Attitude is important in cave diving. When I first learned there was no internet,so all my learning process was from mentoring and asking questions of the people you'd know affliated with different sites. I would talk about a certain dive I'd want to do,and they would tell me no,that I wasn't ready. They were right,and I feel I became a better cave diver because of it. This was before cave diving became very recreationalized and commercialized,and the average cave diver is a consumer and doesn't like being told no. It is tough to be told no,but the ones that have a good attitude and accept it are the ones that prevail. When people do what they want because they choose to ignore the rules,and don't want to hear no,when they have an accident they hurt the sport for all of us. A very popular cave diving site (to remain nameless) almost became a thing of the past because of an accident that involved some cave divers outside their training realm. A thank you never was given to the hard working members of an "agency" that made sure the loss of this site occured.
Kudos to the Ginnie Staff
- Thread starter GDI
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notabob:
notabob:
So why not doubles in cavern? Isn't an overhead an overhead (just like a cave is a cave)?
How many single tanks go in the water on a daily basis in the world? How many are blowing up?
I still say this whole argument stems from the DIR-f grads trying to make every agency follow GUE and the GI3 mindset. Why didn't you guys seek out GUE training if this is such a concern? Certainly your instructor informed you that if you didn't have any intent on finishing the program, that you would be stuck in a single, so why all the gripping now? Finish what you started.
Another funny thing is that I know at least two off you screaming about this took your class from the instructor that started all this debate (on a different site).
NACD:
notabob
Contributor
Well, you all know what they say about opinions... Everybody's got one. I can understand the point of view that NACD and NSS-CDS are taking on the issue, with regards to allowing single tank diving at intro level. Some, myself included, may not agree, but as long as we're not on the boards of said associations, there's little we can do about it. Just going to have to learn to live with that.
What still continues to bother me, is the exclusion of doubles as allowed tanks of choice at the intro level. I dive almost exclusively in doubles. Deeper wrecks, deco, frigid water with low vis... I'm very comfortable in doubles and most importantly - I feel safe in them! I don't feel very safe in a single on any dive that is more complex than simple open water NDL to very limited depths. So how is not allowing me to dive at the intro level in doubles contributing to my safety, short of preventing me from giong inside a cave alltogether? Sure, you will say, get a waiver from your instructor that allows you to dive doubles. Well, guess what, the agencies in question made that impossible for me since my instructor doesn't teach full cave, only intro. If my instructor felt I was proficient enough in doubles during the class, why can't that same instructor issue the waiver? Requiring that the instructor be full cave to do so serves no purpose that I can see, short of pushing them towards becoming a full cave instructor (more $$ in the agencies' pockets?) - something that they may not necessarily be willing to do for various personal reasons. The expiration of the said waiver is another problem I have with the current process. Either the instructor felt I was mature and proficient enough to allow me to dive in doubles, or they didn't. End of story. Making me have to jump through hoops just to be and feel safe on a dive - that's just ludicrous.
GDI, you've stated that you are on the board of NACD, correct? If you take nothing else back to the board from these discussions, please try and convey the frustration that I, and I'm sure numerous others, feel at being prevented from making safe dives by rules that we feel are archaic, not fully thought-out, and, at the danger of paraphrasing Soggy, possibly even knee-jerk in nature. Either remove the doubles at Intro rule, or make the intro-only instructors that _actually taught_ the student, capable of writing them the waiver. We can even start a petition, if it'll help
-Roman.
What still continues to bother me, is the exclusion of doubles as allowed tanks of choice at the intro level. I dive almost exclusively in doubles. Deeper wrecks, deco, frigid water with low vis... I'm very comfortable in doubles and most importantly - I feel safe in them! I don't feel very safe in a single on any dive that is more complex than simple open water NDL to very limited depths. So how is not allowing me to dive at the intro level in doubles contributing to my safety, short of preventing me from giong inside a cave alltogether? Sure, you will say, get a waiver from your instructor that allows you to dive doubles. Well, guess what, the agencies in question made that impossible for me since my instructor doesn't teach full cave, only intro. If my instructor felt I was proficient enough in doubles during the class, why can't that same instructor issue the waiver? Requiring that the instructor be full cave to do so serves no purpose that I can see, short of pushing them towards becoming a full cave instructor (more $$ in the agencies' pockets?) - something that they may not necessarily be willing to do for various personal reasons. The expiration of the said waiver is another problem I have with the current process. Either the instructor felt I was mature and proficient enough to allow me to dive in doubles, or they didn't. End of story. Making me have to jump through hoops just to be and feel safe on a dive - that's just ludicrous.
