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> >> this has been proved by the CDAA which has eliminated cave diving deaths >> in Australia since its inception in 1974, > >No deaths since 1974? Do you have any statistics on the number of people >trained by the CDAA, how frequently they dive, and what type of diving >they do (depth, gas, distance, vis, etc)? > >Devon > Actually there was a dual death in about 1984, this involved a certified cave diver, I don't remember at what level, taking a non-cave diver into Picanninnie Ponds, one of our most popular sinkhole level sites. In the centre of of the main pond is a slot that drops to about 63 metres from where a tunnel heads off to??? The slot is fairly narrow, silty and not completely vertical. I am not aware of the non-cave divers experience but there is almost no deep sea diving in South Australia, an average dive in the sea being 15 metres. The divers bodies were found deep in the slot, out of the light zone. I didn't count this one when I said no deaths as one diver was not CDAA trained and the other was breaking most CDAA rules. I can't quote any exact statistics off-hand but I could probably find out. There is far less cave diving here than in Florida Approximately, CDAA has certified 3000 cave divers. of which about 1000 are currently financial members, I presume less than this actually cave dive regularly. There are 4 levels of certiication and the sites are similarly ranked. Many sites are on private property and access to all sites is controlled in some manner to exclude divers who are not trained in cave diving, and this system works fairly well. CDAA sanctions only air diving with a recommended depth limit of 40 metres although one can presume this depth recommendation is regularly ignored as there are many sites 50-60 metres. There are only three known sites so far with depths in the 80-100? metre range and these are incompletely explored at present. Mixed gas diving is in its infancy in Australia (see the recent posts). There is a small group of 5 divers using trimix in the caves including myself and another subscriber to this list. Additional, 2-3 other CDAA mmembers have done trimix dives in the caves. Because the limited number of deep sites this is unlikely to increase much. All our true cave sites with penetration are shallow with depths ranging from 3-24 metres. Distances in these vary, on the Nullarbor plain Cocklebiddy cave has so far been pushed to about 6250 metres from its single entrance and involves negotiating two enormous dry rockpile barriers at 1000 and 4000 metres, Pannikin Plains Cave to about 3500-4000? metres from a single entrance and in Mount Gambier Tank cave has about has about 6500? metres of maze passage with maximum distance from its single entrance currently about 900 metres, all of these are potentially still going. Visibility if undisturbed in most Of these caves is 100 metres+. (Paul Arbon would you comment on the accuracy of this post?). There are other sites in Australia that are uncharacteristic, such as Jenolan caves that is sump diving of the English style, perhaps Greg Ryan might post describing these. David Doolette
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