Not everyone thinks cave diving is the pinnacle of SCUBA!

[Paladin]

"@Paladin, feelings are mutual, you'd have to want to fit into a community larger than 5 men in a cabin, oddly enough."

You share a cabin with four others? Must get crowded on those cold Canuck nights.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Needs to be crowded on a cold canuck night. Sheesh how else do you think we keep warm?

 

[Paladin]

Needs to be crowded on a cold canuck night. Sheesh how else do you think we keep warm?

Would be nice as long as the other four are female!

 

[chillyinCanada]

Not from my point of view . . .

 

[Paladin]

Not from my point of view . . .

Nor from my wife's!

 

[Dive-aholic]

edit: sorry that should have been the quote you quoted by tony... ". So if we were on the rifle or pistol range and you were trying to clear a jammed round, do you not think that it is right of me to grab the barrel and point it in a sake direction because you were too focused on the rifle and not noticing that you were pointing it a JamesK? (Sorry James).
"



Do you walk down the street and snatch cigarettes out of peoples mouths because they are unhealthy?

Do you see base jumpers and run cut their cords before they jump because their chutes might not open?

Do you jump into race cars and plant your own foot on the brake because they are driving fast and might crash?

Do you push fat people out of line at the grocery store because you think they are eating unhealthy?

Do you break into houses and steal guns because people might shoot themselves?

Just how far are you willing to go to push YOUR morals on someone else.

If I want to go into a cave and swim until my little tanks empty there's NO LAW to stop me. The police cannot even stop me because there is NO LAW against it. and you.. YOU sir, have NO right, not an obligation, not a right, no reason at all, to do so.

and at the same time, I have no right to stop YOU from cave diving.

THAT IS THE BEAUTY OF A FREE COUNTRY.

I haven't read the entire thread. Came in late to it. But I do feel an obligation to respond to this. We do have an obligation to stop people who are not trained to cave dive from being in the caves. The more deaths we have in the caves by untrained divers the more caves get closed off to us. I can think of a few deaths that have either caused a system to be closed to diving or kept a system from being open to diving. If we don't police ourselves then there will be laws against it. In Jackson County it was against the law to cave dive for several years. It was only the efforts of cave divers in the 90s that got the county to change the law. There are other counties that have laws that do not allow cave diving. So you are not correct in saying there is no law. There are laws, and they can be enforced.


As for the OP, the love of the sport does make some people try to talk others into trying it so they can love it too. But you're right, it's not for everyone. I've had some cavern students that just didn't see the draw. There haven't been many, but there have been a few. That's fine. Caves aren't for everyone. Personally, I prefer it that way. The more cave divers there are the more we see evidence of people being in the caves. Before anyone asks why I teach it, I do so because I know there will be people who want to dive it and I'd like to teach them to respect the environment.

As for cave diving being the pinnacle of diving, well, some of it might be. But for the most part, the cave diving most cave divers do isn't really. Cave diving is easy. You pull up to the dive site whenever you want, set up your gear, walk to the water and dive. The current is almost always going in the same direction. There isn't anything in the caves that will eat you. Visibility is almost always great. And water temperature tends to stay the same. On the other hand there are wrecks that require a boat to get to. You have to be at the dock at 0 dark 30, load your gear on the boat, squeeze yourself among several other tired divers, and do a 30-90 minute run out to the site over what is usually not flat seas. Then you have to gear up in cramped quarters, jump in the water, deal with changing currents, thermoclines, and man eating monsters. When the dive is over you have to fight the ladder back onto the boat because by then the seas have gone from 1-2s to 4-5s. Then that 90 minute ride back is even worse and you're puking over the side of the boat. Finally you have to unload your gear, drive home and rinse all the salt out of it. Personally, I think that's the pinnacle of diving. I'll take easy cave diving over that any day!

 

[Centrals]

......... On the other hand there are wrecks that require a boat to get to. You have to be at the dock at 0 dark 30, load your gear on the boat, squeeze yourself among several other tired divers, and do a 30-90 minute run out to the site over what is usually not flat seas. Then you have to gear up in cramped quarters, jump in the water, deal with changing currents, thermoclines, and man eating monsters. When the dive is over you have to fight the ladder back onto the boat because by then the seas have gone from 1-2s to 4-5s. Then that 90 minute ride back is even worse and you're puking over the side of the boat. Finally you have to unload your gear, drive home and rinse all the salt out of it. Personally, I think that's the pinnacle of diving......

It is not like that every time, is it?

 

[AfterDark]

It is not like that every time, is it?

Depends What part don't you like? Puking tires me out.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Not everytime but more often than not I've come back from dives 90 minutes out in 4-5s because as the day goes on the conditions change.

 

[TSandM]

I took a class once from an instructor who told us that, if he had to choose one kind of diving to do for the rest of his life, it would be cave diving in Mexico. I asked him, "Because it's so beautiful?" And his answer was, "No, because it's so EASY. The visibility is infinite, you have walls to direct you and a ceiling to keep your depth under control, and the water doesn't move." The dirty secret of cave diving is that that is true -- as long as you have the skills to KEEP that visibility infinite, it's awfully easy diving