• Course Duration: 3 Days Minimum
• Cenote entry fees included
• Certification Fees Included
• 32% Nitrox Fills Included
• Equipment: Backmount or Sidemount Doubles

INTRO TO CAVE SYLLABUS

• Age: 18 Years Old
• Number of Dives: 60 Logged Dives
• Certifications: (1) TDI Intro to Tec or Similar in the Equipment Configuration to be Used for the Course (2) TDI Cavern Diver
• TDI Intro to Cave Can Be Combined With the Prerequisite TDI Cavern Course and/or the Subsequent TDI Full Cave Diver.

Divers certified as at the TDI Introductory Cave Diver Level are allowed to plan and execute cave dives with Intro to Cave or Full Cave certified divers within the following limits:

• Maximum Depth Is Limited to 130 ft/40 m
• No Required Decompression Stops
• No Restrictions or Tight Spaces
• Penetration Is Limited to 1/6 of Double Tanks
• A Single, Continuous Guideline Is Used (No Placement of Temporary Jump Lines or Crossing of Permanent Intersections)
• No Complex Circuits or Traverses

The Intro to Cave Course is a course full of firsts: the first time you cover your light to experience the absolute darkness of a flooded cave, the first time you see the halocline roil like a river down the passage ahead, the first time you see the back of a stop sign. Your first cave dive is a significant step, a sort of graduation in your diving career after which the sport is never the same. You’re one of the few humans on earth to have entered such an environment, but if you’re like us, this first step inspires a feeling of humility as opposed to superiority. There is simply so much more to learn and to see. The Intro to Cave Course will get you started, but it’s only a step in what will hopefully be a life-long journey of learning and exploration. During the course you’ll hone the skills you learned as a cavern diver and apply them to the new, highly demanding cave environment, and you’ll learn new skills such as lost buddy procedures and missing guideline protocols. This course can be combined with TDI Full Cave, but if you have the chance it’s best to gain some experience after this level before moving on and there’s plenty here to see and do. As an Intro to Cave Diver, you can spend weeks exploring Mexico’s extensive subterranean networks without ever repeating a dive.

WHERE WILL I DIVE DURING THE INTRO TO CAVE COURSE?

During the TDI Intro to Cave Course, you’ll be visiting training sites such as Ponderosa’s River Run (with a stunning halocline) and Little Joe Line (passing through a series of beautiful cenote entrances); and Tajma Ha’s mainline upstream to the Room of Reflections (with an air pocket that mirrors back the cave formations in an otherworldly effect). During these dives, be warned that  you will spend a lot of time swimming around in the dark with a black-out cover on your mask for training purposes, so you won’t see that much. The purpose of training dives is to train, and we do train hard! It’s definitely worth your time to schedule a few days of guided cave diving or independent fun diving after your course to see some of the more delicate cave passageways that we cannot visit during high-impact cave training. Dive theory sessions are conducted in the classroom at Under the Jungle, and confined water skill review sessions are completed in open cenotes.

WHAT WILL I LEARN DURING THE INTRO TO CAVE COURSE?

The TDI Intro to Cave Course builds on the dive theory and skills presented in the Cavern Course, and includes practice scenarios in the cave. 

⇒ INTRO TO CAVE COURSE THEORY

• Intro to Cave Diver limitations and responsibilities
• The basics of cave geology and how to use this information to read the cave and know where you are
• Physiology including stress management and breathing techniques
• Review of active and passive communication, and team protocols.
• Review of dive table use and dive planning
• How to calculate your air consumption rate and its use in dive planning
• Review of problem solving procedures and protocols
• How to make a gas plan when divers have dissimilar tank volumes
• How to recalculate thirds to execute a lost buddy search

⇒ INTRO TO CAVE COURSE LAND DRILLS

• How to use a safety spool to locate a missing, lost, or broken guildine, with and without visibility.
• Lost buddy search protocols, including the use of a safety spool to retrieve a buddy who is off the cave line.
• Review of line following procedures and referencing, with and without visiblity, as needed. 

⇒ CONFINED WATER SKILLS SESSIONS (AS NEEDED)

The first day of the Intro to Cave Course includes a review of the following skills in the open water if the diver is taking Intro to Cave as a stand-alone course:
• Guideline deployment and retrieval
• Zero visibility line following practice circuit
• Fundamental skills review

⇒ INTRO TO CAVE DIVES AND SKILLS

Two completely new skills are added at the Intro to Cave Level:
• Lost Line Drill in Zero Visiblity
• Lost Diver Drill
The following skills are reviewed from cavern certification if the cavern course was completed with a different dive center, and practiced for the first time in the cave environment:
• Predive checks and planning procedures
• Air sharing practice before every dive
• Primary reel placement and retrieval
• Line following and referencing including team positioning and placement in the cave
• Simulated gear failures including mask and light failures, valve shut downs, freeflows, etc.
• Loss of gas and air sharing simulation while exiting the cave
• Zero visibility and zero visiblity air sharing exits
• Neutrally buoyant, no-contact, properly positioned safety stops

RESERVATIONS & INQUIRIES