*sigh*
I don't post here on SB very much anymore. But those who know me, or have been in the water with me will hopefully understand what I am about to say.
After about 75-100 cave dives, I stepped away from it a few years ago. Some speculated it was because of the loss of my friend and former dive buddy at Jackson Blue. Some thought I had just lost interest, or that I got scared from a frightening experience I had in local cave. But really none of that was true.
The sad and true reason I stepped away from the sport was something mentioned a while back in this tread. It was the attitudes surrounding the sport. The attitudes by non-divers, by OW divers, and most often by certified cave divers.
The attitude that unless you push farther, deeper, and longer you are somehow "less qualified" or less of a "caver". The utter dismissal of the concept that someone may only be interested in doing shorter, less complex cave dives, even if they want a full certification card. The concept that the "goal" of diving a cave is not to reach the end of the line necessarily, or push new cave, or add to a map.
As much as we might not like it, our community breeds this thinking. It's ingrained in the training and curriculum, it's a topic of conversation at our annual conferences, and it's in our monthly journals. It is SO easy to get caught up in this beautiful and fun sport. The venturing into the unknown, or never-before seen. The desire to see things we've only read about in books. It's a place of wondrous adventure.
But all too often, it attracts exactly the wrong people to it. While there are hundreds of perfectly calm, responsible cave divers out there, there are the fringe groups who do it for the rush, or who do it for all the wrong reasons. Some of us ignore the warning signs. Others of us, see them, and try to raise the flag only to be summarily ignored. Someone here asked what can we do to save these people. Sadly, sometimes the answer is nothing.
In one case, I spoke to an individual's instructor on more than one occasion. I spoke to the diver twice and it caused a rift which was never healed. Finally, I simply refused to dive with that person again. Inside a year, he was dead.
I've lost friends to this sport. I've watched other friends do recoveries (like one working on this present recovery). And in one notable case, a friend of mine has had to recover another friend. At what point do we as a community own up to our behavior? At what point do we stop selling gas, or giving keys or information to those divers who do not act in the best interest of our sport? They won't police themselves. We have to do it, or watch the sport get vilified in the press, and the sites closed.
Maybe one well known agency has it right with cards that expire. Personally, I like that idea, but it handles the problem on the wrong end. We as a community of divers, instructors, site operators, fill operators, etc, NEED to have a way to recognize those who are consistently abusing our sport, and refuse to give these people the tools, means, and opportunity to put a black eye on the sport. I fear until that coordinated effort happens, we will continue to read about unfortunate accidents such as this. Yea, I know it's very "Big Brother", but if we don't handle the problem the REAL Big Brother will.
Thanks for your time.
