How would you plan an extended trip to florida to learn to cave dive?

[TSandM]

Where are you in Australia? A class you might consider before booking such a trip is the GUE Fundamentals class, which you can get in Sidney or in Melbourne. That will give you some coaching in the use of double tanks, and in the trim, buoyancy and propulsion techniques which are common to all cave classes.

Why do you want to do all your cave training in Florida? Some of this could be done at home, with fewer logistical issues and almost certainly at lower cost.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Right ok so seems this was probably a bit optimistic. No doubles, no staged deco, no drysuit training and only about 160 dives (2 years) which would be over 200 before doing the trip but yea obviously that isn't much.

Can somebody give me an idea of what it would cost to do a cavern, intro cave and advanced cave courses in florida (the cave excurion place somebody mentioned had 350 350 500)? I can do it all in australia but it is really quite expensive and it is not easy to get out to where they do the courses (for ex. i just booked a return flight to lax for 1000 and it would cost 600-700 to fly direct to where they do the courses even though only a few hours - in reality i'd probably just drive the 12 hours) and i think the cavern and intro cave courses will be about 600 aud each. They also require about 25 cavern/cave dives outside of course content before you can move from cavern to intro cave to full cave.

Cost will vary. My fees for cavern through full cave end up being about $1300 if the classes are done with other students. This does not include anything else. You still have gas fees, site entry fees (if there are any), etc. This is for 8 days of training, 2 days per module. The experience dives in between courses are not mandatory for all agencies.

Do you need to dive drysuits in florida (you do in australia)? Right now i'm leaning towards doing cavern and intro cave in australia (backmount) which would give me about 50 cave dives experience and i could learn drysuit then i could go to florida and do full cave/learn sidemount/do some diving. But if i have to do that i'm almost tempted to just do it all in australia - one of the things that did appeal to me about florida was the fact that there are lots of really top cave divers there. Thoughts? Will it really be that hard to learn sidemount if i have dived in backmount a bit?

Dry suites are helpful. Water temperature is 68-72 degrees (20-22 C). Some of the dives can last 1.5 hours. Sidemount does have its own issues to deal with but it's not difficult if you have a good instructor or mentor.

---------- Post added April 17th, 2012 at 03:10 AM ----------

Can somebody also outline the NACD cave course (from cavern to full cave)? The CDAA one in australia seems to be a bit longer (and thus can probably justify an extra cost it if it is longer) with cavern being 5 days (12 hrs theory, one 3 hr pool dive, 6 cavern dives) and it HAS to be completed in doubles (seems like you can do cavern in singles in the states?), cave being 4 days (1 day of theory, 6 cave dives) and advanced being 5 days (2 days theory and 6 cave dives i think).

Check out my site - Cave Diving Courses « Rob Neto - for an outline of the courses.

 

[feitr]

Where are you in Australia? A class you might consider before booking such a trip is the GUE Fundamentals class, which you can get in Sidney or in Melbourne. That will give you some coaching in the use of double tanks, and in the trim, buoyancy and propulsion techniques which are common to all cave classes.

Why do you want to do all your cave training in Florida? Some of this could be done at home, with fewer logistical issues and almost certainly at lower cost.

I am close to Sydney but the GUE fundamentals course is 1000$ in australia so not too keen on that unless i was planning on taking other GUE courses.

The reason that florida appealed to me is that it is quite difficult to get to the easiest place in australia (mt gambier) where they do the courses and very difficult to get to others (e.g. nullabor) and accessing the caves is far from easy in many cases (long walks across farmland, abseiling down, etc.) but it is hard to find information like that so i am waiting to hear back from a few questions i've asked. The idea of spending a month or two diving learning to cave dive and having access to alot of fairly accessable caves is appealing. Ultimately i think it is just easiest to do it in Aus (at minimum cavern) and after that i might not feel the need to do any more (or at least for a little while) or i might want to stop after cave and do advanced cave later. In any case, not sure that starting off in sidemount would be that great of an idea so i'll prob just take it slow and figure it out from there. I guess i just need to get in touch with the cave diving community here so it will be easy to find buddies to dive.

Thanks for everybody who has contributed.

---------- Post added April 18th, 2012 at 08:56 PM ----------

Say i did go to florida how easy/reasonable would it be to expect to be able to find (good) buddies with which to dive