Time Spent and Dives Completed During Cave Training

Tracy & I were cavern certified in April of 2003. Did about 30 cavern dives, (plus a lot of other diving) then took Intro in April 2005. Full cave certification in October 2006. (NSS-CDS) The last dive of our full cave class was our 40th cave dive, including intro and apprentice level dives and training dives. Did our 100th full cave dives on October 15, 2009.

To answer Jack's question above, 42 months, 30 cavern & 40 cave dives from beginning cavern to finishing full cave. Plus a lot of dives in open water practicing cave skills & drills.

Mike

All right here's some numbers to throw off the curve. I did cavern/intro skipped two weeks with no intervening cave dives then finished app/full. You could call me a a zero to hero I guess but I had been cave diving for two years prior with over 100 cave dives. I had been mentored by several experienced cave divers. The reason I got my certs was that Ginnie started to check for them and so did PSSP. I still did learn a lot during the course.

Certification?

Does watching old episodes of Jacques Cousteau and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea count?

PADI Cavern in Feb '03, IANTD Intro in April '03, IANTD Tech (Full) in Aug '03.

Every dive made since reading the NSS-CDS Cavern Text book in Dec '02 was made with the mindset of Cave Diving and improving my skills, whether the dive was being made in a Cavern, Cave, quarry, lake, or ocean. App. 130 dives in that time period.

WJH

NAUI Cavern In Jan 08 about 80 dives
NAUI Cave 1 in Nov 08 to current, almost 100 dives
Planing on NACD Full Cave in March of 2010

Garrick

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Originally Posted by netmage

So where are all the zero to hero's.....? Surely not a myth....? Or are we finding that they just don't intersect w/ people obsessed w/ technology and finger pointing on the internet...?


:)

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There aren't a lot of them, and most aren't active anymore. You do have a point, if I were one, I probably wouldn't post in this thread :-)

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Originally Posted by netmage

So where are all the zero to hero's.....? Surely not a myth....? Or are we finding that they just don't intersect w/ people obsessed w/ technology and finger pointing on the internet...?


:)

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Well OK I did 0-hero after cave diving without certification for many years. When I became an instructor I was telling my OW students to not go into over heads then I would go cave diving in the evening. I was being hypocritical and got the certifications. I also had many cave divers mentor me and some were rather shocked when they learned that I had not had my certifications all those years.

I don't know how you would fit me into a bell curve with hundreds of cave dives before certification. I don't think it would even count as an outlier.

Bobby

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Every dive made since reading the NSS-CDS Cavern Text book in Dec '02 was made with the mindset of Cave Diving and improving my skills, whether the dive was being made in a Cavern, Cave, quarry, lake, or ocean.

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Oh, I hear this one!

Attempted zero-to-hero in August '09 ... made it through Apprentice with 22 dives in eight days. Prior to that I had a bit over 2400 non-cave dives, with training and diving at various levels and agencies, including NAUI Trimix 2 and Wreck Penetration (well over 100 staged decompression dives, mostly on wrecks).

Went back in November and did 13 dives at the Apprentice level. Hoping to finish up Full Cave in February ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

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Originally Posted by FW

There aren't a lot of them, and most aren't active anymore. You do have a point, if I were one, I probably wouldn't post in this thread :-)

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I normally just lurk here, but you've called me out :). I did all my training in one week. Unlike some others in that group, I'm still cave diving. Just got home from a trip, in fact. I said hi to you at Wayne's party.

Sue