Why Cave Dive?

[BabyDuck]

it's just always the diving i wanted to do, right from post-class open water dive 2.

and i'm going to be there saturday for a week, and see friends, and dive new-to-me cave, and have a blast! i'm so looking forward to it!

 

[Scott L]

I took the cave diving class in order to improve my diving skills. I really had no intention of doing many cave dives at all. Something happened though, It turns out that I really like to look at wet rocks and silt.

I feel like I am one with the cave and nothing else matters. The deeper or further back the more in-tune with myself I become. It might be simple self preservation, but the feeling is unlike anything that I have ever experienced above water. I have to force myself to exit the caves. I don't want it to end.

Hopefully, this will be my experience. I do very much like North Florida with the oak trees and all. I visited every virtually every spring during my stay in Gainesville in the 80's. In addition, it would be a perfect diversion when the ocean is too rough to dive like right about now.

 

[vinegarbiscuit]

Like a few other posters on this thread, I started along the cave path because I wanted to improve my diving skills. I'd heard from more than one person that a cavern class alone had done more to improve their skills than any other course, so I went for it. What a learning experience that was. I'm ashamed to say that I was so focused on not getting my ar*e whipped that I scarcely noticed my surroundings, although there were one or two moments when I thought "This is kind of amazing". Taking cavern and basic cave really did improve my diving. The prospect of continued improvement plus the reports I'd heard about the splendors of the Mexican caves were enough to convince me to continue my cave education.

It wasn't until I got to Mexico that I got truly hooked. I've never seen anything like it. Imagine the most splendid cathedral you can, and double it. Then triple it. You're still not even close. I truly understand why Mayans considered the cenotes to be holy places...if they'd seen what lay beyond, I think they'd have been permanently prostrate with awe. The sheer variety and unique nature of each cave's composition and decorations, the knowledge that you're gliding through an environment that took countless years to form, the wonders of the blind little critters that make their homes inside the caves - it's staggering. And sometimes, there are unexpected wonders to behold that only a comparative few will ever see. On our most recent trip to Mexico, our final dive was at a place called White River, where we saw a perfect Mayan pot resting in the silt. I can never describe the enormity of that moment - and how utterly humbled and blessed I felt to see it. Now, I can't wait to take my final cave course. Sadly, we won't get to cave country frequently enough to truly call ourselves cave divers - cave tourists is more like it, for the time being - but it's a damn sight better than nothing.

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

Because I Always want to see inside. I want to know- "what is on the other side," or "just beyond," or "where it leads." All that. Wrecks and caves.......... How can you not want to know?....

 

[Kevin Carlisle]

I do it for reasons that seem lost wth cave divers today. I am hooked on the history, the geology and the excitement of findng new places and things 99% of others miss. I can still go cavern dive and intro dive with friends and have just as good of a time as I can doing a 2 1/2 hour dive. Finding new bones and fossils or a new fissure or passage is what I like to do. Seeing how the water carves the rock and how the cave will change from one month to the next keeps me excited even n a cave I have many hours in. And if one cave is blown out, have many more I can go too. The weather has yet to keep me out of the water. I just enjoy the caves, learnng the caves, exploring the caves trying to find their hidden secrets.

 

[Doc Harry]

Some of us were cavers before we became cave divers.

 

[BabyDuck]

ew! your trim sucks, and you sure are mucking up the bottom!

 

[boulderjohn]

I have no idea. It could be something Freudian--a return to the womb sort of thing. I think it would take years of psychoanalysis to find out.

All I know is that when I first started diving, anything resembling a cave fascinated me. Short swim throughs, long swim throughs--I wanted to go through anything like them. Shoot, I even wanted to go through minor arches while free diving.

I only wish I didn't have to travel so far from Colorado to do it.

 

[ianr33]

Seemed like a good way to get a decent fill......................

 

[Cave Diver]

I love cave diving. Even if it is just a rock and dirt underwater.

