O2 Bottle for Cavern, Cave or Deep OW

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This post really encapsulates most of everything I would say: O2 Bottle for Cavern, Cave or Deep OW

Cavern is meant to be an introductory safety course to the overhead environment, teach people about the risks associated with the cave environment, the basics of how to run a reel, team communication, some propulsion techniques, and a few basic emergency skills.

There's a thing called task loading, which happens to all of us when we have to think about performing a task rather than being able to do the task automatically because we are so experienced that we can perform it via muscle memory. Running a reel, maintaining proper trim and buoyancy, and simply monitoring your gas limits while being in the overhead environment adds a fair bit of task loading to people new to the environment.

Task loading leads to perceptual narrowing. I like to describe task loading and perceptual narrowing in IT terms; we all have a finite amount of bandwidth between our ears (capacity). We consume that available bandwidth every time we have to think about how to do a task. When we are consuming that capacity, we have diminished our ability to observe other things around us, we call that perceptual narrowing. When you have perceptual narrowing, you literally become oblivious to things around you, such as your buddy telling you they are low on air, or the fact that your feet are laying in the ground kicking up silt. Perceptual narrowing can get you into deep trouble.

Decompression diving, holding stops, working with stage bottles, and the like also adds a fair bit of task loading for people new to those skills.

By keeping cavern diving as a non-deco dive, you're reducing the unnecessary task loading and risks of perceptual narrowing. View cavern diving for what it is -- a set of training wheels as you work towards developing and mastering the basic skills of cave diving before going on to the next step.

Are these restrictions like a black and white issue? If someone's AN/DP, had a 100 deco dives or so then just took cavern - are they never allowed to do deco dives in a cavern? Add in advanced wreck to that, you still can't deco in a cavern?

I'm not talking cave at all, just cavern. I've never dove in a cavern yet and had the conversation with someone that maybe cavern was a little bit of redo for people that were advanced wreck trained, I think those skills are virtually the same in either class but I do get that there are a few things that may get built on for future classes..

I can penetrate the Hydro Atlantic, Spiegal Grove or any other wreck but I can't dive in a cavern always confused me a little bit.
 
Are these restrictions like a black and white issue? If someone's AN/DP, had a 100 deco dives or so then just took cavern - are they never allowed to do deco dives in a cavern? Add in advanced wreck to that, you still can't deco in a cavern?

I'm not talking cave at all, just cavern. I've never dove in a cavern yet and had the conversation with someone that maybe cavern was a little bit of redo for people that were advanced wreck trained, I think those skills are virtually the same in either class but I do get that there are a few things that may get built on for future classes..

I can penetrate the Hydro Atlantic, Spiegal Grove or any other wreck but I can't dive in a cavern always confused me a little bit.

It seems to me that:
KenSurf:
Cavern is meant to be an introductory safety course to the overhead environment, teach people about the risks associated with the cave environment, the basics of how to run a reel, team communication, some propulsion techniques, and a few basic emergency skills.
kinda hints at what others said above - the cavern cert was never intended to be anything more than a stepping stone to cave certs, and thus wasn't designed to accomodate anything more than getting some basic experience before moving on to more training. All of the potential downsides I've seen posted so far can be summarized as: we assume the cavern diver is inexperienced and thus restrict what is allowed, since if they were experienced they would have their cave training done. No consideration given to a person who may be satisfied at just staying in the cavern zone and never progressing further in, but who might want to spend more time there. I haven't seen any rationale to say why the guy with 400 deco dives in OW, and 350 cavern dives, would be expected to be unsafe doing deco in a cavern. Unless I missed something anyway.
 
Are these restrictions like a black and white issue? If someone's AN/DP, had a 100 deco dives or so then just took cavern - are they never allowed to do deco dives in a cavern? Add in advanced wreck to that, you still can't deco in a cavern?

I'm not talking cave at all, just cavern. I've never dove in a cavern yet and had the conversation with someone that maybe cavern was a little bit of redo for people that were advanced wreck trained, I think those skills are virtually the same in either class but I do get that there are a few things that may get built on for future classes..

I can penetrate the Hydro Atlantic, Spiegal Grove or any other wreck but I can't dive in a cavern always confused me a little bit.

Are there gray areas where exceptions may be reasonable? Probably. On the other hand, many people tend to overestimate their own abilities and capacities. The problem is when a person overestimates their ability and then gets in to trouble when they're on the other side of the razors edge.

I'd like to refer you to this older article. It has some great food for thought on the subject.

Exley's Razor article - SubAqua UK
 
Are there gray areas where exceptions may be reasonable? Probably. On the other hand, many people tend to overestimate their own abilities and capacities. The problem is when a person overestimates their ability and then gets in to trouble when they're on the other side of the razors edge.



I'd like to refer you to this older article. It has some great food for thought on the subject.

Exley's Razor article - SubAqua UK
Great article. Thanks for posting.
 
@jlcnuke one other thing to note on the complication of deco bottles. It isn't necessarily following the line, it is running the line both in and out. The bottle adds "stuff" and that stuff likes to catch on line. The caverns are all unlined so you are running the line the whole time. Most full cave divers are utter sh!t at running line properly and the risk of getting entangled in your own line goes up dramatically with the deco bottle. If vis does go to near 0, are you 100% confident in all of your tie-offs and placements where they will hold? Are you 100% confident that you can reel that line in without it fouling? Especially if there is a good bit of flow, are you 100% confident in those tie off's and technique since you are unlikely to be able to maintain tension on the line while you are being blown out? It's hard enough in doubles, harder yet in sidemount, and significantly harder with a deco/stage bottle hanging below you.

As far as the restrictions that @ChuckP mentioned. Yes, they are black and white as they are written. They were also written before wreck diving certifications existed and have not been rewritten with any regard to wreck diving nor is it likely they ever will be. There are always exceptions to the rules, however the rules are much easier as black and white and to not have any cave police. If you believe that you are qualified to do those dives, then that is what you believe, but the rules are rules.
 
I think you haven’t observed many cavern divers.

It’s a familiarization course for open water divers with an open water configuration.

Adding more gear when managing the line, silt, light, buddy, and cave is not helping your situation. Rjack mentioned a fatality at Cow, but I think the one he’s referencing was actually at School Sink.

Iirc one of those cavern divers died from breathing their oxygen bottle at depth.

Overhead dives (deco, cave, wreck) are not to be trifled with.

Yeah not sure why I said Cow, I'm terrible with names.

Yes is it was the Wayne's World / School Sink double fatalities I was thinking of. One Intro diver, one cavern diver both deceased. I went back to the IUCRR report for that 2008 event. The Intro level diver was the one found very close to the exit, 47ft deep, with a half empty set of doubles, and a half used deco bottle. He was right inside the entrance and had apparently lost his fins as he convulsed and drowned. The second fatality further into the cave was still only 130ft from the entrance and they had only gone about 170ft total into the system. Max depth according to the deceased computer was 113ft.

Two dead both within 200ft penetration of the entrance and well within AN/DP's depth limits. Both not fully trained for this full cave dive.

Not all cave fatalities have to be 1000s of feet penetration or crazy depths.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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