Do cave divers need wreck training?
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DevonDiver
N/A
There's several issues:
1. I'm not a hypocrite and I endeavour to role model what I teach. As a PADI wreck instructor you'll be familiar with teaching this...
2. Laying line is bloody easy, quick and few divers get anywhere near enough practice doing it.
3. Normalisation of Deviance starts with compromises and justifications for not bothering to apply what you've been taught to do. Most dive accidents involve a compromise or justification somewhere along the chain.
4. I've seen equally benign wrecks turn treacherous very quickly. A small collapse, some silt and a minor entanglement can cause many divers to stress which can snowball into a harmful scenario.
All it takes is a little silt, a bit of protruding metal snagging a BCD or hose, stress...and suddenly a 'good' diver starts doing very counter-productive things that might harm or kill them.
Just the other year a wreck here, almost identical to the one featured suffered a massive collapse.. no warning or sign.. dived daily by recreational divers. Last year, in another wreck, a 2x1m section of bulkhead spontaneously collapsed on me from 15ft overhead, disturbed only by bubbles.. and reduced viz to absolute zero throughout the whole area. These things happen - when they do you're either prepared or not. If you're not its terrifying... and you're reliant solely on luck.
Whether you've personally experienced this, believe it or not, is immaterial. It happens Everyone who died in a wreck made the assumption that day that nothing would go wrong and they'd be fine.
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I notice you did not answer the question.
DevonDiver
N/A
You think?
I will repeat what I have said several times in past threads related to the PADI wreck diving course, about which I am highly critical. The main problem can be summed up this way: its wording is extremely poor because of its omissions. After a lengthy discussion about it with PADI headquarters, they admitted the problems. I suggested alternative wording. They said it was excellent and would be used at some time in future revisioins. Here are the key issues with the current wording:
- It does not mention the difference between a swim-through as seen in the video I just posted and a penetration. For them, a swim through such as you see in the video is not a penetration. In a penetration you enter laying line, and you return to your point of origin picking up that line. They consider a simple swim through to be open water. They even pointed me to a Training Bulletin that said short, simple swim-throughs can be included in OW training dives.
- They do not explain that the limits described in the course are like the limits of all other courses. They are for you present level of training and experience. As your training and/or experience grow, you can exceed those limits. It is up to you to exercise good judgment in that regard. For example, the course says penetrations can never exceed the light zone. (Really? No wreck diver anywhere exceeds the light zone in a wreck?) What the course does not say (but which they believe) is that you can exceed the light zone when you are ready for it. (to emphasize, for them the phrase "training and experience" means any combination of the two.)
Yep.
In that video, divers enter a brightly lit and wide open wheel house at a depth of about 45 feet and swim a few feet across the room to exit through the other door.
Would you have laid line in that situation? Would you have tied off that line, swum in 6-8 feet, turned around, swum back, and untied your line?
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PfcAJ
Contributor
Iirc the lowrance is pretty open except for a few spots and there are permanent lines running fore and aft on each side of the wreck.
DevonDiver
N/A
I think I explained quite clearly in my previous reply. I'm not quite sure what you aren't understanding.
I've seen equally benign wrecks turn nasty in seconds. That taught me to never be complacent or cut corners.
To someone yet to experience the same lessons, it may seems excessive. I understand that.
At the end of the day, when is running 8ft of line a major chore?
Someone's either proficient... and its a zero-effort task. Or they're not yet proficient and can benefit from the practice.
One day you might need it.. and by not making compromises or allowing lame justifications to excuse what's quintessentially just a lazy decision .. you go home safely when you might otherwise have not.
Pay particular attention to the final sentence.
You wouldn't see a cave instructor posting video of a benign appearing overhead and asking if it needed a guideline. This is why wreck instructors have a low reputation amongst cavers... and why this thread exists.
I've seen equally benign wrecks turn nasty in seconds. That taught me to never be complacent or cut corners.
To someone yet to experience the same lessons, it may seems excessive. I understand that.
At the end of the day, when is running 8ft of line a major chore?
Someone's either proficient... and its a zero-effort task. Or they're not yet proficient and can benefit from the practice.
One day you might need it.. and by not making compromises or allowing lame justifications to excuse what's quintessentially just a lazy decision .. you go home safely when you might otherwise have not.
Pay particular attention to the final sentence.
You wouldn't see a cave instructor posting video of a benign appearing overhead and asking if it needed a guideline. This is why wreck instructors have a low reputation amongst cavers... and why this thread exists.
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My understanding is clear--you are artfully trying to squirm out of answering the questions.
Here they are again. There are two questions. Each one of them can be answered with either "Yes" or "No." I would like to see such an answer.
In that video, divers enter a brightly lit and wide open wheel house at a depth of about 45 feet and swim a few feet across the room to exit through the other door.
Would you have laid line in that situation? Would you have tied off that line, swum in 6-8 feet, turned around, swum back, and untied your line?
Would you have laid line in that situation? Would you have tied off that line, swum in 6-8 feet, turned around, swum back, and untied your line?
The Lowrance is indeed wide open, and I don't think anyone was taking anything resembling a serious risk when they went through it without laying line.
As I said, that is the big difference between caves and wrecks:
- All caves are by definition out of the light zone. In the vast majority of cases, the cave dive will enter and return through the same opening, and there will be a potential for navigation errors making such a return. Consequently, laying line is always a part of cave diving. There is supposed to be no judgment to be made regarding this.
- In wreck diving, entering the overhead environment entails a wide range of circumstances, starting with short, brightly lit swim-throughs with no entanglement hazard and no risk of silt and continuing at the other end of the range to dark, deep rooms filled with entanglement hazards and fine black silt. At one end of this range, even the most beginning OW diver can negotiate the short swim-through easily. At the other extreme, only the most experienced and skilled wreck divers should even consider it. What this means for wreck training is that wreck divers have to learn to use good judgment in deciding when entrance to the overhead is within their ability and whether that entrance includes the necessity of laying line.
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