First cave dives

[stepfen]

I admit I have done few such dives myself. Here is a list of what people dive here (Chania/Crete/Greece) practically every single day for the summer season
- The most popular local dive (called Cathedral) is a cavern accessible even to OW divers. The entrance is at a depth of 45feet, then is an overhead section of about 30 feet long and then the "cavern" opens up to a big chamber with collapsed roof hence plenty of natural light. One can surface in the cavern if needed. Entrance tunnel is very wide (it would fit 3 maybe more divers going in side by side or on top of each other). No lights are usually used here (plenty of natural lights)
- Another cave very popular even to OW divers (called Elephant Cave) is this one: Entrance at 40feet/12m, then a 30feet long overhead section and then a huge (~600 feet long) shallow (~4feet - divers actually walk around) chamber filled with breathable air and very nice rock formations. Lights for this dive is a must as the main chamber has no natural light.
Local dive stores would bring to those two any OW that feels comfortable about it day in and day out for about 6 months every year.
Then there are slightly more advanced caves or swim throughs.
- One (called Seal cave) has entrance at a depth of about 50feet and then gradually after a length of about ~300 feet it reaches the surface where a chamber filled with breathable air is. The tunnel is rocky and there are no dead ends in the tunnel which is wide enough for 2 divers to dive side by side comfortably. Obviously lights is a must here too - interestingly they don't use a cave line.
And the list goes on with more and more challenging sites. LDS usually bring to these sites only people who have dived with them before and seem to be "advanced" enough.

Generally visibility here is very good (even better inside the caves) and there are zero currents. There are few sandy patches here and there in these caves/caverns but the sand is "heavy" and doesn't silt. At the caves mentioned above, there are no narrow passages that wouldn't fit at least 2 divers diving comfortably side by side neither dead ends etc.

The main local dive store do these dives usually with 3 guides (at least 1 or 2 instructors and 1 or 2 DM) for a group of up to 8 divers (less for the more advanced caves). One guide is leading and two at the back are watching. Should a diver feel uncomfortable going in the cavern/cave he/she can wait outside with the 3rd guide. Smaller dive stores do these with fewer guides - I've seen even with just one guide for 4-5 divers (or even more that I haven't seen).

I am not advertising this practice as safe and clearly these conditions cannot be generalized. I am just describing what is happening here regularly. 100s of divers do such dives every year (here and I am pretty sure elsewhere). I admit I have done these dives and even worst I did them when I was a quite new divers because that's where LDS bring divers and that's what everybody was doing around here. Now I am more into macro phorography and as I don't find caves attractive enough I ended up diving on "easy" shore dives mostly by myself.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Okay, now I feel shame.

For my part, it's true that I'm making an assumption that the warnings against untrained divers entering caves have been communicated widely enough that anyone on Scubaboard at least must have heard it at some point. There's no way to know that, of course.

OP, no hate intended from me, my own post was meant in the spirit of friendly ridicule as I'd give any of my dearest buddies if I saw them doing something stupid. You may not be aware, but your experience reads effectively like a cliche. AOW has nothing to do with qualifying you for the cave environment. Get cave trained first. Then go see them. And don't patronize knuckleheads like the dive op that took you there.

It wouldn’t really do much good if the OP got cave trained then went back and did the same dive with a bunch of untrained people. Everybody needs to be cave trained, not just one guy.

 

[tursiops]

It wouldn’t really do much good if the OP got cave trained then went back and did the same dive with a bunch of untrained people. Everybody needs to be cave trained, not just one guy.

Probably irrelevant. He isn't going to get the requisite training, because he already knows everything he needs to know and he is very safe, and he knows his limits. And he hasn't died yet, which seems to be the bottom line. He is in free-fall, which doesn't kill you; it is the sudden stop at the bottom, which hasn't happened yet so everything must be OK.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I remember doing a guided dive going through a lava tube in Hawaii diving from a cattle boat. The tube was only maybe 50’ long but had a dog leg in it. It wasn't that deep, maybe 45’ and seemed like a pretty benign tunnel. Nobody could get lost, you just go through.
Well, the DM’s paraded everyone through, one DM in front and one in the back. Most of the divers looked to be fresh out OW or AOW. Most looked like they were using rental gear. If you can imagine a stereotypical vacation diver kicking up the bottom, hand swimming, yo yo buoyancy, dragging gauges/consoles across everything, this was pretty much it as they banged and clanged their way through. One lady pinned herself on the roof dragging her tank valve across the ceiling and crap was falling down everywhere. Most of them were rototilling the bottom in typical fashion. Neutral buoyancy and anti silting frog kicks? What’s that??
The DM in the back just kept shoving everyone through until they were out. By time the last guy was out the other side with the DM behind the amount of silt and crap coming out of the hole looked like a smoke stack.
All it would have taken would be for one of them to get their mask kicked off by the guy in front and have all hell break loose with a bunch of people tangled up in there freaking out. I realized afterwards that it was indeed a sh!t show. But the DM’s get better tips when they do this kind of stuff.

