Cave Diver course

The opportunity to become a fully certified Cave Diver is why most students come to us. This page helps answer the most common questions about learning to cave dive, including Who can learn? and What’s involved?

Who Can Take This Course?

To take this course, you must:

• Be at least 18 years old.
• Possess Advanced Open Water and Nitrox Diver certifications (or equivalent).
• Be able to document prior training or experience in doubles or sidemount.
• Possess superlative buoyancy, trim and propulsion skills.
• For the second half of the course, possess Advanced Nitrox/Deco Procedures certification, or equivalent.
• Have logged at least 50 dives.
• Either be able to answer No to all the questions on an industry-standard Medical History form or obtain a physician’s approval for diving before the start of the course. If you require a physician’s approval, the doctor must sign off on the standard Medical Exam form. Forms signed no more than twelve months before the start of the course are acceptable — provided you have had no change in medical history since then.

If you lack prior training or experience in doubles or sidemount, you must take our Tech Overhead course before starting Cave Diver training.

What is Involved?

Becoming an NSS-CDS Cave Diver involves two steps. These are:

• Apprentice Cave Diver
• Full Cave Diver

Each step involves four days and eight dives. In total, you must make at least 16 dives and log 600 minutes of bottom time. There are also self-student materials you must complete before training begins.

By the way, if you are wondering what happened to the Cavern Diver course, click here.

Where Does the Course Take Place?

Most of our students do their training in north-central Florida’s freshwater springs and caves — however, you are by no means limited to this. We regularly conduct courses in Russia’s famous Orda system, the world’s largest underwater gypsum cave, as well as do training in Mexico’s cenotes. The choice is up to you.

How Much Does it Cost?

The exact cost of this program will depend on a variety of factors, such are:

• Will you be taking this course by yourself or with one or two other friends or family members?

• Are there any prerequisite courses you need to take in conjunction with this course?

• Where will you be taking the course? (Courses conducted in north-central Florida generally have the lowest cost.)

Once we determine your specific needs, we can give you a firm price for all the required training. Bear in mind, the course fees generally cover just the cost of instruction. You are responsible for:

• Transportation to and from the course location and dive sites.
• Any overnight accommodations and meals.
• Supplying all of the required equipment and gas fills.

By default, we certify cave students through NSS-CDS. If you want certification cards from additional agencies, you must pay the associated card processing fees. Any additional agency you choose generally requires you purchase their textbook or eLearning materials. This can add significantly to costs.

What Equipment Will You Need?

The minimum equipment requirements for most courses include:

• Mask and adjustable fins.
• Adequate exposure protection (typically a dry suit).
• Either back-mounted doubles or sidemount cylinders.
• Either a backplate/harness and air cell for backmount or an appropriate sidemount harness/air cell with adequate lift capacity.
• Two separate high-performance regulators.
• One SPG per valve or manifold.
• One primary and two backup lights.
• One primary reel per team; two safety reels/spools per diver.
• Jump reels/spools as required by the course.
• Three line arrows/cookies per diver.
• Two cutting tools per diver.
• Underwater slate or wet notes.
• Two depth gauge/timers or two mission-capable dive computers per diver.

Some very specific requirements pertain to each of these items. Do not make any equipment purchases without first speaking to your instructor.

Note: if you will be traveling by air to the course site, we can help you to arrange the rental of heavier items such as tanks at your destination.

How Do You Sign Up?

The best way to get started is to simply contact us.