Diver drowns in guided cenote dive

[CuzzA]

@boulderjohn About the training for divers and guides... I think PADI's course outline spells out well what should be the standard for cavern dives including Mexican cenotes. Personally I think these guides should at a minimum be cavern instructors and the vacationing divers should have cavern training/certification before being allowed to enter them. From what I gather, I believe this course really starts hammering the point about diving conservatively and driving home the point why no one should enter a cave without first being trained. You would know better than me as I don't have cavern/cave training. But from what little knowledge I have, logic tells me from the blueprint/training standards that are already in place this is how it should be done.

If we're looking for anything to learn from this incident regarding Mexican cenote diving I think it's pretty clear Mexico's professional dive community has a problem with the almighty dollar and violating standards (already mentioned before). The solution would be to require/offer cavern certifications for those visiting that don't have them. I'm sure it would piss a bunch of people off, but tough. I'm confident it will have very little effect on the guides bottom line and in fact may increase it with the extra course fees. People want to dive these location. They will pay for the training. Ironically the Mexican guides can take a page out of Trumps playbook... "You're gonna pay for the training." (Sorry, I couldn't resist. )

No professional charter/guide will take us to dive most of the wrecks in South Florida without AOW. Why not treat these cenotes with the same level of caution they truly demand? I know some argue it's an insurance thing or it's silly because AOW is not all that advanced, but I think it shows not only the insurance companies, but also the charters that people with AOW have a little more experience and commitment to diving and likely are better/safer divers.

http://blue-immersion.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/PADI-Cavern-Course-Standards-Overview.pdf

 

[boulderjohn]

About the training for divers and guides... I think PADI's course outline spells out well what should be the standard for cavern dives including Mexican cenotes.

What PADI course outline? Are you talking about the OW student manual?

If so, no it doesn't. The current manual says in plain language that divers should not go into any overhead environment without proper training and experience. Well, that brings us to the same question I asked earlier, only it extends to all overhead environments. What is the proper training and experience needed to swim under the anchor chain? There is a natural arch in a hotel's snorkeling site in Cozumel through which barely competent snorkelers swim regularly--what training and experience will be required for a scuba diver to pass through it?

I contacted PADI last year to ask about that language, and the person who responded did not know how to answer that question. She told me she would put me in contact with the person who wrote that language. After a month, I asked her again. She said she was having trouble contacting him. I still haven't heard. Maybe I'll give it another try this year. Until I hear differently, I will assume PADI does not know what their policy means.

This exchange happened a couple years after my exchange with them on the same topic. The PADI representative with whom I discussed it, Steve Mortell, is a cave diver. He is no longer with PADI, though, so I can't talk to him about it any more. I pointed out the problem with such a broad and ambiguous statement, the problem I mentioned earlier in this thread. When OW divers are taught that they should never go into ANY overhead environment and then go to a place like Cozumel where it happens all the time in the swim throughs without any incidents, they decide the rule is a crock, and once they do that, there is no rule. They have no guidance whatsoever. That exchange eventually led PADI to approve the outline for my course "Understanding Overhead Environments."

So back to the question I asked to start this post--what PADI course outline are you talking about? If you mean the outline for "Understanding Overhead Environments, then yes, it does talk about the kind of training and experience one should have before entering a Mexican Cenote. Unfortunately, the only way you will get that training is to find me and take the course.

 

[boulderjohn]

No professional charter/guide will take us to dive most of the wrecks in South Florida without AOW.

You're kidding me, right?

I am sitting in Pompano Beach in South Florida right now. I have dived the local recreational level wrecks during my annual visits for 16 years now. During those years I have used 5 different operators. Not one of them requires AOW for the wrecks at recreational depths. I have seen cases in which some of the divers were entering the wrecks on their first dives after certification. Last year the DM I encountered on many of the dives would say something along these lines in her briefing: "You can penetrate within the daylight area, as long as you can clearly see your way out at all times. Don't go any farther than that." She is no longer around, and I haven't heard anything like that in the two months I have been here this year.

The web site descriptions of the wrecks on some operator web sites SUGGEST AOW, but they do not require it. Diving the deeper wrecks requires technical certification. If you go to the Spiegel Grove in Key Largo, many of the operators will require AOW. For most of the wrecks, though, nothing beyond OW is required.

 

[CuzzA]

@boulderjohn my apologies, I should have been more clear. I was referring directly to PADI's Cavern Course linked at the bottom of my post. Shouldn't those standards apply to diving some of these cenotes in Mexico? Both for the divers and the guides/resorts?

It seems to me that I could hop on a plane this morning and head to Mexico with just my AOW cert and be exploring caverns and the entrance of some caves this afternoon without any sort of training. I realize some of these sites aren't terribly dangerous, but some are.

Thoughts? Btw, I'm not being argumentative.

