Intro Cave Suggestions

[kierentec]

Remember the limits of your cert. You are restricted to a sixth of penetration. That does not mean that you have to return with 2/3's of your gas. You can take 20 minutes to penetrate when you hit sixths and take an hour or more to come out.

I would like to clarify that your interpretation of the 1/6ths rule is inaccurate. That is not the intention of the standard. The 1/6 rule is intended to do 2 things:
Limit penetration
Leave a massive amount of reserve gas for an inexperienced cave diver to resolve problems.

eating into that reserve is essentially “recalculating” and is a slippery slope that a brand new cave diver should avoid. No, you shouldn’t “rush” out of the cave, but if you want to take more time looking around on your way out, do the same on the way in so your time in and time out are consistent and you reserve adequate gas supply for a rainy day.

also, you suggested practicing lights out and lights out gas shares. I will make this very clear, do not do this without an instructor present. There is a lot that can happen during those drills, and there’s a reason an instructor is right on top of you when we do it in training (not to mention the destruction to the cave that can be caused by inexperienced divers doing lights out on their own). If you’d like practice zero vis stuff, PLEASE do it in shallow open water or under the supervision of an instructor.

to the OP, there’s been a bunch of great suggestions on FL caves to gain experience in, but don’t rule out a quick trip to Mexico. Shallow and loads of lines well within intro limits to gain experience in. It’s not uncommon for a new intro diver to execute 1 hour plus dives on 1/6ths of a set of al80s. Travel is pretty cheap right now, and the border is open to tourism.

 

[tbone1004]

@kierentec I don't disagree, but it seems that so many divers take less time to come out than they do on the way in and that's a shame. If you took a sixth to get in and use a third or half to get out, you are still reserving 2x of your penetration gas and that is more than enough and I would be floored if someone took 4x the time to get out than they did to get in. Most people don't have that patience.

On lights out I think you just need to use good judgement on that. If you're doing it in rocky/sandy areas or say in P1 cavern/green room or in the first couple hundred feet of OG, the entirety of JB that an intro diver can dive, same with Ginnie, then you aren't going to do anything to the cave IMO. We'll have to disagree about an instructor being there or not though. You can practice lights out without actually turning the lights out, especially if you are doing it with your buddy paying attention. When I do those drills we do it with a third team member not participating to babysit and more importantly provide feedback

 

[ScubaSam]

I would like to clarify that your interpretation of the 1/6ths rule is inaccurate. That is not the intention of the standard. The 1/6 rule is intended to do 2 things:
Limit penetration
Leave a massive amount of reserve gas for an inexperienced cave diver to resolve problems.

eating into that reserve is essentially “recalculating” and is a slippery slope that a brand new cave diver should avoid. No, you shouldn’t “rush” out of the cave, but if you want to take more time looking around on your way out, do the same on the way in so your time in and time out are consistent and you reserve adequate gas supply for a rainy day.

also, you suggested practicing lights out and lights out gas shares. I will make this very clear, do not do this without an instructor present. There is a lot that can happen during those drills, and there’s a reason an instructor is right on top of you when we do it in training (not to mention the destruction to the cave that can be caused by inexperienced divers doing lights out on their own). If you’d like practice zero vis stuff, PLEASE do it in shallow open water or under the supervision of an instructor.

to the OP, there’s been a bunch of great suggestions on FL caves to gain experience in, but don’t rule out a quick trip to Mexico. Shallow and loads of lines well within intro limits to gain experience in. It’s not uncommon for a new intro diver to execute 1 hour plus dives on 1/6ths of a set of al80s. Travel is pretty cheap right now, and the border is open to tourism.

Thank you, Jon! Well said.

At the Intro level, all my buddy and I did was practice putting in and reeling up the primary, on EVERY SINGLE DIVE. Even at Peacock cause we needed practice in spotting the nubs and the good tie offs, and needed practice with the reel.

We also practiced pulling and gliding in high flow caves like Ginnie, Little River, Jackson Blue, and Madison. As we got better with our primary tie-offs, we had more gas to use for the one-sixth penetration, and got a little further in the cave each time. I remember one dive at Ginne, where I used my entire sixth to tie into the gold line at Ginnie, the entire sixth!

We'd be expected to run a primary in Ginnie for Apprentice and Full so knew we needed practice in a high flow cave. The joys of being a newly certified Intro Cave diver.

 

[kierentec]

@kierentec I don't disagree, but it seems that so many divers take less time to come out than they do on the way in and that's a shame. If you took a sixth to get in and use a third or half to get out, you are still reserving 2x of your penetration gas and that is more than enough and I would be floored if someone took 4x the time to get out than they did to get in. Most people don't have that patience.

On lights out I think you just need to use good judgement on that. If you're doing it in rocky/sandy areas or say in P1 cavern/green room or in the first couple hundred feet of OG, the entirety of JB that an intro diver can dive, same with Ginnie, then you aren't going to do anything to the cave IMO. We'll have to disagree about an instructor being there or not though. You can practice lights out without actually turning the lights out, especially if you are doing it with your buddy paying attention. When I do those drills we do it with a third team member not participating to babysit and more importantly provide feedback

so, here’s the thing, new cave divers don’t have the perspective to make those decisions, that’s why the limits are as restricting as they are. If you tell a new cave diver “oh, well you can ignore that rule or do this silly thing as long as you use good judgement”, you have just taken down the walls of the sandbox and given the OK to play outside it. There are far too many intro level fatalities that have resulted from it, so advocating it on a public forum is irresponsible, no matter how you want to justify it.

