Not Cave, but Cavern certified

[DeepDiverBob]

I was Cavern certified back in November down in Florida. We did our dive at Ginnie, Blue Grotto and Paradise Springs. Then just for fun, we went to Devils Den our last day down there.











Edited for Spelling Error

[Atlaua]

I was Cavern certified back in November down in Florida. We did our dive at Ginnie, Blue Grotto and Paradise Springs. Then just for fun, we went to Devils Den our last day down there.

I also did Cavern down in Florida, the week after Chrismas, 2 years ago. We did a couple of fun dives at Ginnie, then did our class at Peacock Springs.

This year, I'm going to do my DIR-F in Akumal, then next year I'll probably head down again for some cave training.

James

[DeepDiverBob]

I might do an Intro to cave, but I dont think I will go full cave.

I am more interested in deep diving. But who knows, I might like Intro to cave so much, I will want to go full cave.

[Atlaua]

I don't plan to make any record breaking cave dives or anything like that. The bad news is since I made my last post, I was told by the GUE facility who was going to "plan their classes around when I'd be down" that they will not have classes that week.

I'm ticked since this was the reason I booked the Akumal vacation. I guess I'll be using another agency for cave training...

James

BTW, I'm much more interested in wrecks than caves. I should probably add a forum for wrecks since there are plenty in the Midwestern Great Lakes.

James

[EuphoriaII]

I know you can get Cave/Cavern certified in Florida in places like Blue Grotto, but is there anyplace in the midwest where you can get a cave or cavern certification? I'm a new diver (So new my cert dive is in 2-3 weeks) and I have no intention of getting into cave/cavern for at least a year but I was wondering if it's even available around the midwest. I have no interest in small confined caves but I'm interested in large underwater rooms.

I plan to go toward advanced open water and deep diver specialty before I look into caverns.

[DeepDiverBob]

You are doing it the right way. Build up your experiecne before you start getting into anything more technical. When you go into an overhead environment, you dont want to have to think about your bouyancy, it just happens.

There are a few places in the midwest to get certified, but I still did my check out dives for Cavern in Florida at Ginnie Springs, Blue Grotto and Paradise Springs.

[ldkearney]

i think you can get cave and cavern at captain jacks blue water lake in joplin Missouri (oronogo). missouri has a cave diving organization. you can dive great caverns like the ball room in ginnie springs without any cavern certification and its awesome. go to ginnie springs if thats the kind of thing you are interested in. i was there last christmas and visited devils den and blue grotto the christmas before that. none of those three require anything other than open water certification.

[theskull]

You can indeed get Cavern and Cave certified at Oronogo. Can also do so at Roubidoux Springs in Waynesville, though you have to plan that around the weather since a few good days of rain makes it too hard to enter the cavern against the flow. Can also do Cave, but not Cavern at Cannonball in Lake Wapapello near Poplar Bluff.

Thing is, MO caves have water temp of 48-50 F. So some folks hold out for training in Florida where the water temp is 68-72 F.

theskull

p.s. There is no better training for diving wrecks than Intro Cave. And if deep is what you're after, Full Cave also covers deco training and managing stage bottles. Certainly not to say that everyone should take Cave training--it is rigorous and requires a good skill set, not to mention the significant added risk.

[DeepDiverBob]

I might do an Intro to cave, but I dont think I will go full cave.

I am more interested in deep diving. But who knows, I might like Intro to cave so much, I will want to go full cave.

In the spirit of breathing life into dead threads...

Man, was I wrong back then.

[theskull]

I went through the same progression, dude. Cavern just for the skill set . . . then, this is cool, I need to see what's around that corner. Intro Cave to be able to get into the cave . . . then, oh, it's even cooler if you can go off the main line into the circuits? Full Cave so I could do it all . . . then, oh, you need Trimix to down into the best parts of the cave?

Oh, well . . . it has certainly been an adventure! And by accident I ended up with the wreck diving skills to do other cool stuff as well.

theskull