People write books about cave navigation. That is pretty stupid as it is really simple. Always use a guideline and leave shit on the exit side of intersections. GUE has a bit more verbose way of saying the same in their SOP all GUE divers follow: Cave Navigation and Marking Protocol Divers should always use the guideline to travel and reference their location. It is the team’s responsibility to always ensure that it is following a continuous guideline.

I was recently asked by a good friend why it is possible to do all of your oxygen stops at 6m instead of having to move up to 3m eventually. And this seemingly without any penalty to your decompression time. To explain this counterintuitive phenomenon we need to know a bit about on and off-gassing. To explain on and off-gassing in diving we will use a single compartment “Haldane” model with a 10min half time.

In the last couple of years when I have been stepping outside my regular GUE bubble I have been exposed to other ways of navigating caves. Most of them are ok, if a bit stupid, but some are downright dangerous and will kill you given enough time. The right way to do it I hope this title was elitist enough to make you keep reading. I have no cave instructor cert to sway you with, so an elitist tone will have to do.