KentFrazier
Registered
First, let me say that Im asking this question purely for academic knowledge. I have no plans to put the information to practice (unless I learn something that can be directly applied to open water, i.e. non-overhead environments).
Ive been thinking lately about dive planning, and noticed that most of the recreational divers I have dove with, dont really pre-plan the dives. Those of us that use tables may check to see how much bottom time we are allowed at a certain depth, but that is usually as far as it goes. I'm trying t get into a habbit of doing more pre-dive planning.
From what Ive been able to read so far, which I admit isnt much, it seems that technical divers (wreck, cave, etc.) do a more thorough job in pre-planning their dives. For example, if I understand things correctly, if a wreck diver wishes to make a dive on Wreck A that lies at 190 ft. s/he would use their preferred deco planning software to pre-plan the dive including contingency planning. Im sure this would be similar for someone who is diving in a known cave system.
My question is how does one plan for exploring an unknown cave system? If you dont know how deep the cave is going to go, how do you account for that in the planning?
I may take a cavern/cave class in the future, just to increase my diving knowledge and increase my skill level, but at this point I have no desire to explore known caves, let alone virgin ones. I was just curious as to how the planning is done.
Also, if someone would kindly point me to some good resources I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Kent
Ive been thinking lately about dive planning, and noticed that most of the recreational divers I have dove with, dont really pre-plan the dives. Those of us that use tables may check to see how much bottom time we are allowed at a certain depth, but that is usually as far as it goes. I'm trying t get into a habbit of doing more pre-dive planning.
From what Ive been able to read so far, which I admit isnt much, it seems that technical divers (wreck, cave, etc.) do a more thorough job in pre-planning their dives. For example, if I understand things correctly, if a wreck diver wishes to make a dive on Wreck A that lies at 190 ft. s/he would use their preferred deco planning software to pre-plan the dive including contingency planning. Im sure this would be similar for someone who is diving in a known cave system.
My question is how does one plan for exploring an unknown cave system? If you dont know how deep the cave is going to go, how do you account for that in the planning?
I may take a cavern/cave class in the future, just to increase my diving knowledge and increase my skill level, but at this point I have no desire to explore known caves, let alone virgin ones. I was just curious as to how the planning is done.
Also, if someone would kindly point me to some good resources I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Kent
