NACD Intro - 58cf Limit - Why?

[PfcAJ]

Thal, what caves have you dived?

 

[JamesK]

I'm giving up. It's obvious he knows everything that you can possibly know, and that no cave instructor is a better cave diver then him, so he can learn absolutely nothing from one of them.

He also seems to feel that a cave class is re-learning to dive, like stated earlier, not learning a different style of diving.

 

[cavemn]

Education, experience and exposure can be traded off against each other to a significant degree, though not completely.

Ummm, no. 3Es are a pretty basic principle of academia.

Debating with a wall is useless. "You can't fix stupid" I'm done

 

[UCFKnightDiver]

That's great. Someone knows the steps. I can read the steps on how to drive a Formula 1 car, I have been driving for 20 years, and I used to race road courses. Heck, I should be able to jump right in the Formula 1 car and be a champ.

I have done lost line drills more times then I can remember, with and without an instructor present. However, the one time in Mexico when the **** hit the fan, I was very glad I had a formal education and not just read about it on the internet. I was able to perform the drill and get out of the cave safely.

I think you mean "can copy and paste" Lost Buddy / Lost Line

Well, here's the lost line drill:

The scenario is something like this: You are swimming down the line in the cave and enjoying the formations of the system. All of a sudden you go to reference the line and you do not see it. You stop and make a mental note of which way you were headed & generally orient yourself as much as you can. The steps are as follows:

· Stop.

· Ask your buddy if s/he sees the line.

· Look around slowly - up, down, left & right. Remember the line could be in a trap so look closely & carefully before the next step.

· Once you realize the line is not within visual contact you will need to deploy your safety reel to search for the line.

· Deploy your safety reel & find a tie off point close by and make a secure tie off . If you cannot find one you can improvise a tie off by sticking a backup light in the bottom. Ensure the light is switched on.

At this point in the drill we are going to also assume zero visibility and/or primary light failure. It is important to note that in the total darkness you will have almost no perception of distance. Divers can alleviate this problem by tying knots in their line every few feet and as you swim down that line you can count the knots and tell how far you have moved.

· Move slowly deploying the line on the reel & counting the knots so as to keep a better reference from your starting point. You will know how big the tunnel you are in is because you saw it before the lights went out.

· Since you cannot see where you are going you will need to keep one hand in front of your head so you will not run into a rock injuring yourself or knocking your mask off.

· This hand should also be "sweeping" up and down in search of the line.
Note: The natural instinct is to sweep right to left rather than up & down. You have a better chance of locating the line sweeping up and down because the line is perpendicular to that plane. Unless of course the line you are looking for is oriented up and down, as we see at Pothole sink and Friedman sink for example.

· Once you locate the line you need to tie your safety reel to that line. Clip the clip back onto your safety line.

· At this point you have to decide which way on the line is the direction to exit. Place a directional marker on the line and swim in the direction you think the exit is. In a system with discernable flow you should be able to reference the way out according to the flow. In low or no flow systems this reference will not be available to you.

Note: If you have been properly referencing the cave system as you were taught you should be able to recognize landmarks that give you assistance figuring which way is out. Divers who go to far too fast will likely not have the advantage of being able to successfully referencing the cave.

If other divers, such as your buddy come across your safety reel tied to the mainline and see the configuration you have left behind s/he will know what has taken place - this configuration on the line is unique and other divers should recognize immediately that a diver has been lost off the line and has relocated it. When they see your directional marker they too will know if you have ventured further into the cave, or correctly found your way out.

 

[PfcAJ]

BWAHAHAH!!!!!!

Checkmate.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

The uplines to Friedman and Pothole are givaways

 

[LiteHedded]

Which ones in particular?

