Zero to Hero

[oya]

I have the same conversation with people pretty frequently.

"I'd like to come down to do Cavern, Intro, and Full."

And then I wind up writing a zillion word email on why that's a terrible idea.

Usually people are receptive. I like to think that they're asking a cave diving instructor about cave diving because they want to know about cave diving. And then, having been given advice, they think, "Wow, I've just learned something about cave diving from a cave diving instructor."

Sometimes, however, people believe they know about the thing they're trying to learn better than the instructor of said thing already. And get upset about the answer.

Then they look for a different instructor who will give them the answer they want. Which always breaks my heart a little bit. But, by then, I'm out of the equation and can go back about trying to teach people things properly to the best of my ability.

Anyway... because I'm asked the same thing so frequently I wrote a thing. Call it a blanket response. Now I can just tell people who ask...

Go read THIS blog post.

And they can make of it what they will.

 

[tbone1004]

@oya curious what your thinking is on how that translates to CCR diving. TDI has their "intro to cave" diving cert for rebreathers now, but there are no penetration limits. Only a restriction on nav decisions and decompression. I wish they would have instituted a similar restriction saying 1cfm with a maximum penetration of xx-cf

 

[jlcnuke]

Was this an intentional or subconscious word choice? "to earn a certification, people should have demonstrated the ability to take cave of themselves and their team"

Just giving you a hard time. I liked the article in general and I'm looking forward to getting quite a few dives at my current level before taking full cave myself.

 

[Julius SCHMIDT]

Captain pull back your throttles and have a look at this

"You see, I just learned to fly a few a crop duster a weeks ago,"

 

[lowwall]

Nice blog. Funny and heartfelt.

Would you like some help with the typos?

 

[oya]

Was this an intentional or subconscious word choice?

Would you like some help with the typos?

Was going diving in the afternoon and hit "post" with only minutes to go before I had to go back the truck. Instead of doing my usual, "let's go back and reread and re-edit this thing about 30 times until my eyes bleed and I'm sick of the entire topic."

Already fixed the cave/care one. Further typo hunting would not be unappreciated.

 

[oya]

@oya curious what your thinking is on how that translates to CCR diving. TDI has their "intro to cave" diving cert for rebreathers now, but there are no penetration limits. Only a restriction on nav decisions and decompression. I wish they would have instituted a similar restriction saying 1cfm with a maximum penetration of xx-cf

Yeah, if I was in charge of everything in the whole world there definitely would be something along the lines of a bailout radius of 1/3 of gas supply.

Luckily I'm barely in charge of anything at all.

 

[Mike1967]

Thoughts on doing Cavern and Intro together?

 

[lowwall]

fly a few a crop duster a weeks ago,
s/b
fly a crop duster a few weeks ago

as if ever diver has a licence to pilot a Cesna, and think ...
s/b
as if every diver who has a license to pilot a Cessna thinks

Got to run, I'll check the rest out later.

 

[tbone1004]

Thoughts on doing Cavern and Intro together?

Cavern is no longer considered a prereq to intro with most agencies and has been deemed a recreational specialty course.