Cavern To Full Cave Pace

[Germie]

You have Talahassee and Marianna in Florida. Then you have 2 areas. I think this is what they mean.
Also in France, the Lot and Dordogne are 2 areas, but directly near each other and mostly done in 1 course already. Jura is a little bit further. I know from iantd and tdi, they talk about different caves or divesites.

And then you have a liebook. so this is also no problem. Really, I have seen already strange things. People who said on facebook they went on oc without scooter with a twin12 to 800m in the Resselcave, posted a profile and I know this is not true. They putted a computer in the bottom at the only point around 500m where it is 53m deep in a sort of small hole and that is for most people the turnpressure on 1 twinset. I know the average swimmingspeed of divers, so know that it impossible to swim 1600m in such a short time. People who said they did the circuit in the Saint Sauveur cave by swim, but that is impossible. People who went to the 83m 'dropoff' in the Ressel cave, there is no dropoff, there is 1 from 30m to 44m at 450m in the cave (and then they went to that point as maximum penetration). People who tell others they do once a month a dive to 150-200m, but live 1000km from a divesite with such depths, and if they go somewhere, every dive over 60m is posted on facebook, but never a dive to such depths. People who can do 40 cave dives in a 10 day holiday in Mexico. Etc.

 

[HandsomeYoungPete]

Different systems makes sense to me, it's the two different areas I found strange:

25 dives in Cave rated sites for a minimum of 25 hours at a minimum of 4 different sites across two different areas (think Florida and Mexico)

I think the intent is to give a range of experience, if all of your experience is diving cold water no flow caves a warm water high flow cave could present a problem.

 

[mdwalter]

I know this is super late in the game, and you've probably already gone through all the trainings you wanted to get to the dives you want to do, but here's my two cents.

I live in the Mayan Riviera, been diving for 25+ years and I've been doing the caverns that my PADI Rescue Diver certification allows me to with a friend who is a guide. I was thinking of getting deep into cave diving (no pun intended).

I would say if you have been diving for 25+ years you may already have significant skills (not always) and should already at least be very comfortable underwater. If you have been cavern diving with a guide for some time, as I imagine you have since it's right there, you should consider skipping Cavern certification and start right in with Intro / Basic and see how it goes. Some agencies no longer list Cavern as a pre-requisite for Intro / Basic, but rather as a standalone for those who do not intend to progress to Cave at all.

I talked to an instructor and he suggested I should do all the courses from Side Mount/Cavern all the way to Full Cave non stop but after reading a bunch of threads in this forum I'm pretty much set on avoiding the zero to hero route.

Then go on to Full when you feel you are ready. If you feel like you need some Basic level dives first, do that. If you feel ready for the rest of the skills, go right to the next level class. Any time you feel overwhelmed or not ready to add more skills, even in the middle of a class, consider stopping there and doing some diving at that level until you're ready to learn more. Many instructors will be willing to pause you so you can practice and then finish later, especially if you are local.

I searched but I couldn't find anything on what would be the recomended pacing to do the Full Cave course or at least how many dives should I do before going into the next stage:
Side Mount
Cavern
Intro
Full

As for side mounting, I'd say this is not strictly required for cave diving. Until about the last decade, side mount was only used for the most advanced cave divers to access tight restrictions that could not be done in back mount. So balance your desire to switch to side mount with your goals for getting into cave diving. If side mounting is really important to you, learn that first, but if you'd rather progress into cave diving faster, maybe consider starting in back mount and then switch to side mount at some point in the middle of your cave progression or even after you finish Full Cave.

Any advice and diving center suggestions, particularly near tulum would be much appreciated.

There are many good instructors there, as well as in FL. I would suggest taking Intro / Basic from one instructor and Full from a different instructor, just for some diversity of perspective. Likewise, you may want to consider taking one course somewhere other than locally, like Bahamas, Florida, or even elsewhere to get some diversity of cave conditions (unless your intent is only to cave dive locally in Mexico, and not elsewhere).