 

[60plus]

Stepfen post #31 pretty well sums up the type of thing that goes on at Southern European "holiday" dive outfits. This is done with a very large number of divers of varying ability yet the fatality rate is very low. Tursiops # 33. I am not reckless as you post seems to suggest, I weigh up the factors and decide if the risk is acceptable. Occasionally and for a brief period I am willing to accept a higher level of risk. Although I am not cave trained I have watched many hours of cave dive training and cave diving videos and talk to cave divers (my OW instructor is also a cave instructor). I probably never will be cave trained because I do not like the increased risk of regular cave diving - if you do something often / frequently enough eventually something will go wrong. As a previous poster has said, sea caves are different to freshwater caves. Several posters have used the phrase "you don't know, what you don't know" That is always true for all activities. What those posters don't know is the conditions in the caves (the videos do not give a good impression) I dived and the competence of the divers I was with. There was plenty of room in the cave, we were way above the bottom, I had not seen any of the other divers do anything wrong at all on the previous 3 dives and they all had excellent buoyancy and air consumption. If you look at the cave diving accidents that do occur, most if not all of them could have been avoided by following normal (non overhead obstruction) diving practice, such as watching air consumption, good navigation and not stirring up silt.

 

[Marie13]

Although I am not cave trained I have watched many hours of cave dive training and cave diving videos and talk to cave divers (my OW instructor is also a cave instructor). I probably never will be cave trained because I do not like the increased risk of regular cave diving - if you do something often / frequently enough eventually something will go wrong.

I have no words.

 

[mcpowell]

I have no words.

Well, strictly speaking you had 4. But I get your point.

 

[Frank Dieber]

Stepfen post #31 pretty well sums up the type of thing that goes on at Southern European "holiday" dive outfits. This is done with a very large number of divers of varying ability yet the fatality rate is very low. Tursiops # 33. I am not reckless as you post seems to suggest, I weigh up the factors and decide if the risk is acceptable. Occasionally and for a brief period I am willing to accept a higher level of risk. Although I am not cave trained I have watched many hours of cave dive training and cave diving videos and talk to cave divers (my OW instructor is also a cave instructor). I probably never will be cave trained because I do not like the increased risk of regular cave diving - if you do something often / frequently enough eventually something will go wrong. As a previous poster has said, sea caves are different to freshwater caves. Several posters have used the phrase "you don't know, what you don't know" That is always true for all activities. What those posters don't know is the conditions in the caves (the videos do not give a good impression) I dived and the competence of the divers I was with. There was plenty of room in the cave, we were way above the bottom, I had not seen any of the other divers do anything wrong at all on the previous 3 dives and they all had excellent buoyancy and air consumption. If you look at the cave diving accidents that do occur, most if not all of them could have been avoided by following normal (non overhead obstruction) diving practice, such as watching air consumption, good navigation and not stirring up silt.

If everyone’s skills were on point why did I see people Bicycle diving?

 

[DBPacific]

Stepfen post #31 pretty well sums up the type of thing that goes on at Southern European "holiday" dive outfits. This is done with a very large number of divers of varying ability yet the fatality rate is very low. Tursiops # 33. I am not reckless as you post seems to suggest, I weigh up the factors and decide if the risk is acceptable. Occasionally and for a brief period I am willing to accept a higher level of risk. Although I am not cave trained I have watched many hours of cave dive training and cave diving videos and talk to cave divers (my OW instructor is also a cave instructor). I probably never will be cave trained because I do not like the increased risk of regular cave diving - if you do something often / frequently enough eventually something will go wrong. As a previous poster has said, sea caves are different to freshwater caves. Several posters have used the phrase "you don't know, what you don't know" That is always true for all activities. What those posters don't know is the conditions in the caves (the videos do not give a good impression) I dived and the competence of the divers I was with. There was plenty of room in the cave, we were way above the bottom, I had not seen any of the other divers do anything wrong at all on the previous 3 dives and they all had excellent buoyancy and air consumption. If you look at the cave diving accidents that do occur, most if not all of them could have been avoided by following normal (non overhead obstruction) diving practice, such as watching air consumption, good navigation and not stirring up silt.

Obligatory not-a-cave-diver. But you've now been on two cave dives and saw some pretty cool stuff. How do you know this won't become a regular thing? I'm scared s***less by caves but I still don't think I'll be able to resist getting certified with someone good to explore them. Did you feel secure in your safety and your ability to handle the situation if someone ran out of air, panicked, and starting attacking you for your air supply? The cave divers I know are the most fantastic divers and badass divers that I know, and the ones who have gotten old doing it did so by thinking of the worst case scenarios before they went on the dive. Yeah, maybe you know your group and the conditions aren't silty and you have more space than usual. For them, 'what's the worst that can happen?' isn't a rhetorical question, it should be part of every dive prep. It should be that way for all of us, but problems you didn't even think of can compound so much faster in a cave. It could be your first or your hundredth, but it definitely could be your last. The fatality rate for diving in general is very low, but we all have at least gotten the basic trainings so that we minimize our chances of being in that small group of fatalities. Why wouldn't you do the same for cave diving?

 

[Rechno]

At first a gave the TO the benefit of doubt, thinking that it was a "typical" OW diver that was not aware of the risks and just followed the diveguide, full of trust in his abilities.
(I personally have done those dives before I knew better)

But seeing that he starts to compare his "dangerous" local diving with the cave in order to justify it and stating that he "thought it all through" makes me think, that he is a little arrogant and thinks he knows it all. Unfortunately those are the divers that too often make the news. I personally wish him the best of luck, but just because if things go wrong, that might have an impact on others.