Ocean scuba-virgin no more!

[Coldwater_Canuck]

And have fun, cavern/cave diving seems like it would be really cool. Once I'm more experienced I'll be looking into it.

 

[cyberfed]

Cave diving can be considered somewhat "recreational" however once you start to really pursue it, it does become technical because it involves breathing blended gasses (nitrox, trixmix) you start doing decompression diving with multiple stage bottles, 100% 02 deco and all kinds of neat stuff which is considered tech diving yes.
If you ever decide to pursue it, just keep this in mind, its expensive...hella expensive

 

[Coldwater_Canuck]

Cave diving can be considered somewhat "recreational" however once you start to really pursue it, it does become technical because it involves breathing blended gasses (nitrox, trixmix) you start doing decompression diving with multiple stage bottles, 100% 02 deco and all kinds of neat stuff which is considered tech diving yes.

Well what I meant was that you described cave diving as when it breaks the limits of "100ft depth and 130-140 feet of linear penetration.", I'm pretty sure that PADI does not allow breaking these limits at all in their courses (probably why they only have a cavern diving course), NAUI doesn't consider cave diving rec at all I think. So even if you're not decompressing, I think as soon as you break the 2 rules you listed it's considered tek (kind of like how solo is considered tek even if you are doing dives that would otherwise be recreational). But that's my opinion from reading like 2 websites: so the grain of salt thing

What agency are you doing each course with?

If you ever decide to pursue it, just keep this in mind, its expensive...hella expensive

Really? I mean all diving tends to be expensive, but where are the extra costs coming from?

Personally, the first type of non-open water diving I want to do is wrecks. After this I'd like to try caverns (although I'm getting ahead of myself because right now I am not nearly ready to do either).

 

[cyberfed]

Well the 100ft depth and 130ft penetration are specific to cavern diving. In cave diving you can go any depth or penetration you want (if you have the right gear,training ect...).
There are two big organizations that do cave training and certs:

NACD - National Association for Cave Diving
NSS CDS- National Speleological Society - Cave Diving Section

Both have almost identical rules for diving caves/caverns. Cave diving gets expensive because you need to buy pretty much 2 of everything. Trimix blends of gas can cost $100 per tank that's everytime you wanna dive trimix!

Your path should be as follow if you want to pursue cavern/cave (in my opinion I'm sure others would disagree)

1. Get your AOW
2. Get Nitrox cert
3. Get rescue diver cert
4. Start doing deep dives to 100ft to get comfortable with breathing at that depth ect...
5. Then start your cavern class.
6. Buoyancy must be perfected before you get to this point. You cant be going up and down all the time in caverns or caves because you can damage the cave or silt the place out and not be able to see a thing.

By PADI and NAUI standards yes it would be "tech" diving I suppose, even though many cave divers do it for recreation and not for research.

Wreck diving is something I need to do more of, wrecks are awesome! I want to dive a fighter pilot or aircraft carrier wreck!

 

[Coldwater_Canuck]

Well the 100ft depth and 130ft penetration are specific to cavern diving. In cave diving you can go any depth or penetration you want (if you have the right gear,training ect...).
There are two big organizations that do cave training and certs:

NACD - National Association for Cave Diving
NSS CDS- National Speleological Society - Cave Diving Section

Both have almost identical rules for diving caves/caverns. Cave diving gets expensive because you need to buy pretty much 2 of everything. Trimix blends of gas can cost $100 per tank that's everytime you wanna dive trimix!

Oh I see, I didn't know those organizations did the actual training. And I had no idea trimix could cost $100 per tank, that's insane!

Oh and one small point: I'm pretty sure those same 130foot / visible light standards are the exact same for PADI wreck diving.

Your path should be as follow if you want to pursue cavern/cave (in my opinion I'm sure others would disagree)

1. Get your AOW
2. Get Nitrox cert
3. Get rescue diver cert
4. Start doing deep dives to 100ft to get comfortable with breathing at that depth ect...
5. Then start your cavern class.
6. Buoyancy must be perfected before you get to this point. You cant be going up and down all the time in caverns or caves because you can damage the cave or silt the place out and not be able to see a thing.

Ya that's sort of what I'm planning to do. I'll be taking my Nitrox and AOW in January, then I plan to do a couple specialties such as Peak Performance Buoyancy, and Deep. I'll eventually get my Rescue and probably more specialties (including Wreck) and probably take PADI Cavern course at some point. Only after all that would I start looking at more technical diving.

By PADI and NAUI standards yes it would be "tech" diving I suppose, even though many cave divers do it for recreation and not for research.

I think in general it's just horrible terminology, because calling one type "recreation" implies everything else is not for recreational purposes. In reality both recreational and tech for recreational purposes should be called "recreational" and maybe have "Standard recreational" and "technical recreational" or something.

 

[thelovelymrsj]

I am really interested in wreck diving, too! My son will be living in Pensacola next summer. The Oriskany is off the coast. It is a deep dive but you already have your nitrox cert so you should take a road trip. He and I are hoping to make the dive sometime in late summer after I get back from Bonaire. I don't think I can do caves....

 

[cyberfed]

Nitrox is not for deep diving. Nitrox is a higher % of oxygen. This means that you don't get as much nitrogen absorbed into your body. However their is a trade off. You cannot dive as deep on Nitrox as you can on air. Partial pressures of oxygen can also be deadly. The safe recommended percentage limit of oxygen is 1.4

Nitrox lets you dive longer with shorter S.I.T's

This means that if you are diving deep (past 130ft) you do not want nitrox but instead a trimix that contains oxygen, helium, and nitrogen. There are even hypoxic mixes of gas which you can ONLY breathe at deep depths. If you were to breathe these gases at the surface you would die because it doesn't contain enough oxygen to survive. At depth pressure changes and you can get away breathing crazy gas mixes.

That is definitely "tech" diving all the way.

For recreational diving (less than 130ft) nitrox is quite handy. Trick is to find someone diving the same blend as you so you can both stay down. Doesn't do you any good to dive Nitrox if your buddy is on air and is in-gassing nitrogen faster than you. He will have to call the dive way before you do based solely on nitrogen loading (assuming you both have the same breathing rate).

Anyways its good stuff, and there is a lot of good material out there to read about. Dive often, within your limits and always dive within your training. Then you can begin to explore other special areas of scuba diving!

Keep me posted when you come, I drive all over Florida to dive I'm in!

Cheers