For PfcAJ or one of the other experienced Florida cave divers, what kind of gas planning would you use in setting up a traverse through a siphon like this? 1/4s? 1/6s?
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Without in any way defending the sloppy overhead skills and gear-selection choices shown in the videos Britton has posted, this argument is among the most obnoxious of those I regularly see advanced to "educate" a diver with whose risk choices the "wiser" poster disagrees.
No diver, whether "properly" trained or otherwise, has any right to expect rescue from anyone outside their immediate team should things go wrong. Nor do they have a right to expect someone else to come get their corpse if they die. Personally, I think leaving them in there would serve a number of useful functions, though in certain sites I'm sure the sheer aggregate volume of bodies and gear would eventually cause problems.
But no rescuer has any obligation to go in after someone reported missing/overdue/dead, and those who choose to do so are making their own risk assessment and doing the rescue/corpse recovery of their own free will. It is freely choosing to do a risky dive out of the goodness of their hearts that makes rescuers like Edd Sorensen such heroic bads. To the extent the argument is that there are public servants whose job requires them to conduct rescue/recovery dives, I will remain unpersuaded until we start forcibly conscripting people into those jobs.
Any claim that "proper" certification negates, rather than reduces, the chance of needing rescue or recovery is laughable, so if potentially putting would-be rescuers/recovery divers at risk was really something we had a moral obligation to consider, we should all be avoiding any dive with the potential for their involvement. And that would really cut down on available dive sites.
I'm not saying right or wrong, but all those people you mention who do searches and body recoveries do it by choice. There's a reason lost people are left for dead on the mountain in the Himalayas. It's too dangerous to the search team to make it worth the effort to recover them. IF cave diving took this same attitude, perhaps we'd see less stupid human tricks with respect to cave diving. Perhaps not. Let's not try to imply that anyone is OBLIGATED to go on a search or body recovery though. Is it the right thing to do? Sure, sometimes. Is it mandated? Absolutely not.My guess is you're lucky enough to have never been around a diving fatality, search or rescue. What happens is that someone comes up screaming for help (best case scenario I suppose), let's say the missing diver's family is having a picnic on the sand and they start crying and screaming. Edd was in the water in something like 15 minutes and found the diver totally out of gas. Zero. Another minute and he would have been dead. You can ask him about the specifics. Do you think he could have said "Ah, no, I haven't had lunch and I'm really not feeling it right now, call the police . . ."? Do you think any police department, anywhere, has a certified cave diver on staff? I'd be surprised if there are any in the world. If you're unlucky enough not to have a Sorenson nearby, and you die, who do you think is going to come and retrieve your body? The police can't do it--they don't have anyone qualified. It's always the local cave divers who get that grim task. I can tell you that my friends were called upon to do one earlier this year and the details would put you off your food for a while.
Smart tech instructor dude Steve Lewis wrote a really good article about this issue. I'm paraphrasing here but his point was that these are not "accidents" where some UNKNOWN danger causes something unexpected. He argues that "misadventure" is a better term because the untrained/undertrained divers KNOW they are not supposed to be there and choose to ignore the obvious danger (and grim reaper sign telling them to stop).
Cave diving training absolutely reduces the possibilty of an "accident", I'm sure the statistics bear this out and you can go look them up or whatever. As for misadventures, I fear for my friends who are called upon to save the foolish or recover their bodies. Unless you've experienced a grieving family begging you to go look for their dead loved one, I'd back off the suggestion that it's easy to just say no. The cave divers have worked for YEARS to get access to many of these sites that were closed because untrained people went in there and killed themselves. Everytime someone dies, the response is that cave diving is unsafe and it should be regulated/banned etc. The non-diving public doesn't understand the difference between trained and untrained divers in caves, but you all should be able to grasp it.
What is the resistance to the training? Y'all are eager to plunk down $2,000 to go to Cozumel, do a week of gumby diving and drink tequila, and learn nothing. Take that same money and do something constructive with it, and every aspect of your diving will improve. But whatever you do, please stay out of caves until you get some training. The cave divers are going to have to come get you, your family won't sleep until your body is recovered, trust me on this.
Post script, Britt, I took a quick look at the Manatee vid on youtube. No redundant air source, looks like yoke regs, no long loses that I could see, no technique, etc. All you'd have to do is knock that yoke off on the ceiling and you both would have probably died. Please, pursue the training.
A certain segment, perhaps even a large segment of the cave divers who post on line can come across as being a little judgmental and egotistical. It goes with the territory. What is less obvious though is that most cave divers start out underestimating what cave diving involves, then take Cavern, Intro, and Full Cave classes, and then sooner or later realize that cave diving is a life long learning process where there is always something more to be learned. So many of them understand your position as to one degree or another they were in a very similar position at some point in time in terms of either desire or in actual fact, but wisely made a decision to seek training.I really never wanted the attention this video has brought and I don't believe all those commenting are genuinely concerned. They are more concerned with demonstrating their own professional techniques and how far above all the rest they stand. You though....I believe you are genuinely interested in helping divers grow and enjoy the environment. I'll keep your offer in mind, but rest assured, we will experience a great deal more instruction and guidance before we venture into any cave dive more involved than what we are currently diving.
I need to change the wording in the YouTube video. I meant it to indicate we went in the direction of Sue's Sink, but it seems to have been perceived as though we made the entire passage. We only explored a little ways in as a taste to what cave diving was like and to see if we wanted to pursue this type of diving any further. We've been diving on our own in overhead environments for over a year now and so a friend who is also a regular cave diver offered to show us a few things...It wasn't an official cave class.
As for the 1000 psi while still in the system, this was right at the mouth of the cave and we could already see ambient light. For all of you who have made reference to my soon to come death or the death of my son or husband...We only take risks we are comfortable with and we would never put ourselves in a position that increased the liklihood of our deaths without taking every precaution we possibly could, short of just staying on the couch! We were never in a position of danger and we were very competent in our diving ability. You risk death everyday, simply by leaving the comfort of your home. Life was meant to live and we plan to live it!
For all of you who have made reference to my soon to come death or the death of my son or husband...We only take risks we are comfortable with and we would never put ourselves in a position that increased the liklihood of our deaths without taking every precaution we possibly could, short of just staying on the couch!