Why do you do it?

I'm too lazy to retype, so here is my previous response:

This is a spin off from another thread where I made mention of my response to the "Why do you cave dive?" question. Several years ago I was asked this by a friend and this is the response that I gave to her then. It's just as true for me today.

My question regarding cave diving is.....what do you really see that's so amazing that draws you back into the hole? Is it merely the adventure? You aren't going to see a shark! (I still enjoy shark hunting! )

A quote that I've seen attributed to Tom Mount seems to sum it up best. "Either you're one of us and you get it, or you're not and you don't."

As far as what I see, well, you wont see any sharks, but I still like it anyway. There are beautiful rock formations. Sculpted and etched out over time by a restless artist. Nooks and crannies that beg for exploration, tempting you with the promise of new passages that no living soul has ever seen. Contrasts of light and dark in the different layers of rocks. Fossils from hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of years ago, frozen in time. Its the wondering what you will find just around the next corner, and so much more...

And yes, it is the adventure. I like the challenge, the concentration necessary. The planning, the checking, the knowing that it's up to me to make sure the dive goes flawlessly. Knowing that failure or sloppiness is not an option. It makes the senses keenly aware, it heightens the experience. It's the tension, the anticipation and the relief when you come back into the cavern zone and you know that you had a good plan, a good dive and everything is okay.

Another analogy that I use is when people ask me why I dive is the Grand Canyon. It's a different experience to everyone that visits it.

Some people walk to the edge, look down and say "Big deal, it's just a big hole in the ground."

Some people walk up and catch their breath from the stunning view, the wonder of nature and the power of water that caused water to carve out such a huge chasm.

Some people are enthralled with the different layers of exposed rock on the face of the cliff. Moments from the history of our planet captured and preserved by the varying veins and sediments that make us seem small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

And then, there are those people who don't think the trip is complete until they climb on the back of a donkey and take the perilous trip down the steep and winding rocky path so they can reach the bottom and stand at the shore of the Colorado river.

That is what cave diving is like for me. Strangely enough, I didn't start out to become one. As a fairly new diver with AOW, Rescue and Nitrox under my belt I was tired of long trips out in the Gulf to spearfish on the rigs and the local lakes with 5' of vis on a good day. My instructor, who also became a good friend, kept telling me we needed to take a road trip to Florida and dive the clear water in the springs, so we decided to go Vortex Springs.

While we were planning the trip, I found out there was a cave there and I thought it would be cool if I could take a cavern course while there. Several fruitless phone calls to them failed to locate someone who could do Cavern instruction while I was planning to be there. So I turned to the web and found several instructors in cave country. After talking with one, I decided to stay an extra day and to the 3 day cavern/intro course instead of just the two day cavern.

At this point I was more interested in wreck diving than I was in learning to cave dive, but thought the skills would be useful for that. This ended up prompting me to go ahead and just take the full 7 day cave class. Yes, I took the "Zero to Hero" course and after the first two days my instructor made it clear that it was questionable whether I was going to make it or not. But I dug in, showed drastic improvement in the cavern/intro portion and was allowed to continue on with the full cave training. Believe it or not, people can learn to cave dive this way.

It was one of the most physically and mentally demanding things I've ever done diving. But at the end, I was hooked. I eventually ended up getting two other friends to take a cavern class at Vortex from another instructor, while I sat in and audited the class. One of them went on to take full cave from my original instructor and I tagged along as his buddy. Another friend took the cavern and intro class from this same instructor and I tagged along with him as well, so I've actually gone through cavern and intro 3 times and full cave twice.

Since that time almost 10 years ago now, I've done a lot of different dives in a lot of different places. But it's caves that always draw me back as my first choice of places to go.

Either you're one of and you get it, or you're not and you don't.

maybe point them to this thread.

Or this one http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cave-diving/332057-how-i-started-why-i-continue-cave-dive.html