Our choice for gas

I owe Lamar and
Lee Ann a helluva
lot, so they always get a free plug

Learn to Cave Dive

The Process

The process of becoming a fully-certified Cave Diver takes a total of eight days, sixteen dives and over 600 minutes of bottom time. That’s way too much for most students to do in a single, non-stop program. (If nothing else, think about your cumulative oxygen exposure over that many days,)

This is why it is common to break the process down into multiple steps. These steps can be taken as individual courses, or combined into four- or six-day programs.

This approach also gives students the option to make additional experiential dives between steps, which can be very helpful in remediating problems, or just increasing overall confidence and ability before progressing to the next level. With each step, students’ knowledge, abilities and experience grow. So, too, do the limitations imposed on them, as the following chart shows:

Students have the option to complete any or all of these programs in either sidemount or backmount equipment. If you choose to do so in sidemount, however, you need to be able to either document prior sidemount training and/or experience, or take our one-day Sidemount Orientation program in conjunction with learning to cave dive.

The Steps

Cavern Diver: As originally conceived, the Cavern Diver course was a recreational diving course, taught to recreational divers using basic recreational diving equipment. It was assumed most participants had little interest in penetrating caves beyond sight of the entrance.

Today the need for that sort of a program has diminished. With readily available cavern diving sites in north Florida, such as Ginnie Spring and Blue Grotto, and the system of guided cenote tours in Mexico, recreational divers don’t necessarily need to take a complete, two-day course in order to enjoy a safe cavern experience.

What is more common now is to use the Cavern Diver program as the first step in the complete eight-day Cave Diver curriculum. It is where we introduce students to basic cave diving skills, such as equipment configuration, guideline and reel use, and specialized buoyancy control, body position and propulsion techniques. It is also a way to screen students to make sure they possess the necessary abilities before allowing them in the fragile cave environment.

Basic Cave Diver: This is where students begin making actual cave dives — under some fairly strict limitations. By limiting penetration gas to roughly 40 cubic feet, avoiding decompression and prohibiting any sort of jumps, gaps or complex navigation, we allow students to focus on things like basic dive planning, communication and emergency skills.

Students who want to gain limited cave diving experience on their own, at the completion of this program, may do so — provided they understand that the cave community will be keeping them on a fairly short leash.

Apprentice Cave Diver: By the time students complete the Apprentice level, we will have covered all of the academic knowledge and practiced all of the emergency skills required for full Cave Diver certification. Students will have had an introduction to how their decompression diving skills pertain to cave diving, and have made some simple explorations off the main line.

It is at this point that students are ready to gain some more realistic cave diving experience on their own, if desired. Nevertheless, they are expected to keep all dives well within the limitations of their overall experience.

(Full) Cave Diver: The final step in the process, the focus here is on gaining additional practice of all fundamental and emergency skills, under more challenging conditions. Students are expected to demonstrate their readiness to be full-fledged members of the cave diving community.

Although a total of 16 training dives is required to reach this point, it is not unusual for students to have made many more practice dives on their own before full Cave Diver certification.

How Much? »

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