DPV gas planning

[PfcAJ]

Depends on the dive and it depends on the cave.

Sometimes enough gas to swim out. Sometimes enough scooters so that I won't have to swim out.

IMO, planning to swim out on a deep cave dive is not realistic. The deco times and gas requirements become absolutely bananas rather quickly. I always tow on deeper cave dives, and often on shallow ones too.

I also dive with pretty good buddies, which factors in a bit. So realistically we'd have to lose a pile of scooters to end up swimming.

[RN]

Depends on the dive and it depends on the cave.

Sometimes enough gas to swim out. Sometimes enough scooters so that I won't have to swim out.

IMO, planning to swim out on a deep cave dive is not realistic. The deco times and gas requirements become absolutely bananas rather quickly. I always tow on deeper cave dives, and often on shallow ones too.

I also dive with pretty good buddies, which factors in a bit. So realistically we'd have to lose a pile of scooters to end up swimming.

It does depend on the dive and cave. I'm not referring to something like Eagle's Nest here. It's simply physically impossible to carry enough gas to swim out of there after scootering in or to deco on bottom gas if you lose a gas. That's an entirely different thing.

I'm referring to basic cave dives in the 80-100' depth range. While having multiple scooter failures is not likely I have heard of it happening. And I have heard of having to swim out from significant distance because of this. IMO that was just poor planning. While bigger dives require some risk assessment and deciding what is okay to do and not to do, for most scooter dives planning for a swim exit isn't all that difficult. I know I can swim out from Stage Rock in JB (2600 p) on a single AL80 and still have gas left over. I've done it to prove the math works. And I even pushed myself a little bit and was pushing the scooter ahead of me to try to get my RMV up to simulate a stressed situation. (See Kelly's post #9). So for me a couple of AL80s will get me out from pretty much anywhere in the mapped passage of JB. I might have a bunch of deco but I'd rather have to ride a chamber than not make it out at all.