Maximising cave dives per day...

[Merlin Rhoda]

...LCF kindly mentioned that the caves are usually in close proximity, yet somebody else stated earlier that getting to them / entering them can be quite troublesome...

Depending on which caves you dive it can go from easy to quite challenging. If walking and/or stairs are an issue there are lots of easy access options. Car Wash comes to mind - just be careful with the ladder when exiting...

Also, aluminum 80's are a lot lighter on the back than steel 104's!

I've not been the Bahamas so I can't answer the other part of your question.

[CaveMD]

This is not related to cave diving. This is a symptom of something far worse. Get some antibiotics before this takes a strong hold and put on some Pink Floyd.

+99

[JCDdiver]

You gotta warm her up between dives.

Yeah!

[JCGoodwin]

This is strictly based on my Florida cave experience.
When we are rested we do a dive in the am, one in the afternoon, and one in the pm usually Cow.
That is usually only 2 maybe three days in a week.
The rest of the time we do 2 dives in the 1.5hr range longer if at Peacock shorter at Little River where deco and depth come into play.
It really depends how we all are feeling and experience or cert levels.
Renting two sets of tanks helps speed up the repeat dives.
Madison is a great place to have a spare set of tanks with a few snacks and some water then hit it again.

JCG

[FW]

It is important to pace yourself on a week long dive trip. I have known people to go to Mexico, and take a day off in the middle of the week, because they over did it the first couple of days. That ends up being an expensive day off

[diveconjeff]

It is important to pace yourself on a week long dive trip.

I can remember doing five dives a day on some live aboard trips. But that was quite a while ago.

These days, with primarily cave diving I kinda go by how much gas I breath. That pretty much factors in depth, time and tank volume. I also pay attention to how tired I get, and this might cause me to dial it back a bit for a day, rather than lose the entire day.

On a given day, I might do three dives with a set of doubles OR two dives if I am using a single stage OR one dive if I am using more than one stage.

AFAIK, the caves aren't going anywhere, and it's not worth it to me to drag my tired butt through there if I am not going to enjoy it

[divindoc]

It is important to pace yourself on a week long dive trip. I have known people to go to Mexico, and take a day off in the middle of the week, because they over did it the first couple of days. That ends up being an expensive day off

OTOH, taking a day off mid-week on a diving vacation is a good strategy to prevent DCS by letting all the tissue compartments desaturate for 24 hrs.

[Bobby]

OTOH, taking a day off mid-week on a diving vacation is a good strategy to prevent DCS by letting all the tissue compartments desaturate for 24 hrs.

Silly newby....that is what the beer is for.

[divindoc]

Silly newby....that is what the beer is for.

Agreed...onloading those tiny bubbles of CO2 at 1ATA while offgassing N2 is most pleasurable!

[matt_w]

Hello,

First of all - hello to all the members of the forum . After some time of reading the posts here, I thought it would be good to slowly start participating...

So... having recently passed my full cave and stage cave courses, I am already happily planning the next trips! .

I have, however, a couple of questions to ye old cave divers:
1)How many dives are you reasonably capable of doing per day? I don't mean expedition, dpv, triple staged dives... . I know that OW diving on Bonaire I could easily do 4-5 dives per day. During classes and guided dives in caves, I was quite exhausted after 2 dives..
2)Am I correct in saying that, because of the depths, it is more possible to be diving more in Mexico? (I am trying to maximize dives per $$)
3)What would you recommend for a person who finished all their training in Florida and is willing to get to know other beautiful places in the world: Bahamas, Mexico or maybe something else?

One more thing - I am afraid that I must express my deep disappointment regarding this forum. And to think that I was relying on you... You should have warned me that cave diving might lead to loss of interest in open-water diving, lots of unexpected expenditure, willingness to change all the holiday plans and... a sudden interest in country music!

P.S. If somebody was looking for a buddy around January for any cave trip... I am happy to dive at any levels up to stage cave.

Best,
Theriel

There is a lot that goes into to determining how many dives you do in a day. I just got back from Mexico. We did two dives most days, but we were in fairly shallow caves. The two dives at Chan Hol were close to 5 hours using less then 1/3s on AL 80s. We only did one dive at Nohotch because no one was there to help with the tank lift, but it was 2.5 hours of diving anyway.

I can highly recommend the caves in Mexico. It is a different kind of diving then Florida, I love them both. Australia has some nice caves too, plan ahead if you ever do that and get your CDA credentials worked out in Advance.

Stay Safe,

Matt


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