OP, and any other cave diver out there for that matter: don’t violate gas rules, and don’t practice zero vis in the cave without an INSTRUCTOR present. Please.

 

[The Chairman]

so knew we needed practice in a high flow cave.

Excellent advice. Run the reel, try not to use the same tie offs. Get used to using gap reels and spools as well.

 

[The Chairman]

OP, and any other cave diver out there for that matter: don’t violate gas rules, and don’t practice zero vis in the cave without an INSTRUCTOR present. Please.

I'm going to side with Jon on this one. Diving is all about limits and cave diving is extremely so. Know your limits and keep them sacrosanct.

There are bold cavers
There are old cavers
There are no old, bold cavers.​

 

[tbone1004]

so, here’s the thing, new cave divers don’t have the perspective to make those decisions, that’s why the limits are as restricting as they are. If you tell a new cave diver “oh, well you can ignore that rule or do this silly thing as long as you use good judgement”, you have just taken down the walls of the sandbox and given the OK to play outside it. There are far too many intro level fatalities that have resulted from it, so advocating it on a public forum is irresponsible, no matter how you want to justify it.

OP, and any other cave diver out there for that matter: don’t violate gas rules, and don’t practice zero vis in the cave without an INSTRUCTOR present. Please.

we'll just have to agree to disagree on the gas rules part because I have never seen anything that says they can't take their sweet time on the exit and have heard several very highly respected instructors encourage their students to take their time on the way out. On practicing 0 vis, fine but I think that means that the agencies need to put out something that specifically addresses how these students are supposed to practice these skills without instructors present because I'd argue that most full cave divers are equally lacking in perspective in good judgement on where is and where isn't acceptable to practice these skills

 

[kensuf]

Gas reserves - 1/6th in, 1/6th out. The reason is because at the Intro level you're just starting to learn how to cave dive, you're at that point where there may be a voice in the back of your head saying "OMG! I'm in a cave!!!!" and your primary goal should be getting home alive while getting used to the environment (and learning how to run a reel, manage your buoyancy/trim, and pacing yourself).

Lights out drills - OMG! I've seen more than one student get entangled, off the line, silt out places, etc. There's a reason instructors should be present and there's a reason we only use certain locations for these. DO NOT DO THEM WITHOUT AN INSTRUCTOR PLEASE!

Backup light deployments? Great idea -- seriously, practice this skill. Now practice it again while being neutrally buoyant and not stirring up silt. Remember, turn on your backup light before unclipping it!

Running a reel? ABSOLUTELY! Every time! Even at Peacock! As an intro diver you have not likely mastered running a reel, this is what you SHOULD be doing right now. I mean literally right now -- quit reading this post on scubaboard and go run a reel!

As for sites, I really like Peacock, Madison, Ginnie for this level. Go do the Catacombs at Ginnie, you'll need a 400' reel and it'll give you some good reel running practice!

Be safe, have fun, enjoy the journey.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Lets split the difference: In a high flow cave, you might hit 6ths after 20 minutes of penetration, but be able to exit in 10, way before using your second sixth, and not matching your exit speed to your entry speed. So you can poke around try to extend your exit time without exceeding your second 6th. Buy or rent a second or third set of doubles and then you can spend several dives at Ginnie without leaving for fills, and diving it like that you will quickly learn how to stay out of flow and where is best to run a reel.

Edited because my words didn't make sense, now they do

 

[kierentec]

we'll just have to agree to disagree on the gas rules part because I have never seen anything that says they can't take their sweet time on the exit and have heard several very highly respected instructors encourage their students to take their time on the way out. On practicing 0 vis, fine but I think that means that the agencies need to put out something that specifically addresses how these students are supposed to practice these skills without instructors present because I'd argue that most full cave divers are equally lacking in perspective in good judgement on where is and where isn't acceptable to practice these skills

you see a lot of FL instructors say “take your time on the way out” because there is flow physically pushing us out of the cave (even at peacock, exits are usually much faster than penetration even if you think you are swimming the same pace). So there’s time to play a bit and still match your exit speed. Some instructors will also encourage this in training because the students don’t have the gas consumption to spend any real time in the cave after fighting the flow. However, the correct response is to improve technique to reduce gas consumption, NOT violate gas rules. Heck, I’ve even heard a very experienced instructor tell his students that it doesn’t say anywhere in the standards that the 1/6th rule has to be 1/6 of the tanks on your back, and would have his students (who were in 85s) calculate 1/6s out of a theoretical set of 104s and have them use THAT volume for penetration. All because the students didn’t have the foundational skill set to reduce gas consumption.

to any cave divers reading this post:
Match your exit speed to your penetration speed (or slightly faster if diving in flow). This is a technique to determine how far you are from the exit at any point, and ensure you have the reserve gas needed to handle any issues.

to not derail this thread any further I’ll leave it at that.