CAVERN & INTRODUCTION TO CAVE/BASIC CAVE

This course is offered to the experienced diver who wishes to take the combination of the Cavern and Introduction to Cave/Basic Cave courses. While these courses can be completed over three days, it is highly recommended that the prospective student considers scheduling an extra fourth day as the work load involved in taking these two courses combined can be quite intense.

These combined Cavern & Introduction to Cave/Basic Cave courses, which include various lectures, land drills and exercises, culminate in at least nine dives into the overhead environment of at least three of North Florida’s most exciting cave dives. It is designed to give the already experienced open water diver the basic skills of cave diving by using limited penetrations into the cave environment and is a major step on the road to obtaining the full cave diver certification. This is to be considered an extremely advanced course which develops and establishes minimum skills, knowledge, dive planning abilities, problem solving procedures and the basic abilities necessary to safely cave dive on a limited basis.

Some of the issues we will cover are various aspects of cave diving including the cave environment and cave diving techniques, accident analysis and emergency procedures. We will discuss the recognition of potentially stressful or emergency situations and the psychological implications of entering the overhead environment including stress, reactions to stress and how to build a tolerance to it. Lectures will also include cave conservation, equipment and equipment configurations, referencing and navigation and the history and philosophy of the cave diving agencies. One can expect a variety of land drills to be conducted and upon completion of these to the instructor’s satisfaction they will then be implemented into the cave environment.

The main difference between this course and taking the Cavern and Introduction To Cave/Basic Cave courses separately is that we will move out of the cavern and into the cave zone much quicker. This is the reason why this course should only be attempted by the superior open water diver who already has a wide variety of experience in various diving environments. You can expect to be challenged both mentally and physically and upon successful completion of this course, you will be certified to safely cave dive while staying within your gas limitations and restricting yourself to penetration on the mainline only. This will give you the opportunity to practice and refine the skills you have been provided with, before advancing on within the cave diving community if you so choose. The course can be completed with modified open water gear using a third of a single tank or it can be completed in full cave gear using a sixth of a set of doubles. The prerequisite for the Cavern & Introduction To Cave courses are basic open water certification and 25 logged non training dives, although having more experience such as an Intro to Tech rating will really help you out with this demanding course.

Here's a list of equipment needed for the combined courses: a mask and power fins (springs or straps taped), a wet or dry suit, a tank with a dual outlet valve (or a set of doubles) that holds at least seventy-two cubic feet of gas, two first stages each with one second stage (one equipped with a seven foot hose) and a submersible pressure gauge, a BC with power inflator, tables/bottom timer or dive computer, a cutting device, wet notes/slate and pencil, one primary light and two back up lights, line arrows and cookies/clothespins, two safety reels/spools and one primary reel per team. If you have any further questions regarding gear and gear configuration, please check out my equipment page.

As with all cave and technical classes that I offer, please realize that participation in the class does not guarantee certification. Should you not end up with a certification, I will provide you with a list of areas that need more practice and am more than happy to assist you in working with these. As always, if you have any additional questions regarding training, scheduling or any other aspect of cavern and cave diving, don't hesitate to contact me at rich@netcommander.com, generally I will respond back to you within twelve to twenty-four hours.