Cave Navigation Book
- Thread starter Woolfie19
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Why do we need 100 pages with specific instructions when "leave **** on the exit side" covers it? I'm not trolling now. I honestly think that if you need 100 pages the protocols can not be correct, what am I missing?
DiveLikeAMuppet
Contributor
You can always find some edge cases, I find it useful to have diagrams and to be able to discuss what could be a good/bad approach.
I wonder how much of it comes from poor line planning. I remember someone describing their mine's lines. Near the entrance was a room with pillars where like two or three tunnels on each side connected together. And what they ended up was a mess of Tees, which seemed super complex for no reason.
So I finally got to read the book after having it delivered to the UK. It still cost $50 all together with shipping which was excessive, but it is a quality book.
It is definitely written from a Mexico cave perspective but I believe most of what it says applies to us in Florida as well. As previous posters said it doesn't give any new way of doing things, rather it puts in pictures what the common existing protocols say in words. The book is mostly diagrams of different line layouts and how to use markers to navigate them. I was hoping it might go into some more complex line layouts but what it has is solid. Where there are a few different approaches, such as team vs individual markers, and securing jump lines to markers vs directly to the line, it gives multiple illustrations showing the different options.
The book is firmly against using personal arrows as markers for jumps. Instead it promotes using cookies or REMs to avoid changing the existing navigation layout of the cave. It doesn't suggest a preference between cookies and REMs, it just explains how they are used differently.
It also advised against tying into permanent arrows for jumps, and this is one of the topics where it differs from some common Florida cave diving practices.
The beginning of the book is geared towards exploration, explaining line use and relevant knots.
In summary, I think this would be a great companion book to a standard cave textbook as it is more in depth on line and marker use, and has more examples than any other book I have seen. I think it would be especially useful to instructors as the diagrams would be a great dryland training aid.
Hopefully it can become more commonly available over here and avoid the excess shipping charges.
It is definitely written from a Mexico cave perspective but I believe most of what it says applies to us in Florida as well. As previous posters said it doesn't give any new way of doing things, rather it puts in pictures what the common existing protocols say in words. The book is mostly diagrams of different line layouts and how to use markers to navigate them. I was hoping it might go into some more complex line layouts but what it has is solid. Where there are a few different approaches, such as team vs individual markers, and securing jump lines to markers vs directly to the line, it gives multiple illustrations showing the different options.
The book is firmly against using personal arrows as markers for jumps. Instead it promotes using cookies or REMs to avoid changing the existing navigation layout of the cave. It doesn't suggest a preference between cookies and REMs, it just explains how they are used differently.
It also advised against tying into permanent arrows for jumps, and this is one of the topics where it differs from some common Florida cave diving practices.
The beginning of the book is geared towards exploration, explaining line use and relevant knots.
In summary, I think this would be a great companion book to a standard cave textbook as it is more in depth on line and marker use, and has more examples than any other book I have seen. I think it would be especially useful to instructors as the diagrams would be a great dryland training aid.
Hopefully it can become more commonly available over here and avoid the excess shipping charges.
mr_v
Contributor
Subscribed. Take some pics of line diagrams for us and post them here ;-)
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