Do NOT Touch! Just Venting

[GDI]

Is this other cave divers taking the equipment? If it is in the system then I would think it is and the of all people they should know better. Or is the equipment in a location where non cave divers can get to it.

Both, Scarey isn't it

 

[GDI]

Just checked on TDS and there is that thread on a stolen gap reel, so i guess it does happen and looking at the dates i would say that GDI seeing and responding to that thread also prompted him to start this one here.

You are correct Simon. There have been other incidents though. Some times they are mistaken identity which is why marking ones gear is so important. Other times it has been out right theft and by cave and non cave divers alike as well as passerby's. It just gets me considering the cost of learning to cave dive with the training and the equipment and all.
In the service we had a way of dealing with these kind of people, it had something to do with alot of stairs and blankets. In the middle east they have unique ways as well. They cut the hands off thieves.

My intent for posting here is to alert others

 

[simbrooks]

There have been other incidents though. Some times they are mistaken identity which is why marking ones gear is so important. Other times it has been out right theft and by cave and non cave divers alike as well as passerby's. It just gets me considering the cost of learning to cave dive with the training and the equipment and all.

I dont think this was entirely what you were aiming at (just monetary inconvenience), but i would think that the safety aspect, or at best inconvenience of having to find your way out or do your deco on back gas would be the overiding PITA (of course there is a worst case). I know i have dropped a chunk of change already in the first year of diving (or at least by this weekend), at least 5 figures on diving - classes, trips, equipment, fills etc - i'd hate to see any of that go up in smoke/get stolen. I've heard of a lot of incidents in the open picnic areas or on stairs, even a few in the OW areas, but this thread on the TDS/CDF was the first i had heard of things going missing inside a cave.

 

[cdiver2]

Both, Scarey isn't it

That another cave diver would touch someones equipment as has been said it surely would lead to at least a manslaughter charge.
When I was 15 years old I went with my farther one Saturday to work on a building sight. One of the workers was caught stealing from jackets left in the break hut, Every worker went into the hut and they took a ball peen hammer to his hands. Bet he never stole again.

 

[Jason B]

Blanket Party!

 

[opiniongirl]

That is SO brutal..

I'm a chicken to enter into any type of diving where what I need ain't on me....hats off to you cave folk, you're a brave breed - might be a good idea to contact local media - make an interesting story, and get a diving lawyers opinion on what type of charge could ensue - and mention it in the article.

unbelievable....

 

[MikeFerrara]

I've heard of lots of cases of O2 bottle being taken at places like Ginnie. We were working on a survey project at Votex and some free divers were going down and messing with out O2 bottles. I was diiving setup and support, caught them and made sure there was plenty of O2 in the water for our exiting divers. After that Connie made anouncements on the intercom every day telling people what kind of trouble they could cause my messing with our stuff but after that we made sure everything was hidden in the cave...pain in the butt.

I can't even imagine a cave diver who would intentionally take another cave divers gap reel knowing it could get the other diver killed. All for a cheap little spool or reel? It's hard to believe. This person would have to be a sociopath on par with a mass murderer.

We never do a dive were we can't handle the loss of one of our decompression gasses but on a deep or long dive where you're using several there isn't any way that you're going to do that much deco on back gas so if some one swam down the line taking all your gas you'd be toast.

One of the nice things about diving in caves is that you can drop all that stuff. In open water I wouldn't want to do a dive where I used three decompression gasses and a stage but we do it all the time in caves. If some one wanted to kill you by taking all your stuff though you wouldn't have a chance.

I've heard a few things lately that make it sound like cave diving (at least in the popular area) is going to the dogs like so much of the OW rec diving has.

Once it gets popular and the slugs come around it's time to find a new hobby.

 

[Rick Murchison]

These people should be caught and convicted of premeditated attempted murder.

A waste of time. Far too serious to leave to the "system." It would be much quicker and more effective to haul 'em into the hole and tuck 'em into a very remote, small, dark corner.
Who?
Never saw 'em.
------------------
Now, since I don't ever want to be in the position of feeling a need to mete out justice to a lowlife scumball thief of my life support gear, we need to get proactive with prevention. Let's get the serial numbers of the missing gear, and especially tanks, out to area dive shops and make a real effort to track this stuff down.
Just how big a problem is this?
I see that the Stolen Scuba Gear database doesn't list any stuff removed from caves at all. Has there been nothing stolen from caves then? (how's that for a rhetorical question?)
If we as a community want to stop this stuff we have to work together to do it by getting the word out to the shops - serial numbers in particular - and then pressing the shops to check things that come through for service/fills etc against the stolen gear list as a routine part of what they do. Any tank with an obliterated serial number should be rejected out of hand and the source of the tank investigated.
I truly have no sense of humor at all about any scum sucking lowlife coprophagous benthic slug who would steal a deco bottle or a reel with someone in the water. None whatsoever.
Rick
Rick

 

[MikeFerrara]

If we as a community want to stop this stuff we have to work together to do it by getting the word out to the shops - serial numbers in particular - and then pressing the shops to check things that come through for service/fills etc against the stolen gear list as a routine part of what they do. Any tank with an obliterated serial number should be rejected out of hand and the source of the tank investigated.

As much of a pain as it would be to keep track of all the serial number of our gear, I think you're right that it's about the best thing we can do...assuming we survive the dive of course.

 

[JDostal]

That's not good news. I'm heading down to FL in a couple of weeks for two weeks of beautiful caves. I can't wait. I've got the utmost respect for gear in a cave - it's a divers life support in there. No way would I touch it - and if I were to catch someone messing with it...I like Rich's idea of the dark hole.