why not a poodle jacket

[LiteHedded]

Having been involved with a little bit of military training, I can say that a "craw, walk, run" training scheme is used, and the same is true with cave training. Skills on dry land, OW, then in the cave. The thing is, if you do them in the cave a few times, then take off to somewhere cave-less, how much better are you really going to get since you're at the "walk' phase by default?

Unless someone regularly uses skills for their real and intended purpose, you're going to plateau. Its probably good enough to get by and have good dives, but not as good as they could be. I feel that getting better is something we should all strive for, and maintaining skills in the "run phase" of higher just isn't practical. If it was, soldiers wouldn't do live fire exercises regularly, they'd just use blanks all the time. Its tough to learn to read a cave in OW.

agreed. practice like you play.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

agreed. practice like you play.

Since I only do mild to semi serious reef caverns during mostly shallow reef dives, I did my NSS-CDS Intro to Cave in the faded black (brown) BC below

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[Fish-R-Man]

Unless someone regularly uses skills for their real and intended purpose, you're going to plateau. Its probably good enough to get by and have good dives, but not as good as they could be. I feel that getting better is something we should all strive for, and maintaining skills in the "run phase" of higher just isn't practical. If it was, soldiers wouldn't do live fire exercises regularly, they'd just use blanks all the time. Its tough to learn to read a cave in OW.

I agree with this to a point. I will never obtain the skill level in a cave living in central Washington that someone that lives in Playa del Carmen or North Florida would be able to obtain. So because I have to travel a long distance and I am unable to dive in a cave every weekend, I should just stop here and not continue to improve my skills so that when I get a chance to make a cave trip, I am at the best I can be given the lack of actual caves to dive in. I look at this like I do a number of other hobbies I have. One is snow skiing. I live 20 minutes from a resort and can ski everday that its open when I am not in Alaska. In the fall when the resort opens, everyone is equal. We are all starting over because there was no available snow to ski on. So the people that I know that bike or jog or whatever to keep themselves in shape are that much better off than the ones that did not. I see some fantastic skiers that haven't been on the snow for 8 months each and every year at the start of the season. Why shouldn't this be true for cave diving. Once you learn the skills, do you really think you lose them that quickly?

You mentioned that its tough to read a cave in OW. That is very true. I run a lot of the rivers in Oregon and Washington with a 20' jet boat. Learning to read a river takes time. I spent a lot of time in a drift boat or raft before I got my jet boat. You have a lot more room for error with a raft. The boat handling skills that I first learned were done on a lake or in the frog water on a river, way before I took it into white water. If I take the boat and want to run an unfamilier section of river, I will start and run one section at a time. Run up a section, then spin and run back down. I will do it over and over until I am confident that I can hit it right each time I run it from up river. I plan to do caves the same way. If I get to a section where I am uncomfortable, I will turn and try again the next time around. The whole time I will be learning so that level of confidence will increase with each dive, even if I have to wait 6 months to do it again.

I am kind of hoping that someone else will step in here from the PNW or anywhere else where its required to travel a long distance to cave dive. I read a lot of input into this section of the forum from people that I know are in the same situation that I am in. It sounds like they are very confident in their cave diving ability, but I don't know if all of them have the means to dive in a cave each weekend......

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I'm heading to Florida in a few hours. Haven't been in a cave since November ... when I was last there. I expect the first couple dives to feel like a newbie (in reality I am a newbie at cave diving, despite a lot of experience in other environments).

Someone on another board I frequent once said that unless you dive caves regularly, you'll never be anything more than a line-following tourist. I'm OK with that ... not everyone can, or wants to be, an explorer ... and there's enough line to follow to keep me content for years to come ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[boulderjohn]

Someone on another board I frequent once said that unless you dive caves regularly, you'll never be anything more than a line-following tourist. I'm OK with that ... not everyone can, or wants to be, an explorer ... and there's enough line to follow to keep me content for years to come ...

Same here.

No caves anywhere near Colorado. I will dive them when I can, and for the foreseeable future the gold line will always be in the corner of my eye. OK. That's fine with me.

 

[Sas]

I am kind of hoping that someone else will step in here from the PNW or anywhere else where its required to travel a long distance to cave dive.

I live six hours drive away (450km, can do it in five if I really push hard) from a bunch of caves, it's not bad and lots of fun driving there with my buddy. I go about once a month for a weekend, sixth trip this year is in two weeks, looking forward to it

I practice the skills in OW and find that helps a lot. The main thing that I suck at is reading the caves, and that will require a lot more actual cave diving.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I live six hours drive away (450km, can do it in five if I really push hard) from a bunch of caves, it's not bad and lots of fun driving there with my buddy. I go about once a month for a weekend, sixth trip this year is in two weeks, looking forward to it

I practice the skills in OW and find that helps a lot. The main thing that I suck at is reading the caves, and that will require a lot more actual cave diving.

Lucky you ... if I drove, it'd take about five days to get to the caves ... by 767 it's only about 9 hours to JAX, then another 2 by rental car.

I'm sittin' at the airport right now ... flight leaves in about an hour ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TSandM]

I do two cave diving trips a year, a week to ten days each time. The first day (and sometimes two) I feel like a bull in a china shop. That is despite the fact that I dive regularly in Puget Sound, and that, as a certified cave diving addict, I swim under and into anything I can find.

I will never be more than a line-following cave tourist, but the last day of each trip, I can almost see what it would be like to be more.

 

[Scott L]

Cave diving could be in my near future at this juncture as a lifetime of Florida sun exposure is starting to take its toll...

 

[Sas]

Lucky you ... if I drove, it'd take about five days to get to the caves ... by 767 it's only about 9 hours to JAX, then another 2 by rental car.

I'm sittin' at the airport right now ... flight leaves in about an hour ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Have a great trip!!