Near Drowning at Ginnie Springs

[in_cavediver]

i'm not here to offend, but from what i've seen, each and every one of us is on our own underwater. i believe that PADI, NAUI and the like are concerned with safety, but from my perspective, certifications are more about liability and fees rather than proper training. i've seen more questionable actions(complacency?) during training by instructors than while diving with OW divers. just little things. i'm not trying to generalize instructors or demonize PADI, NAUI, instructors, or dive shops, just passing on what i've seen. maybe we should all think a little more about WHAT we're doing rather than how many certs we have. that incident could have happened to anyone. if we're lucky, we'll have a buddy that's paying attention in case something happens. be safe.

I agree with just about everything you said. I only will take notice of OH enviroments, in this case caves. Much has been learned about how to die in these enviroments and from that, how to best avoid dying in them. That has been the fundemental method for setting the procedures cave diving uses. It's not pretty to think about, but it has made the sport considerably safer, if you take the training. This is one area that I truly believe a class is required. (With a competent instructor of course)

Mike

 

[Krisscuba]

She probably was not even certified. Ginnie is a check out site and every shop and instructor that has taken an open water check out student there that I have seen has taken them into the cavern.

I spoke up against that in an instructor course in 99, .. and overruled!!!!!!

 

[in_cavediver]

Ah, the bottom line - its about the money.

Silly me, I thought you said it was about safety.

Maybe I ought to clarify it a bit. I am not a cave instructor. Maybe some day, but not now. I serve to gain NO financial benefit from you spending money on cave training, yet I still firmly believe that cave training is the only reasonable path in this day in age to learn how to cave dive.

Reading books will NOT teach you to cave dive. A cave instructor's job is as much to teach/assess/address the attitude of the diver as it is to teach the basic skills. He's there to help ensure you survive your first mistakes. (and you will make them). He also serves as a guide to gaining some expierence in the cave enviroment. He does this in a stuctured and systematic way using a set of standards that many cave divers together have written, not just himself. As matter of fact, the system and standards are pretty much the same across all of the credible agencies offering cave certs.
(You can decide who is credible, I'm not opening that can of worms)

Can you do this without shelling out the money for a cave/into/cavern class. Maybe. But after dropping all the cash on the gear needed, why would you skimp on training. Heck, my cavern, intro and full cave classes cost less per class than my OW class did.

And you call that about the money!

Mike

 

[in_cavediver]

And by the way, there are a lot of other overhead environments - wrecks come immediately to mind

I have chosen to speak with regard to caves as my wreck expierence is limited. With that, I'll allow another to step in to debate those questions with you.

Mike

 

[coberry7]

She probably was not even certified. Ginnie is a check out site and every shop and instructor that has taken an open water check out student there that I have seen has taken them into the cavern.

I spoke up against that in an instructor course in 99, .. and overruled!!!!!!

That's a rather blanket statement. You have no idea, nor do I of her qualifications. While you may have seen many take OW students into the cavern at Ginnie, I doubt that the majority of OWSI do that with their students.

Were you a part of her group? Did you know her?

Colin Berry

 

[MikeFerrara]

The NSS cave diving manual has real content that is useful to the cave diver. At that, it only scratches the surface of many subjects that you will learn more about in training and more yet as you gain experience.

There's tons of stuff that isn't addressed in Shecks manual. One of the first that come to mind that applies here is edicate. Some aspect go beyond just good manors and do directly effect the safety of other teams in the cave.

If you are talking about diving known public sites there will be other teams in the system and it's your responsibility to know that stuff. Since they have the same right to the cave as you they also have a right to some assurance that you aren't going to put them in a dangerous position with some hir-brained stupid screwup. Formal training is no guarantee but it's a lot closer than just your word that you knew what you needed to know and learned it.

Aside from satisfying the land owner, it's only right that you satisfy your peers who's safety can be effected by your conduct. If you want to dive with them, and being in the system in diving with them, you may need to convince them to dive with you.

To get your way in this you need to do more than convince the agencies or the government you need to convince your peers.

I don't think you'll convince many Joe-public vave divers that you don't need training or that you have trained yourself.

Whether or not it's perfect the cave community has decided that to quality to make that decision you need to first be a cave instructor. Keep in mind that the original cave diving organizations in this country are not privately owned businesses as in recreational diving or govornment. They are made up of other cave divers who volunteer their time to help run these organizations.

These organizations represent the efforts of cave divers to protect the caves and our own ability to dive them.

If you go find a uncontroled cave few will care if you crawl in. If however you want to do that in the caves that cave divers have faught, worked and invested in gaining access they'll not be too keen on risking that on your say so that you're cool with everything that you need to know and need to be able to do.

You're not so much going up against some detatched establishment here as you are going up against other cave divers.

While a park might agree to administer swimming or hiking on their own they won't be bothered with administrating cave diving without the existance, help and maybe even pressure from the cave diving organizations. If it wasn't for the set up that we have we just wouldn't have access to many of these caves.

If it weren't for them you just would have a chance of ever getting in no matter how good you say that you are.

 

[OneBrightGator]

She probably was not even certified. Ginnie is a check out site and every shop and instructor that has taken an open water check out student there that I have seen has taken them into the cavern.

I spoke up against that in an instructor course in 99, .. and overruled!!!!!!

Trust me, none of the shops in Gainesville or Jacksonville that use Ginnie for checkouts take students into the ballroom.

The fact that there is an overhead environment in most of the places we do training in this area was extensively covered in my IDC, it boiled down to: stay away from it and if you take students in it, you will have your card pulled.

Ben

 

[scubasean]

Indeed, if there were not a couple of trips I want to make over the next year that involve dealing with access controls, I would not have made the same decision.

Do tell!! Where ya gonna go?

 

[Michael Schlink]

Mike, your post #107, well said.

 

[Lead_carrier]

She probably was not even certified. Ginnie is a check out site and every shop and instructor that has taken an open water check out student there that I have seen has taken them into the cavern.

That's a rather blanket statement. You have no idea, nor do I of her qualifications. While you may have seen many take OW students into the cavern at Ginnie, I doubt that the majority of OWSI do that with their students.

Were you a part of her group? Did you know her?

Colin Berry

Yes Kris, she was certified. I don't know what kind of instructors you hang out with but I do know for a fact that NONE, of the shops or instructors that I know take their students into the ballroom. We'll snorkle with them in the basin but I have never, nor do I intend to start, letting one of my students into the ballroom in any shape, form or fashion. I would suggest that you find a better qualified group of divers to hang with.