 

[boulderjohn]

@boulderjohn my apologies, I should have been more clear. I was referring directly to PADI's Cavern Course linked at the bottom of my post. Shouldn't those standards apply to diving some of these cenotes in Mexico? Both for the divers and the guides/resorts?

If you go to Mexico right now, you can go into a cavern WITH A GUIDE--not on your own.

With a cavern course, the theory is that the diver is able to enter a cavern WITHOUT a guide.

 

[CuzzA]

You're kidding me, right?

I am sitting in Pompano Beach in South Florida right now. I have dived the local recreational level wrecks during my annual visits for 16 years now. During those years I have used 5 different operators. Not one of them requires AOW for the wrecks at recreational depths. I have seen cases in which some of the divers were entering the wrecks on their first dives after certification. Last year the DM I encountered on many of the dives would say something along these lines in her briefing: "You can penetrate within the daylight area, as long as you can clearly see your way out at all times. Don't go any farther than that." She is no longer around, and I haven't heard anything like that in the two months I have been here this year.

The web site descriptions of the wrecks on some operator web sites SUGGEST AOW, but they do not require it. Diving the deeper wrecks requires technical certification. If you go to the Spiegel Grove in Key Largo, many of the operators will require AOW. For most of the wrecks, though, nothing beyond OW is required.

Thank you for clarifying. I haven't made it over to South Florida. The AOW/Charter topic is just one that is constantly brought up here on SB so given that, I formed the assumption that was the case. I had no idea all these folks on here were making it up.

 

[CuzzA]

If you go to Mexico right now, you can go into a cavern WITH A GUIDE--not on your own.

With a cavern course, the theory is that the diver is able to enter a cavern WITHOUT a guide.

Could I penetrate a wreck in South Florida with a guide? Or a cave in North Florida with a guide?

 

[oya]

Well John, now you're just being silly. Cave divers don't go on guided cavern dives.

If you go to Mexico right now, you can go into a cavern WITH A GUIDE--not on your own.
With a cavern course, the theory is that the diver is able to enter a cavern WITHOUT a guide.

Apart from the tenets and the comprehensive abuse training one receives in cave training, something else non-cave divers may not know. Something that might help them better understand why cave divers get so upset about deviations from the rules that cause preventable fatalities (on top of the tragically preventable fatality itself).

In Mexico one blowback from these fatalities has been that several cenote owners have instituted a guide policy for even certified cave divers. That is, if I show up to a cave that I know well and want to go diving with my trusted buddy (my wife), we may need to employ and pay a total stranger as a guide.

This is not the same as tropical boat DMing. This is not just someone who knows where the frogfish lives. This is into a cave... that is (no exaggeration) deadly serious. I have close friends that I won't go cave diving with because we have different philosophies and styles. A total stranger?? Not a chance. Instead, now, there are cave systems that I would very much like to go to, but won't, because I don't want to dive with their required guide... a person who may or may not be bringing uncertified divers into the cave zone which is a VERY different diving philosophy to my own.

So, non-cave divers. Now you know. THAT is why we get angry about preventable fatalities of people who were breaking well established rules.

I'm not going to say "No cavern tours ever for anyone!" But the way that it's done in MX these days is far too careless and market-driven. I goddamn dare you to tell the bereaved family of the victim, "Well, thousands of times a year it goes just fine!"

 

[boulderjohn]

Could I penetrate a wreck in South Florida with a guide? Or a cave in North Florida with a guide?

You absolutely can penetrate a wreck in South Florida without a guide--assuming we are talking about the very many wrecks that are part of the artificial reef system. Most of the operators do not put a DM/Guide in the water. They only care that you show up at the boat when you are done.

No, you cannot go into a north Florida CAVE with a guide.

Here's the difference. There is a difference between the terms "wreck" and "cave." There is no real definition of a wreck. It can be anything from the Copenhagen, which is pretty much just débris scattered about in very shallow water, to a real wreck with complex, unmarked passages and all kinds of potential entanglements ready to snare you. All of the recreational wrecks dives in South Florida (other than the wreckage of the Copenhagen) were intentionally sunk as a part of the artificial reef program. They have lots of escape points, and they have been cleared of potential entanglements. You really can't get lost. In contrast, a cave is well defined. It is different from a cavern. Its dangers are clear. You can get very lost very easily.

 

[boulderjohn]

The PADI technical program does a much better job of talking about extending personal limits than do their recreational courses. This is particularly true of the trimix course, since there is no course after that, and divers have nothing but their own judgment to determine the degree to which they can extend their limits.

There are certain hard and fast rules about training, such as you find with caves, but for much of diving, it all does come down to judgment. You have to be able to make a realistic appraisal of the challenges of a proposed dive and an equally realistic appraisal of your own training, experience, and equipment to determine if you are ready for that dive. The problem we have is the lack of any real guidance in the basic recreational programs to help people make those judgments.