Happy Munday!
Oh, cavern diving sounds absolutely awesome. What's the general safety precautions you have to take before diving into one? Is there any equipment that differs from regular diving? How do you mentally prep for a dive? Like, is there a fear or are you just used to it at this point?
Buddy Checks
Buddy checks are something we do in open water already, it'll definitely be important for cavern diving too. Buddy checks are basically when you check your buddy's gear, make sure they have everything, and that it's in working condition. And vice versa, they do the same for you.
Sometimes people will have different styles of equipment, like jacket-style BCD (wraps around you like a jacket) and wing BCD (only inflates along your back). So this helps familiarize you with what they have, and how to use it if ever need be.
Equipment that differs between Cavern and Open Water Diving
Sometimes I like to review hand signals with my buddy, especially if I don't know them very well, just to make sure we're on the same page when it comes to that.
Cavern Precautions
For general safety precautions for caverns specifically, we only want to dive springs, and avoid siphons.
Springs are basically where water flows out of the cavern, so it'll be work to actually get in. But it'll be easier to get out, especially to account for air and anything that might happen.
Siphons are the opposite of that, so water flows into the cavern. It's easier to enter. But it's harder to leave, because the cave is actively sucking you in. So we're not supposed to dive siphons for cavern diving because that can be dangerous.
For air planning we have to follow the rule of thirds.
1/3 of air is for penetrating the cavern.
1/3 of air is for leaving the cavern.
1/3 of air is for dealing with emergencies.
Mentally Prepping for Dives
In terms of mentally prepping, I think one of my biggest things that helps me (that I also still need to work on) is being on time. Being late stresses me out a lot and I have missed some dives because of it. So I guess being more prepared before I'm even at the dive site. In general I'm also A Slow Person. It takes a hot minute to set up all the gear.
For the diving itself, I think I tend to be a bit more nervous if I'm diving with people I'm not familiar with. But it kind of goes back to doing those buddy checks and reviewing hand signals, communicating our plan so we're on the same page.
I don't really have much of a big fear when it comes to diving in open water now, but I do feel I'm more alert when we're in the water. Just because I want to keep an eye on things, we're doing things safely, no one's getting lost/ left behind, etc.
In general I'm not afraid getting into the water, but whenever something unexpected has happened it does spook me. And then we talk about what happened with the group, things we can do better next time, etc.
