Cavern Course
Photo Credit: David Rhea/GUE.com (Copyright © 2009)
This course is for scuba divers who are up for a challenge and interested in adventure of a different kind. Overhead environments and their spectacular light shows are often the lure of cavern diving. It is an amazing and thrilling experience, which requires excellent buoyancy control.
Pre-requisites
- Participants must be 18 years of age, or older
- Minimum PADI Advanced Open Water Diver, or equivalent from another training agency
- Complete a PADI diver medical questionnaire
This exciting and challenging course consists of knowledge development sections, land drills and four training dives, one outside the cavern and three inside.
Your first dive will prepare you to handle the reel, lay lines and carry a dive light, as well as becoming familiar with hand signals and emergency procedures.
For the remaining three dives, you will enter the cavern staying within the light zone and no more than 130 feet from the surface.
You will learn
- How to utilize learned skills from dive one inside the cavern
- Organization, planning and techniques of cavern diving, hazards and problems involved with cavern diving
- Navigation, line protocols, depths and distance limits
- Line entanglement and breakage, disorientation from permanent lines and other emergency situations during cavern diving
- The usage of special equipment (lights, guidelines, reels and redundant breathing systems)
- Proper body position, buoyancy control and air-consumption management
- Prevention of silting-up during cavern diving
Your basic scuba kit will work in the cavern environment with a few modifications. Your PADI Instructor may recommend using other accessories, which you will be made familiar with.
The following list is the specialized equipment you will need for the course.
- Primary dive light
- Smaller backup light
- Line and Reel
- Cavern arrows as direction markers
You will need your Referral Documents and Medical Statements. Please send them ahead of time to avoid delays.
Call 850-837-2822 for Reservations
