On my last dive to 400 Ft...

[MikeFerrara]

By checking out your skills, I'm assuming you mean S-drill w/ long hose while swimming single file with no mask. I'm sure they also make sure you can calculate thirds minus rock bottom on that single aluminum 80 at 130ft. Right?

If you hold no qualification to lead divers into an overhead you don't have to worry about having your ticket pulled for standards violations. LOL and if there's no training going on, all you have to worry about is selling thrills. And then there's the fact that it would probably be pretty hard to for a US resident to take legal action against some one in Mexico. I think they're safe.

 

[Rick Inman]

If you hold no qualification to lead divers into an overhead you don't have to worry about having your ticket pulled for standards violations.

Nope, but if you wear gloves or bring a knife, you can get a ticket.

By checking out your skills, I'm assuming you mean S-drill w/ long hose while swimming single file with no mask. I'm sure they also make sure you can calculate thirds minus rock bottom on that single aluminum 80 at 130ft. Right?

Funny.

On our boat, they just made sure we had some sort of buoyancy control and followed instructions.


But, hey, this was Cozumel where the world is magic...

 

[jeandiver]

As an Apprentice Cave Diver down here in Florida , I am supposed to NOT do any planned deco and I barely get below 100 feet where I cave dive.
However , you could classify myself as a technical diver.

I am glad that we can all STILL be divers and like different things.

Jeano Beano

P.S. <--- knows what dat S-drill and calculating 3rds is ... But NOT an aluminum 80 ... :11:

 

[TheRedHead]

Absolutely.

That means that even if the penetration is short enough that you could consider it a swim through rather than a cave, at that depth, virtually any overhead is boyind the recommended limits for entry level certified cavern/cave and wreck divers. PADI's own cavern and wreck standards read just this way. At 130 ft you are allowed ZERO penetration....nothing, nada, not a single inch!

It's a large area with many swimthroughs, none of which are caves. They are not even caverns as they are open at both ends. You can't get lost so I don't think you can compare it to a wreck penetration or a real cave.

Now, if people who specialize in overhead dive training have decided that it isn't a good idea, what makes all those non-overhead trained OW, AOW and DM's in Cozumel so smart especially without ever having demonstrated the skills that any cave instructor would need to see in OW before taking them into any overhead environment? The answer of course is that they just don't realize how bad things could get, how fast or what it would take to get out of it. Ignorance is bliss.

Well, I can only speak about the team I dived with and our DM/Instructor was a certified full cave diver and certainly not ignorant. He is one of the best divers I've had the pleasure of diving with.

I don't know about devils throad specifically but many of the swim through divers are diving would more correctly be considered coral caves. One of the three main types of caves you learn something about during cave training.

But they are swimthroughs, not caves.

How many of those divers have the gas reserves to get themselves and a buddy to the surface from the deepest point of penetration or even know how to figure how much that is?

We all did. We planned the dive (including 10 minutes of deco with deep stops) and dived our plan. We all had about 3000 psi in our 120s before we entered the first swimthrough. Why do you assume Cozumel divers are stupid?

Are there any places in those swim throughs that require single file travel? That would be considered as a minor restriction and a trained entry level cave diver would consider it off limits until apprentice of full cave I guess depending on the agency.
How many of those divers have any redundancy at all?

There's about 20 feet of single file travel in a pretty tight tube that is open at both ends. You need excellent buoyancy control.

What about conservation? Anyliving stuff in those "swim throughs" or even dead formations that we should want to preserve? I know better than to think that the majority of recreational divers can move through an area of limited size without bouncing off the cieling and walls.

Doubt that there is a lot of life left after so many divers scraping through there. Some nasty hydriods are growing at the exits.

We see it all the time even around here. A simple problem like a free flow and divers are injured during the rapid ascent that results. Place that same problem in an overhead at 130 ft. Those divers are close to the edge than they know.

I didn't make that dive with those kind of divers. This is not a dive for newbies who can't handle a simple free flow and the DMs I dive with wouldn't take a diver that inexperienced to Devil's Throat.

The facts are that thousands of divers make that dive every year without injury. I don't understand how you can judge this dive without having made it yourself. And you really underestimate the skills, training and common sense of the Cozumel DMs.

 

[TheRedHead]

By checking out your skills, I'm assuming you mean S-drill w/ long hose while swimming single file with no mask. I'm sure they also make sure you can calculate thirds minus rock bottom on that single aluminum 80 at 130ft. Right?

They check you out by diving with you on several dives progessively deeper making sure you can complete those dives including mid-water hanging stops and surface safely. I don't dive Devil's Throat on an AL 80. It's a lot harder to manage gas and buoyancy at the end of a dive with an 80. 80s suck, IMO, and I avoid them when possible.

