National Speleological Society Cave Diving Section

Becoming a Certified Cave Diver

The NSS-CDS breaks the process of becoming a fully-certified cave diver down into four steps. These steps can be taken as individual courses, or combined into four-, six- or eight-day programs. With each step, students’ knowledge, abilities and experience grow. So, too, do the limitations imposed on them, as the following chart shows:

Cavern Diver

As originally conceived, the Cavern Diver course was a recreational diving course, taught to recreational divers using basic recreational diving equipment. It was assumed most participants had little interest in penetrating caves beyond sight of the entrance.

Today the need for that sort of a program has diminished. With readily available cavern diving sites in north Florida, such as Ginnie Spring and Blue Grotto, and the system of guided cenote tours in Mexico, recreational divers don’t necessarily need to take a complete, two-day course in order to enjoy a safe cavern experience.

What is more common now is to use the Cavern Diver program as the first step in the complete eight-day Cave Diver curriculum. It is where we introduce students to basic cave diving skills, such as equipment configuration, guideline and reel use, and specialized buoyancy control, body position and propulsion techniques. It is also a way to screen students to make sure they possess the necessary abilities before allowing them in the fragile cave environment.

Basic Cave Diver

This is where students begin making actual cave dives — under some fairly strict limitations. By limiting penetration gas to roughly 40 cubic feet, avoiding decompression and prohibiting any sort of jumps, gaps or complex navigation, we allow students to focus on things like basic dive planning, communication and emergency skills.

Students who want to gain limited cave diving experience on their own, at the completion of this program, may do so — provided they understand that the cave community will be keeping them on a fairly short leash.

Apprentice Cave Diver

By the time students complete the Apprentice level, we will have covered most or all of the academic knowledge and emergency skills required for full Cave Diver certification. Students may receive a limited introduction to decompression diving procedures, as they pertain to cave diving, and will make some simple explorations off the main line.

It is at this point that students are ready to gain some more realistic cave diving experience on their own, if desired. Nevertheless, they are expected to keep all dives well within the limitations of their overall experience.

(Full) Cave Diver

The final step in the process, the focus here is on gaining additional practice of all fundamental and emergency skills, under more challenging conditions. Students are expected to demonstrate their readiness to be full-fledged members of the cave diving community.

Although a total of 16 training dives is required to reach this point, it is not unusual for students to have made many more practice dives on their own before full Cave Diver certification.

Specialty Cave Diver Courses

Stage Diving

This is a specialty course level, intended to help develop the participant’s skills and knowledge in extended penetration diving with the use of a stage cylinder. Longer decompression and more complex navigation concerns are covered.

DPV Pilot

The purpose of the DPV (Diver Propulsion Vehicle) Pilot specialty course is to expose the trained cave diver to the basic fundamentals of the safe operation of diver propulsion vehicles in underwater caves while under the direct supervision of a qualified DPV Pilot Instructor. The student is able to build practical experience in the field under controlled conditions. Safety practices, procedures and techniques common to most DPV’s used in the unique environment of a cave are covered. Conservation considerations such as low-impact operation are emphasized. Potential emergency situations are simulated and practiced.

Sidemount Diving

A specialty course level, designed to expose the experienced cave diver to alternative cylinder and harness configurations when back-mounted cylinders are not appropriate or available.

Basic Underwater Cave Surveying

A specialty course level, designed to provide the participants with the fundamentals of surveying underwater caves. It is intended to motivate more divers to survey caves, to encourage the use of cave maps in dive planning, and to increase the quantity of published cave maps. Additionally, this program is to promote standardization for all survey projects.

Cartography

This specialty program is a data management-oriented program and is designed to introduce the basics of underwater cave map presentations. The goal of this program is to develop an ability to complete the surveying and map-making process and actually produce a map.

Recovery Diver

The Recovery Diver Program is a specialty two-part program. The first part is a management-oriented program as described in the Recovery Specialist. The second part introduces Procedures, Techniques, and Equipment required for the extraction or rescue of a diver/divers lost in a cave. This program requires land drills and in-water training.

Deep Cave Diver

The purpose of the Deep Cave Diver course is to provide the Cave Diver training for the safe planning and execution of mixed gas diving in caves to depths not exceeding three hundred (300) fsw/ninety (90) msw. The diver will be introduced to the proper and safe use of helium as a breathing gas, along with oxygen and nitrox for staged decompression. This course will emphasize precision and accuracy in all aspects of the dive beginning with advanced pre-dive planning. Safety will be a primary focus of this course due to the depths to which dives will be made.

Overhead Nitrox Diver

The purpose of the Overhead Nitrox Diver course is to provide divers with the basic knowledge and skills necessary to safely use enhanced air nitrox (Nitrox) as a breathing medium. The course covers the use of Nitrox mixtures with an oxygen content ranging from twenty two percent (22%) to forty percent (40%) and may be taught as a single specialty or combined with other NSS-CDS courses.

Rebreather Cave Diver

The purpose of the Rebreather Cave Diver specialty course is to provide divers with the basic knowledge and skills necessary to safely utilize rebreathers (either semi-closed or fully-closed) in overhead environments while under the supervision of a Rebreather Cave Diver Specialty Instructor. The diver will be exposed to the special hazards involved in using rebreathers in overhead environments, as well as the techniques and procedures used to mitigate the risks to a reasonable level. The program will also instruct candidates in how to plan overhead environment dives with open circuit dive partners.