Navigation error in a cave

[Gone for diving]

If the agencies tried teaching you 4 different cave diving philosophies, it would just be more confusing than helpful.

Well learning them underwater, probably is just as confusing,,,

 

[rddvet]

Well learning them underwater, probably is just as confusing,,,

That's why you have a predive briefing and make sure everyone's on the same page. I discuss how I was taught with people I haven't dove with before and see where we stand. I am an advocate of everyone on the team marking a jump or nav decision for example. If I dive with someone who believes in a single team cookie, I don't feel that's dangerous and will move forward with the dive. But I'm marking the nav decision for me no matter what they do, because that's the basics of my training and we will both be fully aware of how each other handles typical situations.
But there's no agency or instructor that can sit their students down and go over every possible scenario or methodology. It's just impossible.

 

[Gone for diving]

And what happens when you have done all the predive stuff, and you randomly come across a hot mess on the line?Maybe from a team behind you,

Now you have to figure it out, better to have some idea than guess,
That was my point,

I know you can't cover every situation,
But with line markers you should have some basics of each,

It's a bit like standard and metric measurements pick one,
but you sorta have to understand the other,

 

[Manatee Diver]

And what happens when you have done all the predive stuff, and you randomly come across a hot mess on the line?Maybe from a team behind you,

Work it out via signals, like drop your own personal markers to cancel it out, like at a T where you exit disagrees with cave markings. But if you can figure out you thumb the dive.

Better safe on the surface disappointed than lost in a cave.

 

[huwporter]

But there's no agency or instructor that can sit their students down and go over every possible scenario or methodology. It's just impossible.

Ultimately you have a choice/control over quite a lot of variables via the utilisation of option No.1.
Firstly, you have the choice to dive or not dive with the people who would make up your team.
Secondly, if you are on your way in on a dive and you encounter a line clusterf then you have the choice available to thumb it.
Thirdly, if you arrive at a site and there are other teams around such that you suspect that a line clusterf is likely, then you have the choice available to not dive, or to go somewhere else.

The situation you can't readily control for is if another team creates a line clusterf behind you while you are already in the cave which you then encounter on your way out. And here, thinking and improvisation is going to be necessary, and there is no way of training for everything that you might encounter. The only advice here would be to give yourself plenty of time by being conservative with your gas planning so you don't have unnecessary time anxiety on top of everything else.

 

[jlcnuke]

I understand full well that you cannot give me an answer. My bone picking with you was a sign of frustration that we are taught cave diving and are told to never compromise safety and the procedures we have been taught, to practice 'muscle memory' by always diving in the same practiced and trained way.

Then real life comes to play and you are stuck with folks who dive the other way - you were not prepared for that during your cave course and is up to you to sort it out and keep on diving safely. To me that is not good 'customer service' on the part of the agencies, who should at least:
a) train you few different ways so that you are versed in all;
b) prepare you for those situations and that you might need to compromise/adjust.

Agencies (and instructors) cannot behave like their way is the only way for the good of us all. It is very idealistic thinking on my part, but it would make things easier.

I would be happy to learn REMs, I just do not have time to keep on flying to Mexico/Florida for each 'adjustment' course.
After the near-miss, I looked for a source of information that would back up my navigation training in discussion with my buddies. I came across this great(?) article by Massimo Ardizzoni:

Navigational Protocols in Mexico

Is it enough for me to read it to start practicing REMs? I do not know, but would love to have that versatility in the comfort of my chair and then practice it in water.

p.s. DM me if you ever plan to visit here

I hadn't seen that link before, and it looks like some good information so thank you for posting it. I'm still in the learning phase (doing full cave shortly, but not there yet). Nevertheless, some of the things in your original post definitely screamed "DANGER!!!" to me. It may be regional, but the "cancel arrows with arrows" method just scares me and the "my markers are notched" may kinda work in a cave where there will never be more than one team, but there are only so many unique ways to notch a standard arrow. That's why I make my own arrows with very unique, tactile markings. My main problem with the "cancel the arrow" thing is that when you end up in caves that do have other teams, what are your arrows telling them (especially if they have similar notches or don't notice that your arrows are notched)? That's why I'm leaning towards using REMs for all directional markers for myself and my team in the future. No cave that I'm aware of uses permanently installed REMs, so a REM is always going to be a dive team marker, not for others to use. Something to consider maybe?