 

[GDI]

It's a large area with many swimthroughs, none of which are caves. They are not even caverns as they are open at both ends. You can't get lost so I don't think you can compare it to a wreck penetration or a real cave.

I just want to comment on this part of the post you had written

A cavern by definition is a permanent naturally formed overhead environment that is illuminated by a natural daylight source such as the sun and is not a man made structure such as a wreck.

Ice diving is a non-permanent overhead environment subject to geographical location and seasonal conditions

It does not matter that they are open at both ends or whether they are made from formations of coral, lava, limestone or granite, ice or metal or wood or any combination of the prementioned . The swim through is an overhead environment that is illuminated by a natural light source, hence it is a cavern, a wreck or a ice dive.

There are common dangers to all these environments, water, ceiling, and silt

Funny how this thread has gone this far.

Why do we use the term "Technical Diver" are not these dives being made really just more "Advanced Dives"?

 

[JeffG]

It's a lot harder to manage gas and buoyancy at the end of a dive with an 80.

Why is that?

 

[Charlie99]

Thousands of divers dive Devil's Throat every year. They're all insane?

Lucky and somewhat ignorant is a better description. Lucky in that very few accidents occur. Somewhat ignorant in that many don't really realize or think about the risks of being single file in a swimthrough without appropriate gear.

Charlie

(yes, I have been through Devil's Throat, including once on EAN31, but that's a different discussion)

 

[TheRedHead]

I just want to comment on this part of the post you had written

A cavern by definition is a permanent naturally formed overhead environment that is illuminated by a natural daylight source such as the sun and is not a man made structure such as a wreck.

Then perhaps you can define it as a cavern, but it is very short. I used to dive in a quarry that had a submerged pvc pipe about 20 feet long one could swimthrough. Is that an overhead?

In Devil's Throat, I think the most dangerous aspect would be narcosis and becomming paranoid. You're going one way in and straight through so if you keep going forward, you are going to emerge rather quickly into open water. There is also a danger of getting trapped on the ceiling if you cannot control your buoyancy.

As I said, it is a huge reef with many swimthroughs and can be dived numerous ways. I stole the following description from Aldora's site (and this is the way they dive it). They're calling it a cave:


The entrance to the Devil’s Throat cave is at 90 feet and out of the current the dive guide will check for air supply and gear of each diver. When all are ready the cave can be entered. A nice sandy bottom is inside and there is a reasonable amount of light. To the left and down is a very dark spot. That is the Devil’s Throat which is about 3 feet in diameter that leads down at a 45 degree angle. Dark at first, light is soon encountered and it is most fun to go through without a flashlight. Don’t worry about contacting the wall—it is smooth and finely polished by the impact of tanks! Make sure that you are following the diver in front of you, and stay up with him or her.

You well first see an exit to the right which is at 120 feet. If the group has adequate air and no deco time the dive guide will exit further down 130 feet. Don’t dwell there, but rise to the right and enter a very large cavern that some also call the Cathedral. There the group should dump the air from the BCs and kneel in the sand at 80 feet, check air supply and the dive guide will illuminate the very famous yellow sponge that has grown in the shape of a cross. This author did that one Easter Morning and could actually hear the squeals of delight from the ladies in the group!

From the Cathedral you will exit another swimthrough to the wall once again and do a vertical headfirst descent through a small crack in a coral head, down what we call the Plunge. Again at 130 feet you will need to rise again, through a huge arch to a sandy location at 70 feet. Another gear and air check and then the dive guide will again enter the coral head, going back toward the Plunge but through some completely new swimthroughs. Not down the Plunge again though as no deco time is pretty well gone, but back up through the huge arch to the sandy area at 70 feet. If there is adequate air supply for all, the dive guide will swim back south hugging the sand and coral head to stay out of the current, getting near the Devil’s Throat Cave one more time.

Now the exercise is over, rise to the coral head tops and cruise the wall watching your air bubbles percolating up from the caves down below. Glide along the wall and when the coral head ends you will ascend to the safety stop. The normal dive time for this dive with high capacity tanks is 50 minutes overall.

The cathedral with the cross didn't inspire any squeals from me. The Cathedral without the throat is considered an "intermediate" dive in the guide books.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

And I had a funny reaction to this exchange: He dove deeper and far more expensively than I did (on trimix) and at higher risk, and the visibility stunk and he didn't see anything he was excited about seeing (I would have liked to see the sharks, personally). Why did he do it? It was clear from his tone that he thought he had done something "better" than what we did, but we enjoyed OUR dive.

Well, as to why did they do it ... it turns out that someone in their little dive group had found a new wreck in Lake Washington ... at about 240 ffw from what I heard ... and they were checking out some gear for the upcoming dive to that wreck.

I would have liked to see the sharks too ... but this time of year they rarely come up to recreational depths ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)