Cave Training

Cave Site

Defined as an enclosed body of water containing overhangs, silt, darkness zones, and passages that are at all times large enough for two divers to swim adjacent to each other and turn around together. Cave sites allow a maximum penetration of 1/3 of a twin cylinder gas supply.

Prerequisites

Before commencement of a CDAA Cave Diver training program the candidate must:

1. Must hold a CDAA Basic Cave, Deep Cavern or Sinkhole Diver certification or equivalent approved by the National Committee.
2. Must have logged a minimum of 20 basic cave dives in at least 2 different sites totalling a minimum of 10 hours. Dives may be any combination of open or closed circuit systems.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITE FOR USE OF REBREATHER:

Must hold a Rebreather diver certification for the unit they intended to be used in the training. 

Must have a logged a minimum of 50 post course rebreather dives totalling a minimum of 50 hours.

Theory

To include equipment, anti-silting techniques, dive planning, decompression related to cave diving, line techniques, underwater communications, emergency / problem solving, cave conservation, air consumption, physiological considerations, access protocols, accident analysis.

Equipment

Minimum requirements include:

1. Suitable exposure suit for >10 degrees water (wetsuit or drysuit) 
2.  2 x Mask and 1 set of fins
3. Small sharp cutting device
4. Dive computer
5. Compass
6. BCD or wing/backplate/harness
7. Twin cylinders of with combined minimum capacity of 3000 litres
8. Two regulator first stages each with one second stage attached, one of which that has a hose at least 2 metres in length
9. One primary and two back up lights
10. Wetnotes or pencil and slate
11. 6 x personal line markers and 2 x line arrows
12. Primary reel with minimum 100m of line
13. 3 x jump reels/spools

Skill Sessions

To include line laying and reel use, reel locking and abandonment, air sharing while following a line with mask blacked out, line entanglement and cutting, buoyancy and anti-silting techniques, communications, gas management.

Supervised Dives

Six dives in CDAA rated Cavern and Cave sites.