Second thing I noticed that hasn't been discussed as far as I could see, was you mentioned that the cave arrows pointed you to the "closer exit", which seemed to imply you thought you could use that in an emergency. I was taught that any exit you haven't personally verified (that dive or a setup dive) is not to be considered valid as you don't know at that point if you can actually get out that way (may be blocked now or not allow someone in your dive configuration to get through). Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, but I'd advise against assuming you can use an exit you haven't verified.

The team thing has been beaten to death, but I'll just add that if my team left me, and I couldn't catch then in a very short period (~10-30 seconds ideally, certainly no more than a minute), then I'm aborting the dive and exiting. On the surface, we'll have a long hard talk about why they didn't stop and wait when my light was no longer visible.

It comes down to this: how many types of markers do you need? There's not a single thing I've found that I need a REM for that I can't accomplish with cookies.

Cookies aren't directional though, right? I was taught that you drop an arrow pointing out for a lost buddy scenario where you have to jump to get to them etc., because it's directional and reminds you which way to go when you get back to the line after going after them with your safety (etc.). A cookie wouldn't serve that purpose and my exit could be to the left when I get back to the line and if I just dropped a cookie I may go right and waste gas going in the wrong direction. A REM is team specific and directional for the team. If I was only given the option to take one marker type, it would seem to me that the REM has better functionality. Maybe I'm missing something though (I am still pretty new to this cave diving thing).

 

[cerich]

Medium school?

I do use clothespins when I'm on the trigger though in the back of caves like JB or HiTW where you're going to be dropping 20 of the things. Much nicer to be able to do that on the fly

Get the chip bag things on Amazon, much better than clothes pins.



If you come across a clothes pin that looks 20 years old and says "stroke" on it, it's mine.

 

[girlwithbigtanks]

OP. You’ve had SHTF enough to post. I had SHTF hard enough to discuss everything with buddies going forward. I literally don’t care what they think if I want to discuss all the nuances of procedures is dumb. I spent a week tourist cave diving with someone i hadn't before. Made for a much better week and when we did have a few times where things were off for either one of us underwater, what the other person needed to happen happened. It’s a good place to be, and the more experienced person in my team didn’t give me too much bother. Just take this and don’t compromise going forward.

 

[rddvet]

A REM is team specific and directional for the team.

I was told by Bil and a couple others who hang around him was that the rem can be and was meant to be both directional or non directional to the particular diver. Not every rem is placed in order to be directional.

That is the one problem with rems. They can have different meanings to different people. But that shouldn’t matter because we were also taught you can’t make directional decisions based on someone else’s marker, only yours which you verified prior to placing.

 

[jlcnuke]

I was told by Bil and a couple others who hang around him was that the rem can be and was meant to be both directional or non directional to the particular diver. Not every rem is placed in order to be directional.

That is the one problem with rems. They can have different meanings to different people. But that shouldn’t matter because we were also taught you can’t make directional decisions based on someone else’s marker, only yours which you verified prior to placing.

The way I learned it, was that a REM is always placed "pointing out" for your team, but can be used in lieu of a cookie as a non-directional marker for situations not requiring a direction or as a directional marker when appropriate for the situation. So yes, functionally it can be used for directional (arrow replacement etc.) marking or for non-directional (cookie like team member accountability etc.), but the placement should be verified to have the correct direction regardless of the situation "just in case". I'm a fan of Justin, as sometimes the Case comes in handy.

Always, it would "point out" for your team, but as no permanent directional markers are REMs, they would never be confused with permanent markers for another team in the cave.

So the REM provides "team" direction that may conflict with permanently installed direction. In the event that multiple teams are using REMs for direction in a silt out, hopefully they'd have ensured they can adequately identify their REMs relative to another team's REMs in that situation (again, like I mentioned earlier, why I'm glad I can make my own with unique markings so it's exceptionally unlikely to come across similar tactile references).

Again though, I'm still new at this whole cave diving thing, with barely a year since I started and not yet full cave, so "I don't know what I don't know". I just can do the best with the knowledge and training I have so far. I'm still in talks with my dive buddy about solidifying how we will use markers, but REMs make a LOT of sense to me personally, and I've yet to find a downside to them compared to arrows and cookies really (though I don't find an issue in using just cookies for non-directional markers either).