Wife against me getting Cave Cert (full)..suggestions?

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What I the OP should tell his wife in regard to the David Shaw episode is that when he gets his cave diving certification, he will not do any body recovery dives deeper than 900 feet while on a rebreather.

You beat me to it John. I'm pretty sure that 900' solo-body-recovery-cave dives may be considered beyond "normal" protocols.
 
This one hits close to home. I took a ten year break from cave diving because my wife asked me to quit.

IMHO, if she's dead set against it, you may be better to just go with her on it. On the other hand, you can try having a heart to heart conversation with her, explain why you desire to go cave diving, and maybe she will understand.

Here's my story...

I live only 30 minutes from Ginnie Springs, and about 4 hours away from the closest thing to an ocean dive that I'd want to do. I've been diving since I was 10 (certified since I was 12), and grew up in south Florida, diving almost every weekend while I was a teenager. I swore I'd never get into cave diving when I moved into the area, my passion back then was wreck and deep reefs. But after living here for five years, I started cave diving in 1994.

My wife wasn't happy with it, but I promised I'd follow all of the rules and that the training would make me safe. Between January 1995 and December 2000, I had logged over 700 cave dives, but by 2001, I had attended several funerals and scratched 7 names off the phone list on my fridge. Two of those were not even cave diving fatalities, but my wife still said "no más". I think the death of Steve hit her hard, not because he was her friend, but because of his experience and who he was.

I relented, and slowly sold off my scooters, drysuits, stage bottles, side-mount bottles, regs, etc. My diving went from being a weekly ritual to a once week a year diver while on vacation in the Caribbean.

In 2011, I had an opportunity to start teaching openwater again. Diving had been a part of my life since I was a child, I taught scuba between the ages of 25 and 31, and I really wanted to be active in the sport again. When the opportunity presented itself, I started on the path of becoming an instructor once more.

The thing is, I'm a firm believer that if you are an active scuba instructor, you need to be in the water at a minimum of one full weekend a month. While I was going through the process of becoming an instructor again, I did a bunch of the local watering holes. Blue Grotto, Manatee, Ginnie, Devil's Den. And within two months I was bored and itching to go cave diving.

I sat my wife down, and had a long long long heart to heart. I explained to her why I felt that I needed to start cave diving again, and she agreed to let me. We worked out an agreement with many components, no scooters, no stage bottles, no deep exploration, and while I may have broken those elements, I have not broken the most important component: respect the rules of accident analysis. I won't do visual jumps, I bring way more gas than I need, run helium (I dive trimix most times even in 100' of water!) and come home with tons of gas reserve.

One thing you need to appreciate is that no matter how well trained and skilled you become, your wife will probably continue to worry whenever you go cave diving. You can show her the training you went through, and like others have pointed out, with the exception of Parker Turner and the heart attacks, the majority of trained cave diving fatalities involved breaking the rules, but she will still worry. So in the end, you will need to have a long heart to heart with her.
 
Yeah, I really wasn't joking.

Note to hijack the thread, but most life insurance policies will require that update them on and significant "life changes" (such as taking up cave diving) if you do so after a short period of time following the policy being issued.

I know this for a fact. A friend who died diving in the Florida caves (in a widely discussed accident) fell into this "loophole" and to the best of my knowledge, the insurance company has denied paying the vast majority of the face value. This individual was the proverbial "zero to hero" diver. He went from OW certification to full cave, trimix diver in three years and failed to notify his insurer.

When I learned of this, I spoke to my carrier, and he confirmed that this is almost always the case. The details may vary, but if you do take up something like this, be aware.

My agent used smoking as an example. You take out a policy as a non-smoker. Two weeks later, you suddenly decide to take it up. A week later, you get hit my a bus. The insurer could decline to pay even though the cause of death had nothing to do with smoking. On the other hand, if you took up smoking 10 years later, this wouldn't be the case. On my policy, 60 days is the magic time.

I am in Canada, and this might be different in the US and elsewhere, but I certainly wasn't aware of it.

The situation I mentioned above has resulted in lawsuits as I understand it, but there is every expectation that the company will win. Yes, bastards.
 
My wife is apprehensive but the way I explained it is, you build up to everything with your training and experience. You do not just go out and do a 10,000ft exploratory cave expedition. You work your way up to everything and only progress as your experience and comfort progresses. Much the same as someone that starts hiking today will not be climbing Mt. Everest anytime soon.
 
My wife is apprehensive but the way I explained it is, you build up to everything with your training and experience. You do not just go out and do a 10,000ft exploratory cave expedition. You work your way up to everything and only progress as your experience and comfort progresses. Much the same as someone that starts hiking today will not be climbing Mt. Everest anytime soon.

It's supposed to be that way for open water diving, too. You're not really supposed to just go out and do a 100 foot dive the day after you receive your OW cert; rather, you work your way up to it. But we all know what really goes on out there. Knowing that, one might be skeptical if someone told them "But it's different with cave diving."
 
I think there may be a handful of other trained cave divers who have died without violating protocol. Dave Shaw for example. Unless I'm just misinformed about that accident.
Solo Diving to ~900 feet using a rebreather modified by a non-authorized individual to increase the work of breathing and selecting an overly high density breathing mixture? I think there might be a few elements there that people might question.
 
It's supposed to be that way for open water diving, too. You're not really supposed to just go out and do a 100 foot dive the day after you receive your OW cert; rather, you work your way up to it. But we all know what really goes on out there. Knowing that, one might be skeptical if someone told them "But it's different with cave diving."
It may be because it is hard to tell someone who has not had cave diving that the "jump" between a 60 foot dive and a 100 foot dive is really a tiny baby step compared to the leaps between beginning cave dives and the real exploration dives.
 
It may be because it is hard to tell someone who has not had cave diving that the "jump" between a 60 foot dive and a 100 foot dive is really a tiny baby step compared to the leaps between beginning cave dives and the real exploration dives.

I know I've said this before, but I've felt that it was safer to conduct exploration dives 11,000' from the nearest exit in 150' of water (a dive I've done) than to go to Ginnie Springs on a Wednesday night.

Which dive is going to demand laser focus for preparation? While the answer is both, it's too easy to get complacent on the "easy ones" and that's when the bad stuff happens.
 
Get a million dollar life insurance policy. Not only will your wife probably be ok with you cave diving she may even encourage you to do it as frequently as possible. I know mine would.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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