Cavern diver TDI

Overview

The desire for underwater adventure in caves, caverns and cenotes has settled in you?

Mexico has the most concentrated submerged cave system in the world. The Yucatan Peninsula is a gigantic karst plateau with the two longest underground systems in the world (Ox Bel Ha and Sac Actun). It is an ideal place to follow this course because the region offers cave dives of all types and levels with different passages and depths.

This is the second level of cave diving training after attending CAVE SIDEMOUNT DIVER TDI course. This course is specially designed to immerse you in this environment as you go along and in complete safety.

This course is designed to develop the minimum skills and knowledge for cavern and overhead environment diving within the limits of light penetration; in addition outlines specific hazards associated with cave diving. The objective of this course is to train divers in the proper planning, procedures, techniques and hazards of cavern diving.

Student prerequisites:

• Minimum age 18, 15 with parental consent
• Minimum certification Open Water Scuba Diver SDI or equivalent
• Provide proof of a minimum of 25 dives
• Divers must have a deep diver specialty certification or be able to provide proof of experience in order to dive deeper than 18 metres

Duration:

• 6 theory classes and briefing hours
• No less than 2 days 4 dives and 80 minutes bottom time at 2 different sites

Course content:

• Policy for cave diving
• Gas matching procedures and management to include dissimilar volumes
• Equipment considerations (cylinder options, regulator options, buoyancy compensator device (BCD) / harness options, reel options, proper weighting and equipment configurations)
• Communication (hand signals, light signals and touch contact signals)
• Swimming techniques (body posture/ trim, buoyancy control, line-following, propulsion techniques)
• Physiology (breathing techniques and stress management)
• Cave environment (geology : bottom and ceiling)
• Local access requirements
• Land owner relations
• Conservation
• Problem solving (emergency procedures, equipment failure and silting conditions)
• Accident analysis
• Review of dive tables and decompression theory
• Cave diving etiquette