Quote Originally Posted by billyf View Post
being that all agency’s limit Open Water Divers to a Max depth of 60ft NDL and AWO to a max depth of 130ft NDL.

Being that an instructor certifying an OW Diver to Cavern is violating OW Certification Standards that instructor will be Liable if that person ever has an accident at least until another instructor violates standards and gives them a higher certification!

As a Cavern Instructor I will/would never accept an OW Diver into Cavern Training, not to mention that it violates the standards NAUI Cavern Diver Course.
Cavern Diving
The cavern diving course is taught in a minimum of two days and includes classroom lectures, field exercises, open water line drills and a minimum of four cavern dives. This course emphasizes planning, procedures, environment, propulsion techniques, buoyancy skills, problem solving, equipment modification and the focuses on the specialized needs of the cavern diver.

Purpose: To teach the safe exploration of the cavern environment within specified limits. The course develops and establishes minimum skills, knowledge, dive planning abilities, problem solving procedures and the basic abilities to safely cavern dive.

Prerequisites: Advanced open water or equivalent or 15 logged non training open water dives with open water certification.
Wouldn't the cavern cert override the OW in this case, similar to taking a OW cert diver to 80ft deep during their AOW course? IIRC the NACD suggests a max depth of either 100 or 130ft after taking the cavern course.

Quote Originally Posted by SuPrBuGmAn View Post
It doesn't say that anywhere in my SSI OW manual.
Not sure what exactly they recommend, but in their nitrox course that I'm currently taking, they seem to rely more on a calculated ppo2 than picking a random magic number like 60ft. A quick google search made it seem like the magic number is 18 meters.