Is Cave Decompression necessary for Open Water Deco Divers?
If you are an experienced technical diver, then do you need this course to be able to conduct decompression dives in a cave environment? Or does your training as an open water decompression diver translate into the same being replication in a cave type setting?
cave deco basically came about to differentiate between divers that can deco while hovering, and those that can't. Most cave deco is done while laying on a rock or pinned to the ceiling and it doesn't necessarily translate to OW. If you're good in OW though then no reason you should retake that course. The same may not necessarily be true going the other way around though and a lot of divers that only do deco in caves can struggle when they have to do it in OW.
That's an odd question. What makes you think there are cave deco classes? Maybe just take your intro class, talk to your instructor and go from there.
because both PSAI and TDI offer it...Originally Posted by bent
Jeez, how many more classes are they gonna come up with? It's not even on their class overview. (Just saw that with TDI there are 4 classes to get from mod1 to trimix now... it's getting ridiculous). At one point, deco was adressed in normal cave class.
I still find the question odd. He's been asking whether it's worth it for him to do any cave diving not too long ago and now he wants to know about cave deco.
the cave deco class showed up with PSAI because it combined AN/DP with stage diving. It was done I believe to differentiate vs open water deco to remind cave divers that even though you may be doing 2hr deco obligations in a cave, it doesn't necessarily qualify you to do them in open water where you can't tough anything.
I took it as "I am already AN/DP certified, do I need to retake this course to do it in a cave", very similar to having to take f*cking cave CCR when you are already a full cave diver when the only new thing is the dive planning to make sure you have enough gas to get out *which can be done in about 8 sentences in text*.
So first you found the question to be odd because you had no clue that there was such a thing called a Cave Deco course. Upon finding that there was such a thing as a deco class dedicated to cave divers and you were oblivious to it, now you are now finding it odd that someone might be curious about it?
Don't you find this to be odd?
I can't even find anything about this class on the TDI website. It's not on the class stucture overview thing.
On the PSAI site it say this: "... It is highly recommended the Cave Decompression Diver students also take Narcosis Management? ? Level II ..." (https://psai.com/2016/03/30/psai-cav...ression-diver/). Who does that?
Didn't you just ask about Narcosis Management the other day? Yeah, I find that odd.
considering the course is part of PSAI which is owned by Mr Deep Air are you surprised they are promoting narcosis management on the website?
Cave Deco through TDI is an instructor created specialty that was created to fill a gap. If someone is already trained as an AN/DP diver they do not need to take cave decompression.
The TDI full cave diver course standard requires that a student taking a full cave course to be either previously trained in decompression procedures, or go through the course concurrently, if decompression will be conducted during the course. Many instructors simply included AN/DP certification as part of the full cave curriculum, but the problem some of us saw is that AN/DP training should actually prepare you for doing "blue water" decompression dives, not switching to oxygen at 20' while laying on a log, which is kind of what happens when people couple decompression training in a full cave course.
Example of something overlooked when combing AN/DP and full cave - SMB use. It probably never gets taught and rehearsed and practiced enough that people become proficient in it when AN/DP and full cave are combined. But guess what, you'll need that skill if you're doing a drift deco dive in a place like South Florida. So that's why a couple of people got together to develop a course standard to differentiate between cave diving decompression and a full AN/DP course. In essence, Cave Deco is basically an abbreviated AN/DP program that teaches people how to use oxygen for decompression without going through all of the extra stuff that should be covered in an AN/DP course, BUT the cert is only valid for people that are cave diving.
Any TDI full cave instructor that is also an AN/DP instructor may teach the cave deco course, they'll simply need to call HQ and fill out the appropriate forms to get approval.
I'm happy to provide the course standards if anyone wants them.
Ken Sallot
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