Full Cave Instructor

About the Course

To achieve this level, candidates must:

Teach a total of at least three Apprentice Cave Diver courses.
Intern with a total of at least three full NSS-CDS Cave Diver courses.

Once you complete these requirements, there are at least two possibilities.

One possibility is to attend another two-day Instructor Evaluation Institute. We like to avoid these, as they don’t provide a realistic picture of a candidate’s actual teaching abilities.
What we prefer is to have two of our instructor evaluators watch candidates teach a complete full NSS-CDS Cave Diver course with real students. This provides us with the best picture of their actual abilities.

Prerequisites

Be at least 21 years old
Current membership in the CDS
Be certified to the full Cave Diver level or equivalent by a widely recognized training organization
Have at least 100 non-training-related cave dives past initial Cave Diver certification to begin the process; 200 is required for Instructor levels
Be a current Open Water Instructor or equivalent in Active status by a widely recognized training organization (Divemaster or higher for Cave Divemaster certification)
For Apprentice Cave Diver Instructor, have been teaching scuba for at least one year and have certified a minimum of 40 divers to the Open Water Diver level or higher

Time Frames

There is no specified minimum number of days, dives or minutes of bottom time. However, completing the entire process leading to Full Cave Instructor certification generally spreads across several months.

Pricing