I stumbled on this site tonight - Cave Courses

I am impressed that in america you can become a "full" cave diver in 7 days.... holy shit!! Maybe that's how they got the footage for "The Cave" and it was maybe the bends that caused all those monsters to appear!!

It never fails to amaze me how truely gungho Americans can be! :shock:

CN.

:shock:

Oh my word.

There are no shortcuts in my courses!

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Closely followed by

You can do the entire Full Cave Course in approximately seven days.

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Mind you - similar things have been around in the UK climbing and dry caving worlds for the last 10 years or so.

Climbing or Caving is definatley best learnt through apprenticeships - just like any other Craft or Art.

I have no desire to be a cave-diver but if I did I would certainly want more than a 7day "no shortcuts" course before I classed myself as such!

:eek2: mind you, what else would you expect from America! The only worrying thing is - we have a tendancy to follow them eventually :shock:

Cumbrian Neil said:

I am impressed that in america you can become a "full" cave diver in 7 days.... holy shit!!

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I hope you all sensed my sarcasm... because it didn't come across that way when I read my post this morning! People [especially Americans] will try to make a $$$ in any way they can. I can't imagine how much they pay on insurance and liability.

CN

It's worth remembering that UK and US cave diving are very different beasts.

Hmmm

I think the old addage "there are no rescues in diving - only body recovery" still applies to both countries though.

Take a look at these sites... Cyber Diver News Network and Divers Who Took a 7 Day Crash Course

There are some classic quotes in both articles.... my particular favorite being, "Divers require specialized equipment, training and nerve. Like test pilots, astronauts and ancient mariners, cave divers are a special breed willing to die for their passion."

CN.

An interesting link on the topic:

Going cave diving in Mexico

Cancun is where all the college kids go when they have Spring Break and similar mid-term breaks. Do you think that "40-kilometre long cable" is an exageration??... that's a mighty long cable and puts the fixed lines in British sumps to shame! Maybe they don't have a good grasp of the decimal system!

CN

If you are talking about going cave diving in the big clear water systems in Florida/Mexico, then a week's intensive course is probably enough to get you started. Because of the accessibility of the sites etc. you would get a lot more diving done than you would if you went cave diving in Britain for the same length of time. But you wouldn't experience much variety, so you wouldn't get an all-round education.

The really important thing about cave diving is that there is no real limit. Whatever education/experience you have, you can find sites which require you to learn something more and where you can come unstuck if you just jump in. The really important question about this education is whether it teaches you that, and we can't really make a judgement about that without first-hand reports about the education itself.

But all the advertising hype is of course rubbish. Even in ideal conditions cave diving is a serious business and no, cave diving is not worth dying for. Attracting people to the activity who might think otherwise is of course asking for trouble.

MSD

I have many years cave diving experience both here and overseas. Frankly I think MSD has hit the nail squarely on the head. It may well be that the course is perfectly suitable for the kind of diving for which it's intended. The only problem would be if people passed this course then wandered off thinking they were then able to dive anywhere else. Provided that the course leaves clients knowing what they CANNOT subsequently do safely, then what's the problem? I'm not a great lover of the formal course-based approach (I am largely self taught, which helps build a catious, self reliant and questioning approach to things) but I wouldn't scoff at people who prefer to learn by paying someone who is more experienced to give them specific instruction. These folk have just found a way of turning the activity they love into a way of earning a living. Good luck to them I say.