question about cave diving

[palmm]

i am new to diving, and i was curious about how many dives you should have before you start your cave diving classes. i was thinking about getting into wreck diving, but with this oil spill you never know how bad it is going to get.

 

[Cave Diver]

Short answer, it depends.

Good buoyancy control is a must. Situational awareness is helpful. Most agencies require you to be at least AOW certified and some prefer that you be rescue certified as well. Some people are ready to move to caves after 50 dives, others still aren't ready after several hundred dives.

There is no real "magic number" of dives before you're ready.

You might also want to take a look at this thread: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/333848-going-too-fast-too-soon.html

 

[SailNaked]

it is the end of the world. and you may want to wait till you have 100 dives before entering cave training, on the other hand if your buoyancy is great and you like to dive in cold dark holes then you can start earlier. it would be a good question to ask your instructor, as he is the one that will be in that hole with you when and if you decide you no longer like the idea of cave diving.

 

[palmm]

i heard that johnny richards was one of the top cave instructors around. and yeah i will probably wait awhile just wondering.

 

[lamont]

100 dives is probably the best, all-purpose answer you'd get over the Internet.

And if you can't rack up around 100 dives in a year, you're probably not getting in the water enough to think about cave diving.

 

[w ripley]

Since you live in FL, AKA Cave Country, it would be a shame not to try it as soon as you feel ready. Sorta like living in Hershey PA and not tasting the chocolate.

 

[TSandM]

I think it's good to get a fair amount of OW experience before going into the caves -- one of the things you want to learn is how you react when things go a bit sideways. The time to find out that you can't keep your cool is not in an overhead environment.

It is my personal policy that anything that CAN be learned outside of a cave, should be learned outside of a cave. That means good buoyancy control (in a cave, it's measured in inches), proper trim, non-silting propulsion, light discipline, basic emergency procedure skills (air-sharing and valve shutdowns), and situational awareness. You can also get a start on line running in OW.

However, being in Florida, your access to caves isn't limited, as mine is, so you don't have to worry about wasting valuable cave time learning skills you could have learned elsewhere. I know there are some divers who basically go straight from OW into cavern, simply because they have better access to the springs than to any other diving. I'm not sure what I think of that, but it happens.

 

[DiverLS]

The first class is Cavern. I had to have AOW to take that with an IANTD instructor. The next class is Intro to cave. I took that from a TDI instructor and they highly recommended Nitrox certification. The two classes can be taken concurrently. As stated earlier, if you are not at peak bouancy, don't attempt it. The next class is Apprentice cave and full cave which are usually taken concurrently. Advanced Nitrox is a requirement for that and I am taking tht with an IANTD instructor. An additional requirement for Advanced Nitrox is Deep diver. This isn't the PADI of the same name. It's not take you to 100' and you are certified. For the IANTD training you need to learn Dalton's law and all that stems from it.

Hope that answers some of your questions about cave diving.

 

[palmm]

i am kinda worried about what this oil spill is going to do to our ocean. to lamont you must dive a ton to get 100 dives in a year. and i think sometimes you sink or swim, such as what happens with a lot of things in life.

 

[LiteHedded]

I think I was at like the sixty dive mark when I took cavern.