ucfdiver
Contributor
I think I should add this, it might give perspective.
One thing that you guys have to realize, is that true zero viz means you can't see the glow of your light when pointed straight in front of you. Once you can't see, you're following a line that could be trapped, trying to avoid pulling on it so it doesn't break, and things start going faster.
About 2 or 2 1/2 years ago, I dove Telford Springs for the first time. Telford used to be a tourist cave until land access was shut down due to a murder on site and kid who got drunk and broke his neck jumping out of a tree. Since then, silt isn't stirred up and blown out often, so visibility on exit degrades quickly. We started with 50-75ft of viz, and on the way out, had 5, then 10, and finally 15ft just before our exit. This was very unnerving for someone who had only dove Ginnie, Peacock, Jackson Blue, etc, as a "siltout" in these caves typically means 50ft of viz from 200ft.
As time goes on, you get yourself into more and more silt outs as you see more complex cave. You also become more proficient at navigating those silt outs. Since the Telford dive, I've been in varying degrees of silt, luckily progressively worse as I get more comfortable. Even when viz is less than 5ft, I'm averaging less gas coming out with flow than going in.
A few years back, 2 OW divers died in Royal Springs, about p600ft back. I dove there about a year ago, and the entire dive kept thinking to myself "how did OW divers go that far", it's incredibly silty, and a large portion of the community state that "There's 2 reasons to dive Royal, to become a body or retrieve one". My only conclusion with that is that they knew they had silted the place out, attempted to turn around, and went the wrong way. These divers went further than I felt comfortable doing in that cave.
2 weeks ago, I was diving a river cave on the Suwannee, when I saw a jump that looked like it went somewhere, so I hopped over to check it out. After going about 250 ft down it, with a bottle off to avoid scraping the crap out of the rock, I saw that the silt on the ceiling was causing the viz to degrade rapidly. I went to turn around, and the oring on my LP hose decided to blow. After I shut it down, the ruckus had caused a silt out, and I was now in 1-2ft viz. I reached over and grabbed the line, started following it. After a minute or two, the line snapped, leaving me with a loose end. I reached to grab the other end, but all I was doing was stirring up silt. I patiently waited for almost 5 minutes to regain 3-5ft viz, and carefully looked for the line, which I found. After a short travel, I was reunited with the glow of my buddy's light, a great feeling. Waiting 5 minutes frozen in the cave isn't intuitive, it's something that you really need to be told, and there has to be some level of experience knowing when viz is as good as it's going to get for a while, so get out as soon as you can to save gas.
When many of you think about this accident who aren't' familiar with caves, keep in mind that one thing training does is expose you to "training caves", which are caves chosen for training based off of a variety of reasons, the main one being that they're typically larger and less silty than the off the path caves. Unfortunately, Vortex sounds like it has some very nasty passages, but also some very easy ones. Part of training is practicing those WSHTF drills, as well as learning the warning signs. We're taught that fine particles are easy to stir up, but clear fast. Sand is harder to stir, but clears almost instantly. Clay is the hardest to stir up, but stays in the water a very long time. This diver might have never gotten the chance to practice these drills with an instructor for critique, nor did he get the time to dive training caves to practice all skills. No instructor ever pointed out to him that holding still for 5 minutes can allow things to settle and then he can continue on (instinct says to hurry back to fresh air).
Imagine being low on air, with visibility so low that you can't see your light at all. You're crawling out, but can't see where you're going, so each movement makes the silt worse and worse because you're on the ceiling or floor. Not having done any of the required skills, or at least not having been critiqued on them, it's a very scary feeling I'm sure. I think it's very possible this diver meant to head OUT of the cave, and not INTO the cave. I don't have any supporting evidence other than how far back they think he is, these clay silt outs are fairly obvious when they start happening. Put yourself in the shoes of a diver who is at 160ft with gas going fast, knows he's in over his head, can't see anything, and gets slightly disoriented. This diver is going to leave visible marks as he claws his way on the edge of insanity. Previous similar deaths have resulted in divers who have clawed so hard their fingers are extremely torn up.
It's a sad situation, for family, friends, owners of vortex, and the cave community. It could have been prevented, but it wasn't and now the only good we can make out of it is use it as a learning tool. I bet after 30 dives of diving vortex, he knew enough to be confident, but didn't have the experience to know what he was getting himself into. It's very easy to get lulled into a false sense of security by diving the same cave over and over again. Remember that you can scooter Ginnie almost all the way back to the end of the line, even hovering 6in above the bottom with the prop. Then just beyond that, when Marius swam it, the entire system was blown out from silt. Sometimes only a few feet further can completely change a dive. This poor guy could have learned that by taking a class, but didn't. In Sheck's book, he talks about his near death experiences. Someone who most consider one of the greatest cave divers ever nearly died in Jug Hole (easy by today's standards) back when he was inventing the wheel. Fortunately so many mistakes have been made that we think we've devised a system to be as safe as possible, and this guy didn't take advantage of it.
This diver lacked the training and experience. Hopefully I've painted a clear picture of what most divers progress through and it helps you understand just how beyond his experience level this guy was. James T. has an incredible amount of experience in small cave, and if he can't get back there trying hard, I just can't imagine that anyone without cave training would intentionally attempt it.
