Cave divers take scuba diving to a whole new level – exploring water-filled channels deep inside the earth and penetrating mysterious sea caves. To do this, special gear and a vast body of knowledge is required; as cave diving is risky, cave diving courses are highly specialized and take longer than many other specialty diving courses do. While courses vary from one professional training association to the next, most of the following basic information will help you to determine whether you’re ready to take it underground.
Coupling Theory with Practice
Before considering cave diving, be sure you have plenty of open water dives logged. Most training agencies require divers to have at least 50 open water dives logged before allowing individuals to progress with cave or cavern diving training.
As cave diving courses cover a vast body of knowledge and as skills take plenty of practice to acquire, cave diving courses are generally taught in several separate segments. Each of the segments focuses on an increasing level of difficulty, as well as on depth associated with that difficulty.
As you gain proficiency in the skills taught at one level, you’ll be tested in real situations with the entire team backing you up. This experience will help you to maintain composure while recollecting the tactics you learned in class. As you gain more experience and prove your ability to pass skills tests with confidence and ease, you will be allowed to progress to the next segment, and so on.
This procedure is followed at every step, not just to challenge your knowledge, but to build your confidence. There is ample evidence that the lack of real-world training coupled with knowledge alone results in cave diving accidents; this is why every training agency couples theory with plenty of practice.
Throughout the course of your training, you’ll be taught how to use specialized cave diving equipment. In addition, you’ll learn about the gas laws that pertain to cave diving, as well as the effects this type of diving has on the human body. You will also learn how to follow guidelines and how to deal with silt outs which can cause you to become lost inside a cavern or cave.
In most cases, the three most essential aspects of the certification process and the final testing process include proper weighting, appropriate body positioning, and the ability to properly execute a helicopter turn. If you can pass these crieteria along with the remainder of the course content, you will be able to move on to the final test, which involves an in-water resuce scenario.
Once you have gained proficiency in cavern diving, you can progress to the more dangerous specialty of cave diving. If you have been diving for less than two years, it’s likely that you will need to complete more dives to progress all the way to cave diving.
Courses and Certifying Agencies
Just as you would want to choose the very best university for secondary education for yourself or a child, it’s vital that you select the right certifying agency once you decide to take up cavern or cave diving. The best-known agencies for cave diving certification and training include the following:
- National Speleological Society- Cave Diving Section (NSS- CDS)
- National Association for Cave Diving (NACD)
- International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD)
- Global Underwater Explorers (GUE)
- Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI)
- National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI)
In addition to these agencies, local sports academies and other organizations may provide training and professional experience in cave and cavern diving. These include:
- The American Academy of Underwater Sciences
- American Water Sports Association
- International Diving Educators Association
- National Association of Scuba Diving Schools
These are just a few of the many organizagions available. Before making a selection, compare and contrast what is offered – and don’t be afraid to ask questions.
Once you have ssuccessfully completed cavern and cave diving courses, you’ll find that the number of dive sites you can explore increases dramatically. There are countless caves and caverns around the world, and new underground dive sites are discovered all the time. Some sites do come with restrictions, however others are under exploration and expeditions are undertaken with the express intent of making new discoveries.
Gaining Fitness for Cave Diving
If you don’t currently adhere to a fitness regimen, consider starting one right away. Cave diving is much more physically demanding than recreational diving, and the stresses and strains your body is subjected to are likely to be greater than any you have experienced in the past. It’s vital that you maintain a healthy body mass index – particularly as you’ll need to have a trim profile in order to fit through some of the smaller spaces found within certain cave and cavern dive sites. If you are overweight now, be sure to lose the extra pounds before you begin training; learning those new skills will be much easier if you’re not carrying extra body weight.
If you currently smoke cigarettes, drink too much, or partake of recreational drugs, you should stop immediately – and not just because people who do these things are not normally allowed to possess cave diving certifiates! Since teamwork is an essential part of cavern and cave diving, anyone who may not be completely clearheaded is not considered a suitable subject for training. If you don’t partake in anything which could be considered a vice, you can rest easy knowing that everyone you’ll be diving with will be in good condition for diving – thus reducing the potential for preventable accidents.
Since cave diving is a heavily technical sports activity, it’s vital that appropriate professional training be obtained, and it is essential that stringent guidelines be followed. Be sure that you are ready to follow strict rules as laid out by the agency you choose for training, and be certain that you are physically, mentally, and emotionally prepared for the many challenges that lie ahead. Once you are certain that you are ready, dive in. There’s nothing that quite compares with exploring places the average person will never be able to see or experience.