slow reader but great read!!!

 

[Manatee Diver]

I guess from reading up earlier, it seemed like no deco was allowed and I'm not really confused by it, I can see why - but it was just more of what I read above.

Oh I know what you are talking about now. Yeah Reggie managed to get a couple of minutes of deco, but I was still out of deco. I'm not sure what the standards would be, as the NSS-CDS Apprentice program does allow deco if the instructor grants it via an Apprentice Plus waiver.

Thanks, I tried my best with helping people understand the process and the fire hose that is cave training. Along with getting down the details like that, I didn't put minor things like that in my personal dive log.

 

[jlcnuke]

What you're saying is that, through your extensive experience, you have concluded that your line skills and ability to manage failures in an overhead is at the full cave level (you leapt past the Intro cave limits for this dive too). And that you need not worry about the fact that every cave agency recommends avoiding ENDs >100ft when diving in caves and overheads. And that at least at Paradise to get below 100ft you will be beyond the cavern line - another new thing for you. And if you actually have deco, I don't see how you can plan this dive on 1/6ths either.

So minus any cave training and minus any trimix training, you have decided that both the cavern standards, the gas limits, the cave ENDs, and the skills levels expected to pass those higher courses don't apply to you. The whole point of cavern is to practice your skills in a comparatively benign environment - not do stuff like this.

I remember some AN/DP students (possibly) but they were cavern trained. They decided, against shop, instructor, and mountains of online advice that their cavern skills were fabulous. So they went to Cow a few years back. They had to sneak in at night too cause everyone knew them and would have yelled at them. Their skills self assessment was wrong; they died.

Let's start with - I never said I was going to do any of those things. I can do an accelerated decompression dive in 50 ft of water, exceeding 100 ft END is not required, and nothing I stated said anything about how deep the theoretical dive I was talking about would be. As for your inability to figure out how someone could incur a deco obligation without exceeding 1/6ths on their penetration, I'm sorry you can't grasp that but it's easily possible. For instance, go in the cavern to 90 ft (10 minutes into the dive, don't penetrate any farther, turn around and start slowly coming back out, but take your time coming back out without coming up quickly so that you spend the next 30 minutes at an average of 60 ft on your way out and you didn't penetrate past 1/6ths, yet you've got a nice little deco obligation (7 minutes of 50% using 30/70 gf according to multideco).

So, in conclusion, not only did you incorrectly accuse me of planning to dive past my certification level despite the extremely obvious fact that I was asking a question and NOT pretending to know everything and be better than any training, then you invent some parameters for that hypothetical dive AND have your inventions violate more standards, but you also demonstrated that you're incapable of figuring out a dive plan that took me 2 minutes to develop in multideco to show you how it could be done? Oh, and you did ALL of that without stating one reason why the proposed dive would be more dangerous than just doing a cavern dive in Paradise springs that didn't involve deco? Thanks for all that insight.

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

edited by mod to remove name calling. Make your point without escalating to name calling and insults or posting privileges in the thread will be curtailed. Thanks

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[ChuckP]

Oh I know what you are talking about now. Yeah Reggie managed to get a couple of minutes of deco, but I was still out of deco. I'm not sure what the standards would be, as the NSS-CDS Apprentice program does allow deco if the instructor grants it via an Apprentice Plus waiver.

Thanks, I tried my best with helping people understand the process and the fire hose that is cave training. Along with getting down the details like that, I didn't put minor things like that in my personal dive log.

Next time you're in Mexico and get tired of the mosquitos and crawling thru the jungle, come over to Cozumel and lets do some diving - I live here full time!