One thing that you guys have to realize, is that true zero viz means you can't see the glow of your light when pointed straight in front of you. Once you can't see, you're following a line that could be trapped, trying to avoid pulling on it so it doesn't break, and things start going faster.
About 2 or 2 1/2 years ago, I dove Telford Springs for the first time. Telford used to be a tourist cave until land access was shut down due to a murder on site and kid who got drunk and broke his neck jumping out of a tree. Since then, silt isn't stirred up and blown out often, so visibility on exit degrades quickly. We started with 50-75ft of viz, and on the way out, had 5, then 10, and finally 15ft just before our exit. This was very unnerving for someone who had only dove Ginnie, Peacock, Jackson Blue, etc, as a "siltout" in these caves typically means 50ft of viz from 200ft.
As time goes on, you get yourself into more and more silt outs as you see more complex cave. You also become more proficient at navigating those silt outs. Since the Telford dive, I've been in varying degrees of silt, luckily progressively worse as I get more comfortable. Even when viz is less than 5ft, I'm averaging less gas coming out with flow than going in.
A few years back, 2 OW divers died in Royal Springs, about p600ft back. I dove there about a year ago, and the entire dive kept thinking to myself "how did OW divers go that far", it's incredibly silty, and a large portion of the community state that "There's 2 reasons to dive Royal, to become a body or retrieve one". My only conclusion with that is that they knew they had silted the place out, attempted to turn around, and went the wrong way. These divers went further than I felt comfortable doing in that cave.
2 weeks ago, I was diving a river cave on the Suwannee, when I saw a jump that looked like it went somewhere, so I hopped over to check it out. After going about 250 ft down it, with a bottle off to avoid scraping the crap out of the rock, I saw that the silt on the ceiling was causing the viz to degrade rapidly. I went to turn around, and the oring on my LP hose decided to blow. After I shut it down, the ruckus had caused a silt out, and I was now in 1-2ft viz. I reached over and grabbed the line, started following it. After a minute or two, the line snapped, leaving me with a loose end. I reached to grab the other end, but all I was doing was stirring up silt. I patiently waited for almost 5 minutes to regain 3-5ft viz, and carefully looked for the line, which I found. After a short travel, I was reunited with the glow of my buddy's light, a great feeling. Waiting 5 minutes frozen in the cave isn't intuitive, it's something that you really need to be told, and there has to be some level of experience knowing when viz is as good as it's going to get for a while, so get out as soon as you can to save gas.
When many of you think about this accident who aren't' familiar with caves, keep in mind that one thing training does is expose you to "training caves", which are caves chosen for training based off of a variety of reasons, the main one being that they're typically larger and less silty than the off the path caves. Unfortunately, Vortex sounds like it has some very nasty passages, but also some very easy ones. Part of training is practicing those WSHTF drills, as well as learning the warning signs. We're taught that fine particles are easy to stir up, but clear fast. Sand is harder to stir, but clears almost instantly. Clay is the hardest to stir up, but stays in the water a very long time. This diver might have never gotten the chance to practice these drills with an instructor for critique, nor did he get the time to dive training caves to practice all skills. No instructor ever pointed out to him that holding still for 5 minutes can allow things to settle and then he can continue on (instinct says to hurry back to fresh air).
Imagine being low on air, with visibility so low that you can't see your light at all. You're crawling out, but can't see where you're going, so each movement makes the silt worse and worse because you're on the ceiling or floor. Not having done any of the required skills, or at least not having been critiqued on them, it's a very scary feeling I'm sure. I think it's very possible this diver meant to head OUT of the cave, and not INTO the cave. I don't have any supporting evidence other than how far back they think he is, these clay silt outs are fairly obvious when they start happening. Put yourself in the shoes of a diver who is at 160ft with gas going fast, knows he's in over his head, can't see anything, and gets slightly disoriented. This diver is going to leave visible marks as he claws his way on the edge of insanity. Previous similar deaths have resulted in divers who have clawed so hard their fingers are extremely torn up.
It's a sad situation, for family, friends, owners of vortex, and the cave community. It could have been prevented, but it wasn't and now the only good we can make out of it is use it as a learning tool. I bet after 30 dives of diving vortex, he knew enough to be confident, but didn't have the experience to know what he was getting himself into. It's very easy to get lulled into a false sense of security by diving the same cave over and over again. Remember that you can scooter Ginnie almost all the way back to the end of the line, even hovering 6in above the bottom with the prop. Then just beyond that, when Marius swam it, the entire system was blown out from silt. Sometimes only a few feet further can completely change a dive. This poor guy could have learned that by taking a class, but didn't. In Sheck's book, he talks about his near death experiences. Someone who most consider one of the greatest cave divers ever nearly died in Jug Hole (easy by today's standards) back when he was inventing the wheel. Fortunately so many mistakes have been made that we think we've devised a system to be as safe as possible, and this guy didn't take advantage of it.
This diver lacked the training and experience. Hopefully I've painted a clear picture of what most divers progress through and it helps you understand just how beyond his experience level this guy was. James T. has an incredible amount of experience in small cave, and if he can't get back there trying hard, I just can't imagine that anyone without cave training would intentionally attempt it.