GDI, you've stated that you are on the board of NACD, correct? If you take nothing else back to the board from these discussions, please try and convey the frustration that I, and I'm sure numerous others, feel at being prevented from making safe dives by rules that we feel are archaic, not fully thought-out, and, at the danger of paraphrasing Soggy, possibly even knee-jerk in nature. Either remove the doubles at Intro rule, or make the intro-only instructors that _actually taught_ the student, capable of writing them the waiver. We can even start a petition, if it'll help
-Roman.
Jason B:
Yeah guys I know its only been a week, but come one take full cave already!!!! HAHAHA!
And actually Jason If you go back and read this whole thread you might notice that Soggy and Notabob where arguing this BEFORE they took the training...so they are not just "gripping now".
It has nothing to do w/ a particular instructor really or GUE as you guys love to spin it (hey NAUI-Tec's cave program is also in doubles ONLY), I really thought that redundancy was standard in cave diving.
Karstdvr,
I totally appreciate the no mount single tank stuff, it IS the right tool for the job, THAT job. In the service we sometimes deviated from our standard procedures for a certain job that had to be done...sometimes that deviation WAS standard procedure
but we always taught the new guys by the book (at first)...same thing here I think.But the rest of you doubles diving proponents of single tank diving can take off the doubles and start diving singles in caves, one day wrecks and deco...after all its SAFER!
notabob:make the intro-only instructors that _actually taught_ the student, capable of writing them the waiver. We can even start a petition, if it'll help
-Roman.
I think that would be great, and would have avoided the whole discussion.
Then who ever thinks doubles are best and took the class in them could dive doubles and whoever thinks singles are best could...well in this case...also dive doubles.
Not true, the instructor you chose for apreentice can write one for you.notabob:
If there were no expiration on the waiver, then intro divers could get the waiver (which says they are moving on towards full cave) and they could stay at intro and continue to dive doubles. That is not what the agency wants. They want you to have full cave (or be in the process of obtaining full cave) to dive doubles.notabob:
I guess we could make it easy and say scrap the whole intro class and force everyone to complete full cave before venturing into a cave. That would solve all problems since some can't stay within their training limits (and we all know what the guidelines of accident analysis says about that).
notabob
Contributor
Jason, I really wish you'd get your head out of where you've been hiding it... No mention of pushing DIR has been made in this discussion, other than by you. While we're all having a civilized discussion, you're trying to turn it into a sh!t-slinging DIR vs. everyone else contest. Grow up!!
Having taking fundies (if what we took could be called a class, but that's a different story) doesn't (thankfully) make one a GI3 cronie, regardless of what you'd like to believe. As Soggy already stated, and something that apparently you weren't paying attention to while dreaming up ways to make an *** of yourself - not a single one of his, nor my certifications are through GUE. Neither one of us has been pushing the "GUE way". A mention was made by someone (possibly Soggy) that newer agencies such as NAUI and GUE are making strides in the right direction by taking a fresh look at things, but I'm pretty sure that was the extent of it. Now, if that's pushing the GUE dogma on you...
Soggy and I took the intro class because we wanted to learn the skills involved and get started on our road to cave diving. You have no way of knowing our intent as to whether to continue the training or not. You have absolutely no basis or right for saying what we plan or don't plan on doing in the future. Stick to your own diving ambitions on this.
And finally, our instructor didn't start this debate. The debate has been ongoing for a while, though perhaps in not so vocal a fashion. Our instructor simply brought it back to light, because it needed to be done.
As for the procedural questions:
No doubles in cavern - both myself and waterdawg have already answered that question in two separate posts. Once again, learn to pay attention. I'm not going to spoon-feed you the answer yet again.
