CDAA Deep Cavern & Sinkholes

Back in 2010 I went to Melbourne, Australia to visit my friend for a month. While there I took one week to complete the CDAA Deep Cavern & Sinkholes course.

About the Course

The Cave Divers Association of Australia's introductory training is the Deep Cavern and Sinkholes course. It's 5 full days of training with theory, confined water session and at least 6 dives in caverns and sinkholes.

The name of the course has since changed to CDAA Basic Cave Diver.

The class was done with Ocean Divers in Melbourne. Jane Bowman was the main instructor and Warrick McDonald did the pool session part of the course. Both are extremely experienced divers and instructors and I felt right away that I was in good hands.

I did the class with three other students, Dave Gilmour (Australia), Len (UK) and and a guy from Netherlands who's name I've lost.

One Tree is a very cool sinkhole in the middle of a cow pasture. It was probably my favorite dive during the class.

It's amazing that such a hole exist and at the bottom there are machineries and other structures.

As extra curriculum me and Len dove one of Ewen's Ponds at night. Visibility was amazing and there were at least some fish and crayfish to look at. Apart from that it was a shallow dive with some algae.

Aug 31, 2010