Northwest Dive Club

I generally steer clear of this subforum and I know most here are not diving caves. But I thought y'all might get something out of this:
http://www.cavediver.net/forum/showpost ... stcount=10
The other posts in this thread are good too, although not as comprehensive.

Interesting. I don't have much interest in caves, myself; but there are quite a few CCR cave divers that probably wouldn't agree with all that. To each their own, however.

could one of you more knowledgeable folks explain why "If you abandon OC totally, your SAC rate will suffer"?

thanks

Different breathing habits,patterns. Once on CC, Sac rate doesn't really matter anymore. You're not triggering a mechanical device for every breathe so your breathing pace and effort is different. Once you get used to CCR, going back to OC is tough.

Kind of like when you started diving your SAC was probably higher than it is now.

Interesting perspective. There are pros and cons to both OC and CCR. I've only been at this for a little over two years and I still feel that going back and forth between OC and CCR is asking for trouble... there's just so much to learn and re-learn with CCR I can't imagine going back unless I had to... like when we had an electronics melt down last year in indonesia... plainly stated, it sucked because I had to dive solo, spend only a few minutes with my wife and friend at depth and off I went meandering toward the shallows, blowing my bubbles. They saw sharks on nearly every dive... after I left with my noisy bubbles.

With respect to Caves, I can imagine that a lot of up and down's in some caves would pose a gas challange when doing long treks... wasting gas is still relative though when you have essentially so much more of it than you do on OC.

The first touch of Cave fever I've ever had came on in this latest trip to Bali and Alor. While on Alor we went to a place where there were three OC dives: two different caves and a nice steep wall. On CCR it was possible to do all three in one two hour dive. I've never really gotten into caves but these caves were outstanding. the fist was a giant cavern with an above water, enclosed vault at the top. Banded sea snakes were coiled up sleeping around the edge of the above water portion. The feeling of being at the surface of an underwater sea cave is hard to describe. maybe I was having a touch of vertigo, I can't really say, it was awe inspiring, like beyond words. Probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen were the shark eggs just inside the mouth of the cave, large amber shaped pouches that you could "candle" with your dive light and see the little nurse shark wriggling around inside... it was so national georgraphic, i'll never forget it. There were little types of coral that could survive without light on the rocks inside. In the other cave there were 4, 7'+ nurse sharks asleep and several black tips. the cave was like a big horse shoe with a cavern on one of the arms, with an exit and entrance. The shapes of sponges and corals and nocturnal fish were other worldly, and that is saying something for indonesia. I stayed still for some 20 minutes with my dive light off watching lantern fish blink on and off and being dazzled by silluets of schooling fish through the rays of light coming in the opening of the cave. neither cave was very long or deep, an exit was relatively near by, but the absolute freedom I felt being on a rebreather in such an overhead environment was priceless.

I'd probably get pretty bored with a fresh water cave given how little life there is in comparison, but who knows, the feeling of being in the first one, just from the sheer caverness-in the bowles of the earth- nature of it was pretty amazing. maybe I'll get into doing more of it int he future.

I have done hours and hours of BT in MX caves (where the original poster is from and diving). For over a week I was stuck using a backup air computer (even though I was diving 32EAN). And I was never even close to deco on that Oceanic 'puter. Granted its an aggressive Haldane algorithm, but avoiding deco in MX caves is easy regardless of OC, SCR, or CCR. Average depth is typically 35-50ft there.