Is cave diving safer than Open Water

[Manatee Diver]

@Tracy

Better pay up soon or there won't even be enough to be a gap Spool.

 

[Catito]

On our last trip we had a discussion comparing cave diving to regular open water diving.
Cave diving has a deadly reputation, but, in all honesty, I've never been scared of it. I did cave dive twice in small sea caves and found it a pretty chill experience. Open water diving in the same sea outside the cave, on the contrary, tends to freak me out even after completing my 100th dive.
So my arguments were that cave diving is generally safer because it lacks the hazards of the open ocean: strong currents, storms, boat propellers, dangerous marine life, unreliable visibility, weird water conditions like downcurrents, etc. An overhead environment can be an advantage because it prevents you from shooting to the surface in a bout of panic. So, if done properly, cave diving in a spring is safer than diving in a sea because there are fewer things you cannot control.
I realize there are hazards specific of cave diving like silt outs, but, as longs as you can breathe and stay on the line, you always know the way out. In the meanwhile, in the open ocean, you may be caught in a strong current and drift away and never be found again.
Another advantage of cave diving in terms of safety is the fact that cave diving courses put great emphasis on safe diving techniques and are thus much harder than your typical OW where they take you down to 100 feet after your 6th OW dive for your AOW course (which I find ridiculously dangerous).
Anyway, I would live to hear your opinion on what you personally find safer and why?

What??? I would have to disagree. Cave diving is very technical.

 

[Catito]

No, cave dives are not safer than open water dives, but cave divers tend to be safer than open water divers. Most of the time.

Oh boy...

 

[wmperry]

Would love to hear this story in more detail…

I mean — it does happen. But he totally deserved it!

 

[rexman24]

No contest- I carry a PLB in case left by dive boat or swept away and many signal options. OW is a hundred times safer.

In a cave- no option to go up to air usually. There's a reason the cave diving community is small and the training is long, tough and intense.

And btw-going in a small cave on your ocean dive is NOT cave diving.

Cavern diving- is going as far in a cave as you can still see the light from your entry point

Cave diving- is another animal entirely!!!!!!

 

[rexman24]

Playing golf is so boring that it drives you insane. So skydiving is safer.

As for cave diving. The only reason it seems safer is because of the amount of training and pratice that proper cave divers do.

Actually, a fair number of ppl get badly injured/killed playing golf. Struck in head by small hard ball traveling at high speeds.

 

[rexman24]

My opinion is that I guess it depends on the cave. I think that a clearly marked, lined and previously mapped cave dive in benign high vis warm water conditions is far safer than a cold water, low vis, high current deep dive to an entanglement rich wreck dive in the Pacific NW........ I think that in most scenarios that I could tag along and be totally OK on a cave dive as long as I have the exact same equipment as the pro's. But I don't think the reverse is true.

Your comparing a best case scenario to a worst case one.......apples to elephants!

 

[rexman24]

I did a cavern dive at Dos Ojos, Yucatan, MX. I was trained for an hour or so, then did the dive with a Cave diving instructor. It was a fun and enjoyable experience. His last instruction was "if anything happens to me, you leave me and follow the line back to the light and exit".

To the OP, you went way beyond what is permitted by your license. It could have been disastrous. I think a big part of diving is knowing your limitations, staying in your lane, and following you gut and intuition.
The guide that led you in thier should have his license revoked!

 

[KevinNM]

Yes! The same way that skydiving is safer than golf.

Well, a lot more people die every year playing golf than skydiving.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

Cave diving is much more dangerous than simple open water diving.