General Vortex Incident Discussion

[ucfdiver]

Solo is sometimes safer than diving with a buddy. While I agree it's not always necessary, I have been in passages that I would not want to be in with anyone else. The risks of having 2 people in those passages are way too great for me. In these passages, solo is safer.

So with 100's of caves in FL, if you've seen EVERYTHING else and feel the need to take that risk, then IMO it's calculated. Otherwise I still see it as a convenience thing, as I said.

 

[Cave Diver]

But financial reasons keep it off the rule book, because locals (instructors) choose to take that risk out of convenience. I'm OK with that, as long as we stop trying to lie and say it's juts as safe. I've done a visual jump (once) because I was lazy....why can't we juts be honest and say we take unneeded risk at times because it's easy?

Awww, c'mon. We all know we take unneeded risk. Anytime you jump into an alien environment where you are relying on mechanical equipment to breathe there is a risk. The difference is the level of risk that we all feel is acceptable.

You might feel a visual jump is an acceptable risk, while I may not.

Rob may feel solo cave diving is an acceptable risk while you don't.

I may think cave rebreather is fine, you two might both think I'm crazy.

And then there is the solo, rebreather cave diver doing visual jumps that all the rest of us think is a dumbass.




Our level of acceptance is defined by our experiences. Very few of us find diving without any experience acceptable. At the same time many of us with a lot of experience dive beyond our training fairly regularly (how many people have dove with stages, or DPV's, yet never took the class?). When we do that, we are accepting that there is a risk and we are accepting that if we get killed while doing so, people on the internet are going to say that we're a dumbass and we shouldnt have done it. They're probably right, and I'm ok with that. If I die, I probably did something stupid because I thought the risk was acceptable at the time I took it. I suspect most of the people posting here are ok with it as well.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

...At the same time many of us with a lot of experience dive beyond our training fairly regularly (how many people have dove with stages, or DPV's, yet never took the class?)...

Probably not a great example. Divers with alot of experience diving DPVs and stages, may already have the skillset, experience, and mentoring that would make the course useless.

 

[LiteHedded]

Probably not a great example. Divers with alot of experience diving DPVs and stages, may already have the skillset, experience, and mentoring that would make the course useless.

those classes are silly anyway

 

[ianr33]

those classes are silly anyway

IMHO this is part of the problem.

Some (many?) classes are silly/not required. (stagediver,drysuit,sidemount,whatever)

Others are absolutely essential (Cave)

How is a diver to know the difference?

 

[sabbath999]

Guess what, Exely did die in a cave. I don't see too many people calling him a stroke over it.

Sheck should have backed off, but he was always chasing round numbers... the previous dive almost killed him, he should have just backed off and let it go.

He didn't and it killed him. That doesn't make him a stroke, but that does rather color my view of his advice... give advice, but don't follow it yourself... not a good plan.

 

[LiteHedded]

IMHO this is part of the problem.

Some (many?) classes are silly/not required. (stagediver,drysuit,sidemount,whatever)

Others are absolutely essential (Cave)

How is a diver to know the difference?

the internet?

 

[sabbath999]

Not my understanding. He had air directly above him (Albeit it a long way above)

Sheck died in a sinkhole.

Zacatón - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Really didn't matter if there was air above him or not, since his decompression obligations blocked him from ascending to the surface.

 

[Cave Diver]

Probably not a great example. Divers with alot of experience diving DPVs and stages, may already have the skillset, experience, and mentoring that would make the course useless.

those classes are silly anyway

Ah, but that's exactly the point. People use the experience they have to decide how much experience they need and if it's silly or not to take a class.

Let's take cave diving for example. One of the most talked about rules is the rule of 1/3's and having redundant gas supply. Very seldom do you see discussions centered around use of markers, line skills, etc. So you take a diver who completed a sidemount course and now they have gained some experience with independent redundancy. So now they think they know enough about managing their gas supply to dive in a cave and decide that it's useless to take a silly cave class.

 

[ucfdiver]

How is a diver to know the difference?

Trial and error.