Diver drowns in guided cenote dive

[The Chairman]

Are you saying divers should not do guided CAVERN dives

John,

People are going to make their own decisions. It's always been my position that people should dive within their limits. Cavern divers should stay within cavern limits and so on.

The problems here:

• OW divers are heading into cavern zones and worse with a guide who is NOT a cave/cavern instructor.
• There is not enough signage about the inherent dangers of cave diving on the surface.
• Not enough signage under water either.
  
• The inherent dangers are often downplayed.
• People die needlessly.
• The culture does not foment safety, but economic opportunism.

 

[oya]

Has anyone brought up the Deceptively Easy Way to Die thread that was so lively a few weeks ago?

The one where people kept arguing, "No, no, no! We can't show scary movies to OW students. There isn't any point anyway!"

 

[JohnnyC]

My issue is that people are still talking like this was a cavern diver who died. It's not, at some point his cavern dive became a cave dive. He died IN THE CAVE ZONE. There are definitely "CAVErn" dives in Mexico as Forrest Wilson called them. That is definitely an issue that no one in Mexico is going to deal with because it makes $$$$$, and lots of it. And realistically, a cavern dive in Calavera shouldn't be dangerous at all. The problem lies in the fact that the true cavern dives in Mexico suck (except for The Pit, that's an excellent example of a good cavern dive), so the industry has developed this blind eye to stretching the rules in what is considered a cavern. It really is the personal responsibility of every diver to say, "wait, this isn't right, I'm thumbing the dive," because there's certainly no one else that's going to do that.

 

[Jax]

What about the fact that thousands of people get their first introduction to caves this way, without dying? After all, if the diver failed to follow . . . .

 

[Jax]

How do you lose track of one out of three divers?

If a diver deliberately leaves a group?

 

[oya]

If a diver deliberately leaves a group?

Point.

 

[The Chairman]

This guide had THREE people.

From what I'm reading, this guide had only two divers to look after. Two. Am I missing something here?

 

[boulderjohn]

Here's the problem:

In this post you say it is a simple decision making process. You clearly advocate a "Just Say No" campaign against ALL cavern dives by anyone not CAVE certified.

Somehow, I don't think DeJoy is a cave diver either. Way too complicated.

Since you like boxes, here's a far saner and safer decision tree for deciding whether to dive in a Cenote or not...

View attachment 369296​

I asked you to clarify if that is what you really believe, and you wrote this:

John,

People are going to make their own decisions. It's always been my position that people should dive within their limits. Cavern divers should stay within cavern limits and so on.

The problems here:

• OW divers are heading into cavern zones and worse with a guide who is NOT a cave/cavern instructor.
• There is not enough signage about the inherent dangers of cave diving on the surface.
• Not enough signage under water either.
  
• The inherent dangers are often downplayed.
• People die needlessly.
• The culture does not foment safety, but economic opportunism.

I don't see how that clarifies anything. You are identifying what you perceive to be problems, not clarifying your solution.

I'll ask again: do you believe that no one should take a guided cavern dive unless cave certified? If not, what do you believe?

 

[boulderjohn]

It is easy to get away from the most watchful guide if you want to. I do it regularly to DM candidates to see how long it takes for them to realize I am gone. They can't watch you all the time, so all you need to do is make a quick move behind some obstacle or go up or down quickly.

Over the years we have had many, many threads in which people brag about how they get away from DMs when policies require them to follow one.

 

[oya]

From what I'm reading, this guide had only two divers to look after. Two. Am I missing something here?

"Not long after they entered the water did the 26 and 27-year-old women, both from Germany, notice the third person, a 26-year-old male from Spain, had wandered away from the group.
The group entered the cenote around 2:00 p.m. with their guide. The two women said they were in the water for about 30 minutes when they noticed the man was no longer with the group. The trio set out to find the fourth diver"

Close reading, Pete! That's why SB is such a nexus of disinformation... the Chairman can't even count to three!