Prep for Cavern

[Oside Jimc]

OK, my trip to the Cenotes in Feb have ate my brain, they were AWESOME. I have a week scheduled for PDC next March and I'm seriously thinking of taking the Cavern course, the "trust me" dives I did last year just aren't going to cut it and I want to get proper training.

So with that in mind what should I be doing now so that I'm ready for March?

Do I need to take Fundies?
I'm working on my kicks, but have a lot of work to do.
Equipment, what is needed? I have 2 sets of regs, dive a BP/W (single tank), diving wet today, but a dry suit is on order, which would be appropriate?
I assume I need a can light, what wattage? HID or LED?
Thanks for your input, just need a sanity check to see if this is doable.

Jim

 

[karstdvr]

Everything you have now is perfect for the cavern class;your instructor will spend time on modifying your gear,plus this teaching process will help when you purchase new gear. Practicing kicks is good,provided you have a good coach that can help you,otherwise you may reinforce bad habits.

 

[Diver Lori]

Everything you have now is perfect for the cavern class;your instructor will spend time on modifying your gear,plus this teaching process will help when you purchase new gear. Practicing kicks is good,provided you have a good coach that can help you,otherwise you may reinforce bad habits.

Excellent post! Jim, Kelly is telling you straight up.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I have seen people try to transition to doubles in cavern and or intro to cave and unless they are a very good and very experienced diver it is almost always a very ugly spectacle as they deal with being massively task overloaded trying to manage the new configuration along with new cavern or cave skills. Adding an unfamiliar dry suit would make it even worse.

March is 4 months away but it depnds on how much you can dive whether that is enough time to get comfortable in doubles and a new dry suit.

The cons of switching are obvious, if you go that route you need enough dives to be rock solid in a set of doubles. They are not rocket science but some divers have trouble adjusting to them and it helps to have an experienced well trained doubles diving mentor to square you away regarding configuration and get it all fine tuned. If you have access to a set of doubles, can get some assitance starting out, and can get comfortable in them prior to the course, it is worth pursuing as doing the course in doubles (while not required) will build confidence and experience in that configuration. Those can be very compelling "pro" arguments and being rock solid in doubles and a dry suit in cavern can be a great spring board an cofidence builder for intro that will allow you more time and ability to focus on course specifc requirements and skills in intro and apprentice or full cave courses as the doubles and dry suit use will be second nature.

If you can get the doubles mastered, then consider adding the dry suit for the same confidence and familiarity building reasons, but again ensure you are fully comfortable in it before showing up for a class.

Otherwise skip it as the familiar management of the wet suit in a cavern class will be much more beneficial than any advanatges a wet suit offers.

Some instructors and shops offer an equipment configuration class to assist begining tech divers in developing a proper configuration and in purchasing correct equipment the first time - that is well worth your time to pursue if available to you. One thing to consider is staying with a DIR configuration. Few instructors will object to much of any of it. Some instuctors get very anal about very minor points of a configuration and will ask you to make changes. In my opinion, if they are asking you to deviate vey far from a dir or hog configuration, you need to find a new instructor. I have seen instructors who insist you buy brand x wing, plate, etc, and most often they happen to sell those items whihc creates a motive totally unrelated to your needs in the water. Avoid those people as well.

 

[b1gcountry]

Like everyone else has said, you probably have enough gear, and probably training to be successful in a Cavern Class in a single tank and wetsuit. Drysuit and doubles are not required.

If you are interested in going the GUE cave route, or doing the cave diving thing in general, then you could also try to sign up for some Fundies/Intro to Tech style class and get your skills up to snuff in the next five months. If you can get enough diving in, then it wouldn't be out of the question to even skip cavern, and then go for Intro or Cave 1.

From my experience with Fundies, the skills you learn in there are more demanding than you will learn from most PADI instructors teaching a cavern class.

Tom

 

[Peter Guy]

DA Aq makes many very good -- excellent -- points. My advice? Follow his advice!

For what it's worth -- In April, 2007 I made the "mistake" of doing some cavern tours in the Cenotes. I had already taken Fundies when I did them (I had taken, but not yet passed), I already dove dry and had taken Fundies in doubles.

The "mistake" led me to take Cavern in October with my wife (a Fundies grad) and a 3rd person who was wearing doubles for the first time in the class, had never tried a frog kick, etc. Let me put it kindly, there was a significant difference in what he took away from the class and what we took away.

He finished (and I don't know if he passed) the Cavern class and we went on to take and pass Intro while we were there.

It is my belief that your Cavern training will be greatly enhanced if you do as much as you can on the basics (gear squared away, kicks, mask off skills, etc.) that you can do in open water while you ARE diving in open water. Use the Cavern time to work on overhead skills.

Have fun!

 

[giles45shop]

I just finished Cavern and am in the middle of Basic Cave right now, so I can relate.

As others have said, don't buy a bunch of new gear, what you have is fine for now.

I would get a can light, as it's harder to do line drills and run reels w/o the goodman handle. It can be done without, but it's easier and you know you want that really cool light to impress your buddies with

LED/HID is debated a lot, I like HID right now but LED seems to be the wave of the future. I bought a used 10W salvo focusable HID for $375, which works great for caves. If you have the expendable cash, you won't be disappointed w/ a new 21W HID or LED, but $1200 flashlights are kind of pricey

You will need at least one reel. Lot's of different kinds out there, I ended up getting a jump reel (25'), cavern reel (130') and cave reel (400') all Dive Rite and all of them used. In my class, we only ever used the cave reel, so in some respects I probably could have just bought that and been fine. Talk to your instructor about this and the manufacturer that he recommends, but you will need some type of reel.

As for practice, I had the finning techniques and buoyancy under control well before class, so my practice stuff before class was related to running lines and then following them w/ eyes closed, mask off, etc. Make sure you are comfortable with those scenarios as you will do them in class.

Have fun and enjoy it!

John

 

[TSandM]

Don't worry about the dry suit. I did cavern, Intro and Cave 1 in a wetsuit, and the only time I got cold was during the debriefs in the water. I used a 5 mil with a 2 mil hooded vest. That works well for me for Cave 1 dives.

I'd highly recommend taking Fundies, if you have a class nearby and can afford it. It's my philosophy not to try to learn anything in a cave that I can learn outside of one -- That way, I can focus on cave-specific things when I'm down there. If you already have the kicks and the buoyancy and trim, you can really work on situational awareness and team communication and learning to read and store the cave -- those are the hard things.

Have fun with it! I empathize; the cave bug bites, and it's all over.

 

[Oside Jimc]

Thanks everybody for the great responses. I'll have to see if I can find someone teaching Fundies here in SoCal over the fall/winter. M instructor is fine with my rig since it's quite DIR and that's what he wants. The can light is something I'll have to work on, after spending $$$ on a drysuit the cupboard is a bit bare as of today.

 

[scubafool]

Bouyancy, trim, and situational awareness.

All of that should be very well covered in a Fundies class, but if you can't get one lined up before March, get in some kind of water and work on the above. A lot. When you think that you are getting pretty good, you are just getting started.

When I took Cavern some years ago, I thought that I wasn't too bad in the water. By the end of the class, I realized that I needed to do a lot of work. I think that I would have got a lot more out of it if I had those basic skills much more in hand.