spoolin01
Contributor
No, I got that, it just wasn't germaine to the point I was trying to make. Cave diving CAN be dangerous, some do die, the message to be careful about cave diving (includes training) is important. To my point, the way risk is discussed on SB and in particular in the Basic forum, might also be worth considering.Neither do I. However, if you actually look at the link, you'll see that every site description also has an English (well, Google Translate English) description.
Did you miss my point that that video was shot in exactly the same cave where four divers died quite uncomfortably back in 2012? Hard to tell how dangerous that cave is, eh?
On the off-chance that a diver deviates from the standards of super-safe, no one ever gets hurt, sport diving... they put their heads just inside a cave (or wreck, or coral overhang, or bit more depth that they're trained for) they can die.
This kind of melodramatic hyperbole is why it's difficult to have productive discussions about topics like this. For the most part - and I mean a really really large part - diving is safe and in fact quite easy to make almost perfectly safe, and it's almost unheard of (sure, there are exceptions that prove the rule) for anyone to die from putting their heads just inside a cave. Or even their whole body. Even by several body lengths.To say that diving is safe or can be safe is a fallacy.
If you love to harp on the dangers, the onus should be on you to specify the dimensions under which the way YOU dive is dangerous, or what exact aspects you see to have introduced danger. "Underwater" or "overhead" just doesn't express it.
IMO the kind of click-bait FUD spamming that started this post is of limited value and may be detrimental overall.
But most of the time, one can indeed just leave the situation.If you could just step out of an underwater cave when things got dicey, the video in OP wouldn't seem so pertinent either. The problem is that one cannot.
That final non-sequitur aside, this is a good point that is indeed not going to be intuitive to many or most divers. It's also not going to be pertinent to all dives into an overhead environment, even cave.Let's make a quick test. Ask your *non diving* friends about seeing an underwater cave and *itemizing* potential dangers. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that exactly zero will list stirring up silt and not being able to find the way out. That's enough to sink (no pun intended) the theory that "going into underwater caves is a self-evident risk."
That wasn't being done that I can recall. To the contrary it's more often presented as the risks are there, and always extreme regardless of context.To be fair, I see and partially agree with your point of view about not scaring new divers, but I think there is a better way of showing how safe OW diving is than pretending risks in certain environments don't exist.
Someone earlier made this same odd assertion regarding walking into a cave seeming just like swimming into one. Being underwater imposes it's own sense of alien environment and danger, I just don't buy that people are not more cautious about doing things underwater. Fear of drowning is a powerful motivator, and hard to quell for many.The problem is to define "under the similar conditions" when pitfalls are not obvious and where common sense *outside the water* is significantly different from what happens *inside the water.*
And for good reason. The outcomes in those sports are obviously going to be of a more binary nature with respect to injury and death than rec scuba. This would be more akin to going on a bicycling forum and constantly being harangued about the dangers.When I got my Private Pilot's license, it was made clear by both my instructors and by the check pilot/designated examiner that it was a "license to learn" and that exceeding my training, experience or skill level was a good way to get dead.
You'll find similar warnings in skydiving, paragliding, hang gliding, ultralight flying, or any other sport that is serious about self policing itself to avoid having the government step in with greater limitations and regulations.
---------- Post added December 4th, 2015 at 10:00 AM ----------
I wholeheartedly agree that taking charge of your own safety is no one else's responsibility, and that as a corollary entrusting your life to a pro should be done with a great degree of informed skepticism. Yet exactly what is flogged here day in and day out is to seek out professionals, just make sure it's a good one.If they recognized the inherent danger, then why did they go?
"Maybe they just trusted the pro?" Only one person is responsible for your safety and that is you! This is a maxim that I was taught in my OW class. If you weren't then your training was deficient. No ... you don't just put your trust in a "pro" ... many of those people have amazingly little experience. You DO know that you can become a divemaster with as little as 60 dives, and relatively little experience outside of a classroom ... right?
Do you REALLY just put your trust in a person with that much expertise? The DM who led those people in Italy to their deaths had zero ... ZERO ... overhead training. How much did he know about the potential dangers before he took them in there? Obviously, not enough ... or they wouldn't have died.
The irony ... or perhaps tragedy ... is that the majority of divers in the world DO put their trust in someone they never even met before they started their vacation. They know NOTHING about this person, and yet they "just trusted the pro". In scuba diving, that's a great way to end up dead.
Maybe instead you should learn to rely on your own sense of self-preservation. But that would require you to first develop one ... and that starts with the acknowledgement that you're in an environment where ignorance could kill you quick, and maybe you should do something to reduce your level of ignorance rather than relying on a total stranger to keep you safe.
In recreational endeavors where ignorance and inattention can kill you quick? Absolutely it's common. Try skydiving or rock climbing sometime. They'll certainly make you aware of how easy inattention can kill you, and why it's important to take responsibility for your own safety. Or do you suppose that a skydiving instructor will tell you that it's OK to just let a "pro" pack your chute for you?
Great example of how not understanding the dangers can lead to emphasis on the wrong things. Being within sight of daylight is all well and good until somebody kicks up the bottom to the point where you can't see the daylight anymore. Then ... which way to you go to get out?
What do you suppose killed those people?
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
If the point is that on the one hand you need more training *from a professional*, this cert and that cert *from a professional*, mentoring and guidance *from a professional* - and that is pretty much the ONLY way advancement is presented by the professionals on this board, and on the other "oh, don't forget, taking a professional's advice will get you killed", the whole concept and messaging behind this self-policing needs reworking. The professionals part I mean. Maybe the irony wasn't so obvious as I thought.
Also, skydiving and rock climbing are terrible analogies to rec scuba.