Rec or Tech?

[Teller]

I am not a cave diver by any means but I dive one of the local lakes here in Texas almost every weekend. This lake is man made and at one time had a pump station in the lake. After they flooded the area to make the lake it left the pump station in about 45 feet of water right off the shore. I have about 65 dives out to this pump station and I know the site pretty well. There is access to get inside of the structure but I have not gone inside yet. I know this is no cave and would probaly be better classified as a wreck penitration dive but I couldnt find a place for that on the board so I am posting my question here. The hole to enter the building is a little snug but it is doable.

Knowing that my question is this. When do you draw the line and say this is no longer just rec diving?

 

[Scott L]

I am not a cave diver by any means but I dive one of the local lakes here in Texas almost every weekend. This lake is man made and at one time had a pump station in the lake. After they flooded the area to make the lake it left the pump station in about 45 feet of water right off the shore. I have about 65 dives out to this pump station and I know the site pretty well. There is access to get inside of the structure but I have not gone inside yet. I know this is no cave and would probaly be better classified as a wreck penitration dive but I couldnt find a place for that on the board so I am posting my question here. The hole to enter the building is a little snug but it is doable.

Knowing that my question is this. When do you draw the line and say this is no longer just rec diving?

Reading your post sent a chill up my spine having read the book - Submerged by Patrick Lenahan awhile ago that included a chapter on just such a senario which did not end well at all. I would strongly recomend the book for all the other fantastic interesting short stories in addition to this subject.

Also, there was a recent thread which discussed a similar topic of Hawaiian lava tubes being penetrated and whether such dives qualified for overhead training. My suggestion would be to contact a local dive shop or dive club to inquire about the situation before moving forward with any dive planning...

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Knowing that my question is this. When do you draw the line and say this is no longer just rec diving?

... the moment you remove the option to make a direct ascent to the surface.

Two people died in a similar scenario in eastern Washington a few years ago ... the diver who initially went in, and the diver who swam in attempting to rescue him.

From what you just described ... and knowing a bit about pump stations (I write O&M manuals about them for a living) ... I would caution you not to take that dive lightly. If you want to do it, take a tech class and learn something about the type of situations you can find yourself in and how to prepare yourself to deal with them ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TSandM]

You're talking about swimming into the building, right? I think this is really pretty comparable to wreck penetration. The inside will have navigational decisions (doors and hallways) and is likely to be very silty and low light. The problem with going into such a situation is that an errant fin kick can reduce the visibility to where you can no longer see your exit at all, not even as a dull glow. Such a dive should be done running a line, but you have to be confident that you can follow that line out calmly in zero viz. In addition, you need to use cave diving gas rules for penetration, and would be better to have your own redundancy in gas (i.e. doubles).

I'd call this a technical dive calling for specialized training. Lots of ways to get in a world of hurt.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

I am not a cave diver by any means but I dive one of the local lakes here in Texas almost every weekend. This lake is man made and at one time had a pump station in the lake. After they flooded the area to make the lake it left the pump station in about 45 feet of water right off the shore. I have about 65 dives out to this pump station and I know the site pretty well. There is access to get inside of the structure but I have not gone inside yet. I know this is no cave and would probaly be better classified as a wreck penitration dive but I couldnt find a place for that on the board so I am posting my question here. The hole to enter the building is a little snug but it is doable.

Knowing that my question is this. When do you draw the line and say this is no longer just rec diving?

This is no longer rec diving.

Unless it is a short "swim through" without possibility of silt-out or entrapment, and two divers can go though side-by-side, etc., it is an "overhead/penetration" dive.

If you swim inside a long-submerged structure that is likely to have a bunch of silt inside, you could very quickly be in a zero-viz situation from your bubbles hitting the ceiling and your finning, and divers have died in those situations, often very close to the exit but unaware of where the exit was.

Don't do it.

Best wishes.

 

[RJP]

"... the moment you remove the option to make a direct ascent to the surface."

Yup.

OP: you're describing the scuba equivalent of "Dude, hold my beer... and watch this!"

A phrase, after which nothing good can come.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

You're talking about swimming into the building, right? I think this is really pretty comparable to wreck penetration. The inside will have navigational decisions (doors and hallways) and is likely to be very silty and low light. The problem with going into such a situation is that an errant fin kick can reduce the visibility to where you can no longer see your exit at all, not even as a dull glow. Such a dive should be done running a line, but you have to be confident that you can follow that line out calmly in zero viz. In addition, you need to use cave diving gas rules for penetration, and would be better to have your own redundancy in gas (i.e. doubles).

I'd call this a technical dive calling for specialized training. Lots of ways to get in a world of hurt.

Unless it's a large pump station, the building itself's likely to be fairly open ... and not particularly large. But unless they cleaned out all the gear (not likely), there'll be lots of equipment, pumps, valves, pipes, motors, conduits, and other stuff (possibly even a chain hoist) to get yourselt entangled in. As Lynne said, the big challenge would be finding your way out ... in a lake there's almost a guarantee that silt's collected inside that building over the time it's been down there. And even if you're careful, unless other divers are going in there, just your bubbles can stir things up enough to create a complete visibility blowout. Ask yourself what you would do if you suddenly and completely lost your visibility and had to find your way out by feel. Will you be able to stay calm enough to think through what you'll need to do? Will you have enough gas to follow up on whatever solution you come up with?

You'd better ... because going to the surface won't be an option.

The biggest difference between a rec dive and a tech dive involves how you think about approaching it ... best to take a class that will teach you that part before you try something like this.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Dive-aholic]

Snug entrance and overhead preventing direct ascent to the surface means this is not only a technical dive, but it is an advanced technical dive. A single tank is not the proper equipment for a dive like this. You need redundancy, which means backmounted doubles or sidemounted cylinders. With a snug entrance, it sounds like sidemount may be the more appropriate configuration. A wreck course is also not going to train you to do this dive. Basic wreck courses teach you about diving the outside of wrecks with an optional penetration during the last dive. If you want to go in there, I suggest taking a cavern course, in which you'll be doing 4 dives in an overhead environment and learn the skills necessary to keep you safe.

 

[FireInMyBones]

I consider every "overhead" (both virtual, like deco or hard, like a cave/ wreck) to be a technical dive. I recommend overhead training. I just took my cavern course and it was a great experience.

Do people go in holes like this all the time untrained? Yes. Do all of those people make it back out? No.

Are you prepared to make it back out? Are you diving a redundant rig, ready to handle a problem if it arises? Will you have a guideline to show you the way out and the proficiency with a reel/spool to not get entangled?

Overheads can be great fun to explore, but exploration without preparation can have disastrous consequences.

Please get proper training. You will be able to enjoy the dive more and the course will make you a better diver, if you choose to learn from it.

 

[Teller]

Not to talk this down at all because I relize all the point mentioned above are good points but this is a wide open room. Atleast 10 feet from top to bottom and well over 25 feet wide and then from what I can see a hallway that goes on to more. I was only considering going into that first large opening and yes I would be using a reel and a pony bottle. I was only considering it and not making any plans yet. Just wanted to get some opinions from some more experianced divers. Thanks.