Tanks blowing up - colorful way of describing a catastrophic gas loss. Might be caused by shearing off the burst disk bolt by making contact with the overhead. Not very likely on a typical single tank dive done in open water. Somewhat more likely in a cave. Also can be caused by a free-flowing regulator, which can empty a single rather quickly. Faster than many would imagine. Curt Bowen of Advanced Diving Magazine has done some objective tests previously, results surprised many.
-Roman.
Having taking fundies (if what we took could be called a class, but that's a different story) doesn't (thankfully) make one a GI3 cronie, regardless of what you'd like to believe. As Soggy already stated, and something that apparently you weren't paying attention to while dreaming up ways to make an *** of yourself - not a single one of his, nor my certifications are through GUE. Neither one of us has been pushing the "GUE way". A mention was made by someone (possibly Soggy) that newer agencies such as NAUI and GUE are making strides in the right direction by taking a fresh look at things, but I'm pretty sure that was the extent of it. Now, if that's pushing the GUE dogma on you...
Soggy and I took the intro class because we wanted to learn the skills involved and get started on our road to cave diving. You have no way of knowing our intent as to whether to continue the training or not. You have absolutely no basis or right for saying what we plan or don't plan on doing in the future. Stick to your own diving ambitions on this.
And finally, our instructor didn't start this debate. The debate has been ongoing for a while, though perhaps in not so vocal a fashion. Our instructor simply brought it back to light, because it needed to be done.
As for the procedural questions:
No doubles in cavern - both myself and waterdawg have already answered that question in two separate posts. Once again, learn to pay attention. I'm not going to spoon-feed you the answer yet again.
Tanks blowing up - colorful way of describing a catastrophic gas loss. Might be caused by shearing off the burst disk bolt by making contact with the overhead. Not very likely on a typical single tank dive done in open water. Somewhat more likely in a cave. Also can be caused by a free-flowing regulator, which can empty a single rather quickly. Faster than many would imagine. Curt Bowen of Advanced Diving Magazine has done some objective tests previously, results surprised many.
-Roman.
Jason B:
notabob
Contributor
Jason B:
No. Once again, would you please start paying attention to what people are saying!! That would be a different instructor than the one that taught me in doubles. A different instructor that hasn't yet taught me, and has no way of knowing how proficient in doubles I am. Waiver should be written by instructor that taught me, not one that has yet to teach me.
Are you involved with the agency? Do you work for them? Are you on the board? Then how would you know what the agency wants and doesn't want? Obviously not from their training materials, which state again and again that the agency does not promote or encourage cave diving!! Trying to push someone towards taking full cave undisputably implies promotion and encouragement of taking cave training. Which simply isn't the case. So not only are you not paying attention to what people are saying in this thread, you obviously weren't paying much attention to the training materials either.
Making everyone take full cave would be fine by me. Unfortunately, that would take away a very significant source of revenue for the agencies that teach intro, and therefore is highly unlikely to happen.
-Roman.
Thanks!notabob:
As has been stated before, the NACD has a provision in place for you to dive doubles. Take advantage of it. A simple phone call to your prospective instructor will solve all issues and this can end.
I appologize for bringing up DIR but a lot of the individuals that were in this thread backing you guys are big supporters of that mindset (as is your instructor), again my appologies.
notabob:
Just trying to help out a fellow cave diver who I thought was looking to gain some experience diving doubles in a cave before progressing on. The above statement is true. I know several divers who have taken advantage of this.
notabob:Are you involved with the agency? Do you work for them? Are you on the board? Then how would you know what the agency wants and doesn't want? Obviously not from their training materials, which state again and again that the agency does not promote or encourage cave diving!! Trying to push someone towards taking full cave undisputably implies promotion and encouragement of taking cave training. Which simply isn't the case. So not only are you not paying attention to what people are saying in this thread, you obviously weren't paying much attention to the training materials either.
Sorry, I was reading the wording on my provisional to dive doubles as given to me by the NACD.
I'm going to go stick my head back up my ***.....
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