Thanks for the post, Dan, good job.
Did they come in after you and you found them on the way out?
Did they come in after you and you found them on the way out?
JB last weekend
- Thread starter cyklon_300
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Also being one of the other cave divers in there at the time I can also make a couple statements on this situation. We were on our way out when we saw them. We were approaching the chimney when they saw us and they made a bee line for the top of the chimney. We proceeded out to our reel and then turned and signaled to them to come out of the cave since we were about to pull the reel. They blew us off and continued their investigation of the cave area just past the sign. We pulled the reel and began our deco. I had 15 minutes of deco so I hung out and waited for them to come out. If they had not exited by the time my deco was done I would have gone back in for them. I saw a ton of limestone dust coming out of the cave. I think they were rubbing their guts on the limestone in there or something... But anyway. Both of them had 20 cuft pony bottles in addition to their single 80's but their lights were inadequate for the environment. They did have quite a few back up lights hanging off of them intermingled with all the other junk covering ever D-ring on their BCDs. Later the husband of the pair bought a 10w HID from the place they rented the boat from. They may have been cavern certified but if so it was probably through a recreational agency and not a cave agency. But regardless of cavern cert or not they were in the cave zone and their attitude toward us sucked. The wife practically yelled that we were A-holes and then the husband went of on his Tator Salad comments and not to mess with him. We brought this incident to the attention of the Boat owner when we went by for a couple fills that evening.
ryan_d
New
- Messages
- 2
- Reaction score
- 0
I would doubt they had any overhead training....either that or they completely ignored everything they were taught
1. they didn't run a line
2. they didn't ask us to use our line
3. they didn't mark our line to let us know they were using it.
4. the lights they were using were marginal back-up lights
5. absolutely no bouyancy control
We did everything short of physically dragging them out of the cave. We did however keep an eye on them while we where doing our deco, which was fairly easy since we just had to watch the plume of silt moving about the cave. They ended up exiting the system about 5 minutes before we finished our deco. By the time we got out and got our gear off they had loaded on to the boat and were pulling anchor.
On almost any other occassion I'd let Darwin do his work....the problem in this case is letting some nitwits kill themselves and having the system closed.
Ryan
1. they didn't run a line
2. they didn't ask us to use our line
3. they didn't mark our line to let us know they were using it.
4. the lights they were using were marginal back-up lights
5. absolutely no bouyancy control
We did everything short of physically dragging them out of the cave. We did however keep an eye on them while we where doing our deco, which was fairly easy since we just had to watch the plume of silt moving about the cave. They ended up exiting the system about 5 minutes before we finished our deco. By the time we got out and got our gear off they had loaded on to the boat and were pulling anchor.
On almost any other occassion I'd let Darwin do his work....the problem in this case is letting some nitwits kill themselves and having the system closed.
Ryan
After reading this thread, I would have to say they probably had no overhead training. From their equipment configuration to their techniques, it speaks mostly of little training whatsoever. I am not a cave diver, but cavern cert. working on cave. Most cavern divers I have dove with who are practicing technique to further their experience to move on to the next step are consciencious of the limitations imposed upon them and the delicate nature of the environment they seek to practice in. Dedicated cavern divers seeking to become cave divers would not jeopardize the very thing they are wanting to accomplish. Whenever I encounter cavers during one of my practice dives, I humbly acquiesce to their greater wisdom and try to learn as much as I can from them. I've found that not everything can be found in a book or course and look upon them as a learning resource. Most cavern divers have already started to reconfigure their equipment to cave necessary equipment and wouldn't be caught in a cavern with dangling consoles and split fins.
I understand the frustration behind the remark "a little knowledge can be a bad thing" and agree with it, But one thing I learned in my cavern course, from observation, was that the course tended to split the class into two groups: those who loved it and wanted to go on to the next step and those who realized that it wasn't their cup of tea and had no desire to be in a cavern, much less, a cave environment.
Cavern divers need the opportunity to practice technique and equipment configuration. I know when I go for intro, I want to have everything squared away and not to waste class time working on buoyancy and trim issues or learning how to configure my long hose and light cannister. For me, that is probably quite a few dives away. I try to make the trip up to cave country once a month to get in a few practice dives and look forward to meeting a lot of the full cavers who post here. The last thing I would want to do is alienate myself from the cave brotherhood just when I seek to (hopefully) join it in the near future. This weekend I'm planning on going up to Little River and Madison Blue for my monthly sojourn. Hope to see y'all there.
I understand the frustration behind the remark "a little knowledge can be a bad thing" and agree with it, But one thing I learned in my cavern course, from observation, was that the course tended to split the class into two groups: those who loved it and wanted to go on to the next step and those who realized that it wasn't their cup of tea and had no desire to be in a cavern, much less, a cave environment.
Cavern divers need the opportunity to practice technique and equipment configuration. I know when I go for intro, I want to have everything squared away and not to waste class time working on buoyancy and trim issues or learning how to configure my long hose and light cannister. For me, that is probably quite a few dives away. I try to make the trip up to cave country once a month to get in a few practice dives and look forward to meeting a lot of the full cavers who post here. The last thing I would want to do is alienate myself from the cave brotherhood just when I seek to (hopefully) join it in the near future. This weekend I'm planning on going up to Little River and Madison Blue for my monthly sojourn. Hope to see y'all there.
diversolo:
Good practice, but keep in mind that not all cavers have greater wisdom. Learn from their stupidity as well. I've heard of and have seen some cavers from whom I wouldn't want to learn anything but what not to do.
Similar threads
