new cave diver

[PfcAJ]

In practice, there is no reason to take 3 bottles past the lips unless you're in SM and going to the new section in the back back back of Ginnie.

For other caves, we do setup dives to reduce impact. That's not to say there is no impact, however, but we try.

 

[ucfdiver]

Just out of curiosity, since I have never had bottles on a leash and likely never will . . . what do you DO in an area like the lips or the cornflakes, if you have more bottles than you can carry at your side, and you don't want to damage the cave?

The 3rd stage can be clipped to your butt dring and trapped between your legs when scootering through smaller areas of a cave. More than that would need to be passed back and forth.

At a site like Turner Sink where the entrance is too restrictive to carry anything but what's absolutely necessary, the push guys go in on a travel gas having already placed the drive bottles, scooters, and deco gas the day before. After the dive and right before exiting for final deco stops, the push team leaves all gear which they won't need clipped off to the line just before the restricted area.

 

[LiteHedded]

Just out of curiosity, since I have never had bottles on a leash and likely never will . . . what do you DO in an area like the lips or the cornflakes, if you have more bottles than you can carry at your side, and you don't want to damage the cave?

there's no reason to have that many tanks in ginnie springs if you're 90% of divers.

if I'm exploring small cave with a lot of gear I do my best not to damage it. one in particular has quite small bits but goes very far and is deep. there's no way to explore the thing without making contact with the cave. we try to minimize it using setup divers. luckily it floods ALL THE TIME so damage is always repaired. and the cave looks pristine

you can see the entrance in this video. the setup guys are taking gear to the downstream section of cave for us to use the next day. the rest of the video is a swim of the much smaller upstream section to a depth of 160' or so. we walled out that side swimming with minimal gear


[video=youtube;03B69qPQ_3o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03B69qPQ_3o[/video]