1 - I don't have the training, experience, nor exposure to question the decision of the certification agencies.

but you've said you support them because they 'know what they're doing'. do you have the training experience or exposure to blindly back them despite all the experienced cave divers offering differing opinions? I dont see any cave divers in this thread supporting them (that aren't financially motivated)

2 - I support the current requirements, because if there was something wrong with them, agency members would be addressing them for change.

you support them because they are the rules? people are trying to address them. seems useless to me with the good ole boy system, but that's another matter. people like walter pickle seem to be making an effort, which is nice.

3 - The current requirements make good business sense for the agency and the student (IMO).

why is this relevant in ANY WAY? reducing it to a business is what's wrong with the industry in the first place.

4 - Those that are in the high-up positions in the agencies have considered all of the arguments already and have stuck with what they have.

because it benefits them to keep the status quo

my point as i've said over and over (circles) is that you have never done a single cave dive and are spouting off that the rules are fine because they're the rules. better to just keep quiet and get some perspective before commenting (in every cave diving thread known to man) about who knows what's best.

my point is UNINFORMED opinions are best kept to one's self. your posts should have more question marks and less periods.

 

[Adobo]

Maybe I am getting confused due to all the poo flinging but... I don't even understand the "cost of doubles is a barrier for entry" argument.

The rental for a double 130s at a dive shop in High Springs is $30/day with all you can eat nitrox if renting for 5 days or more. The rental for an al80 (stage) is $15/day with the same terms. I am guessing the other shops have similar cost structures?

If so, the savings of doing intro to cave with a single al80 is $75. Is that the barrier to entry we are talking about?


Edit: Actually, I am an idiot. If you want to do two dives, you will need two Al80s rented each day whereas using the double 130s, you only need one set to do two dives. So.. where is the savings?

 

[Thalassamania]

Thal, what caves have you dived?

Once again you'd rather move the discussion to the logical falacy of an appeal to authority. If I were as far behind as you are, I'd want to do that to. Answer the damn question, then you can show us what a diving god you are.

Here, I'll make it easier for you, what in these standards (taken from TDI, the easiest to find on the web) do you think that our fictional Dirk Pitt has to receive in the confines of a cave diving course?

14 - TDI Cavern Diver Course.pdf
15 - TDI Introductory Cave Diver Course.pdf
16 - TDI Full Cave Diver Course.pdf

I'm giving up. It's obvious he knows everything that you can possibly know, and that no cave instructor is a better cave diver then him, so he can learn absolutely nothing from one of them.

He also seems to feel that a cave class is re-learning to dive, like stated earlier, not learning a different style of diving.

No I don't claim to know a damn thing, but from the trouble ya'll are having with a really simple question, you don't seem to know much more. Stop telling me that I'm an idiot and citing claims I never made and answer the damn question.

Ummm, no. 3Es are a pretty basic principle of academia.

Debating with a wall is useless. "You can't fix stupid" I'm done

You have provide lots of smoke, but no heat. I don't know where you got your academic training, but it seems to me that very existance of academia is founded on the idea that Education, Experience and Exposure can be traded off against each other.

I think you mean "can copy and paste" Lost Buddy / Lost Line

Did I claim otherwise? I just cut and pasted that to make it easier for AJ to identify what was so difficult about performing a lost line drill.

BWAHAHAH!!!!!!

Checkmate.

Hardly, you've yet to even move a pawn.

The uplines to Friedman and Pothole are givaways

Er, what was being hidden that required a giveaway?

You guys are wild, all this expertise, a virtual Olympian Cave Diving Gathering of Cave Diving Gods and we can't get a simple declarative answer to a simple question. What we get is abuse, distortion and obfustication, in rather angry terms. You'd think that the very question was so insulting that you just can't deal with it. That reaction, in and of itself, is so, so, telling.

Now, lets back up and deal with reality for a minute. What was the right answer? Simple ... "There is nothing in the Cave Curriculum that could not be learned, by a competent diver, from a book and with practice underwater with a competent buddy ... nothing at all, but, formal instruction provided by an exemplory cave diver can save you a lot of time."

 

[PfcAJ]

Keep digging.