Cave dive planner
The software or maps may contain bugs. Be sensible and verify everything possible and follow the standard dives rules on the actual dive. This should all be verified against official maps if available prior to diving
Tank cave, located in Gambia, South Australia, is one of the largest underwater cave system to be discovered in Australia so far. It is a complex system with a number of main passages and interlinking smaller passages and sections. Careful planning within the system is absolutely vital as it is easy to get lost far from the exit point which would be unfavourable in that you would die. To help with this I put have written a specialised application that will help plot your route through the system and give you a route plan, tell you how many cookies and jumps are required and approximate distance. It will also let you specify cylinders in use and help verify your gas plan will work for a dive.
About
Bombimi Cave is designed to help you plan safe dives in caves and make sure you can achieve your objective. It currently is heavily focused on Tank Cave in South Australia with limited support for other caves. For Tank Cave it represents the best known current state of the line in the system and differs from the official map but is more accurate thanks to numerous contributors. If you find any discrepancies please contact me so I can update it.
Best practices
- Plan your dive with Bombimi cave and determine the optimal back gas and stage configuration.
- At the site run through the computed plan against the official maps (if available).
- Note discrepancies and discuss with your dive team.
- Verify actual tanks pressures and update your cylinder configuration.
- Write the drop and turn pressures on your slate.
- Write the dive plan on your slate.
- Dive safely. Be sensible. Don’t risk dying for rock.
- Go have a nice dinner and a drink and discuss cave diving until non divers want to eat their own ears.
Planning your route
To start navigation select a tag in the site, this will normally be the entrance and you will then have navigation options highlighted on the map. Select you next tag and do this progressively to build your route. By default the route is a penetration dive in that your will dive to a specific location and return along the same route. This means you only have to plan to your deepest penetration and it will automatically account for the return journey see plan type.
Settings
| Setting | Units | Description |
|---|---|---|
| SAC rate | liters / min | Your surface air consumption rate. Be conservative |
| Stressed SAC rate | liters / min | Your surface consumption rate when under stress |
| Swim speed | meters / min | Your casual swim speed. Be conservative |
| Jump speed | minutes | How long to tie a jump reel in |
| Stage strategy | Either thirds or half + fifteen. If you don’t know what this means get training. | |
| Bailout gas ratio | Ratio applied after calculating the volume of bailout gas needed to exit. A common value is 1.5, i.e. enough gas to get 1.5 divers out | |
| Bailout recovery time | minutes | The amount of time after a stressed bailout to recover |
| Configuration type | Open Circuit or Closed Circuit gas planning |
Plan Types
| Penetration | Dive to a specific place in the cave and return along the same route |
| Circuit | Enter and exit in the same location but without returning along the same route |
| Traverse | Enter in one location and exit in another place |
Cylinders
You can add your open circuit back gas and stage cylinders and the pressure that they are at for a specific dive. It will then help ensure you have enough gas for you plan. If it is not sufficient the Gas available will show in red, otherwise in green. In the Dive plan section you will see the pressures to either drop the stage or turn the dive. These are obviously just estimates and on the actual dive you must adjust your plan accordingly.
Statistics
The section display stats about your current dive plan
| Distance | Total distance in meters of the dive |
| Jumps | Number of jump reels required |
| Cookies | Number of cookies required |
| Swim time | Approximate time to complete the dive |
| Gas used | Approximate number of litres of gas used on the dive |
| Gas required | The minimum number of litres of gas required to complete the dive |
| Gas available | Total gas available in back and stage cylinders |
| Time @ Dest | How long you have at the maximum penetration with the current cylinder configuration |
Other survey
Open the main menu and select Open map.
Tank cave schematics as PDF’s
The booklet is suitable for printing on waterproof paper and carrying with you on a dive. Terraslate does paper suitable for this
This is currently released under a Creative Commons license. Specifically the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license available here. In short this boils down to
You are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes .
- ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Cave diving is dangerous, using this information incorrectly may end up with you dead.