But why add solo diving? What have you observed that has resulted in a cave diving accident because someone was solo diving?
A Weekend In Review....
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OP
ucfdiver
Contributor
From the NACD's homepage-
http://safecavediving.com/accident_analysis_2008.ppt
"51% of trained cave divers who died in caves were on solo dives."
The Ginnie medical death, who knows if he could have been saved by a buddy, he never got the chance. I believe the last 2 Ginnie exploration/mapping deaths were solo, and I would feel safe guessing made mistakes related to being distracted by the urge to map. I don't mean to cop out here, but I really don't feel comfortable discussing specifics since scubaboard ranks so high in search engines. I talked to Ryan C. tonight about heading up to the mill pond and staying with him in tally again here soon, I'd be more than willing to chat about it over lunch, I'll shoot you a PM whenever we set a date.
I don't think that the act of diving solo was the cause of the accidents. You can speculate all sorts of things that could have perhaps prevented the accidents, but you could also speculate that had other divers been present, perhaps there would have been multiple deaths.
_Slacker_
Contributor
Scooters were not included in the original rules since they didn't exist. Since you quoted it, scooters are included in the "new technology" rule. It is nice (cause I do it too) to be able to pick and choose which ones you want to include like "solo" because it fits your mindset and which ones to ignore.
My point was to be careful.
I'm pretty sure that statistic is incorrect. The slide states 72 deaths have involved solo diving. Yet, since we started keeping track of this stuff, there have been almost 600 deaths in caves (over the past 40 years). If the 51% number is correct, then we've only had 141 trained cave divers die in caves. I'm not buying that. Also, even if the trend 40 years ago was that more solo divers died than buddied divers, that's not the case now. You have to put it all in perspective. Sure solo divers were going to be more likely to die 40 years ago when the only redundancy in gear was on your buddy. Over the past 10 years I can only think of 3 solo diving deaths. All involved survey and all involved violation of gas management plans. One involved violation of continuous guideline as well.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating solo diving. But I don't agree with making statements like that without supporting it. And citing a website isn't proper support. Statistics are easy to manipulate. I'm not saying Jeff manipulated any numbers, but when you parcel out the deaths by decade, you see a very different picture, one that, again, shows it's not solo diving that killed the divers, it was the lack of redundant equipment that killed them.
OP
ucfdiver
Contributor
Today I met up with Jerry Murphy at Cave Excursions East and headed to Hart Springs. The cost is currently $2 for a guide, and $20 for the diver being guided.
The descent reminds you a lot of Devil's Ear, except smaller and higher flow, but a water house style fissure crack all the same. Once at the bottom, the cave levels out just past 20ft deep and cuts towards the bridge in my photo I'll post below. The tunnel is reasonably large, but not humongous. You can't stretch your feet just yet, and it's still ferocious flow that made me miss the comparatively weak flow experienced at Ginnie and JB. For about 400ft, it's a challenge to find handholds that are solid enough that you won't break the cave, so be careful. Fortunately having a guide who's been there often, I could just follow his lead.
I'm starting a new paragraph because after 400ft the cave changes. You get beyond "Big Hart" and the flow tremendously decreases while the cave opens up. From here on out, you're going to run a 70ft profile and the cave "squirrel tracks" become substantially less noticeable. One interesting aspect of Hart is that there's several side tunnels that appear almost as big as the main line part of the tunnel. Most caves in the area have one large tunnel and smaller offshoots. Also, if you carefully watch the floor, you'll notice lots and lots of extremely interesting formations just sitting on the ground in the clay.
Around 1000ft of penetration, you'll encounter double arrows, which means you're half way to "Black Lagoon", which will remain a guided system. From here until you pass under the lagoon, you'll notice the sides of the cave have lots of shelves and cracks in the ceiling that make you wonder how many small offshoots can one cave have?
About 200ft short of Black Lagoon, I hit my turn pressure, and we let the flow carry us some 1800ft back to the entrance, with a rare fin kick thrown in to steer our bodies. Opon grabbing our deco bottles, we were greeted with that annoying entrance again, but unlike Devil's Ear, mother nature forgot to install a deco log at 20ft :depressed:
The descent reminds you a lot of Devil's Ear, except smaller and higher flow, but a water house style fissure crack all the same. Once at the bottom, the cave levels out just past 20ft deep and cuts towards the bridge in my photo I'll post below. The tunnel is reasonably large, but not humongous. You can't stretch your feet just yet, and it's still ferocious flow that made me miss the comparatively weak flow experienced at Ginnie and JB. For about 400ft, it's a challenge to find handholds that are solid enough that you won't break the cave, so be careful. Fortunately having a guide who's been there often, I could just follow his lead.
I'm starting a new paragraph because after 400ft the cave changes. You get beyond "Big Hart" and the flow tremendously decreases while the cave opens up. From here on out, you're going to run a 70ft profile and the cave "squirrel tracks" become substantially less noticeable. One interesting aspect of Hart is that there's several side tunnels that appear almost as big as the main line part of the tunnel. Most caves in the area have one large tunnel and smaller offshoots. Also, if you carefully watch the floor, you'll notice lots and lots of extremely interesting formations just sitting on the ground in the clay.
Around 1000ft of penetration, you'll encounter double arrows, which means you're half way to "Black Lagoon", which will remain a guided system. From here until you pass under the lagoon, you'll notice the sides of the cave have lots of shelves and cracks in the ceiling that make you wonder how many small offshoots can one cave have?
About 200ft short of Black Lagoon, I hit my turn pressure, and we let the flow carry us some 1800ft back to the entrance, with a rare fin kick thrown in to steer our bodies. Opon grabbing our deco bottles, we were greeted with that annoying entrance again, but unlike Devil's Ear, mother nature forgot to install a deco log at 20ft :depressed:
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