Cave diving is often seen as an extreme sport, like skydiving or dirtbike racing. If you pull up to a popular cave diving site in North Florida you don’t usually see tattoo-covered extreme-sports-looking-people. The crowd tends to look more boomer than bold. Can cave diving be extreme if it’s members look like that?

Going into underwater caves is dangerous. There is a risk of getting lost and drowning. It’s a much more dangerous activity than sitting on the couch. Cave diving is not extreme though (anymore). At its inception, cave diving was very extreme. Deaths were common. After the pioneers of the sport figured out a few basic rules then things shifted. What was once extreme is now a weekend hobby that isn’t that hard to do. Experienced scuba divers can take ~8 days worth of training and be putzing around underwater tunnels.

There are still extreme caves out there, ones that are difficult to access or have particularly high flow. Most cave diving takes place in “tourist caves”, ones frequented by weekend cave divers with detailed maps and millions of dives.

The shift from extreme to hobby happened after training standards were developed and the rules of cave diving were established. These rules help prevent divers from getting lost or running out of gas.

Cave divers still die in underwater caves. It is not a risk free activity. The most recent analysis of these fatalities shows that the pendulum has swung from untrained fatalities to trained fatalities. That means we’re doing better at keeping the untrained out, but having trouble getting trained cave divers to follow the rules, stay current, and stay healthy.