"Swim-through" okay for open water divers?

[FishWatcher747]

There's a cave on Šolta island in which so far 7 divers died, 3 of them on the same dive.

Can you provide a link to a youtube video of this cave/swim through?

 

[Doc Harry]

I'm a cave diver and very experienced solo diver. My answer depends on depth, the group, and the diameter & length of the swim-through

If I know the skill of the people in my group, and we're not really deep, then I'll do a "recreational" swim-through.

If I'm with a gaggle of unknown people or newbies, then I'll go around. Most people stir up the sand and silt, and I'm not gonna get stuck in a silted-out tunnel with a panicked diver.

Personally I am comfortable soloing tunnels and wreck passages in recreational gear - to a degree. I know the risks and my capabilities.

 

[rick00001967]

i could not read most of the comments as i could not open pages 2 or 3 for some reason.

i guess the answer is "it depends".

what type of swim thru are we discussing? is it a brief 5 second swim at 30 feet deep through a wide opening? or a longer swim (like devils throat in coz for example) at 120+ feet?

imho brief shallow swim thru's should be no problem for most divers that received decent training.

something like devils throat however......may be a different story. first, it is bordering on being a cavern (it actually might technically be a cavern) and two, at that depth it may not be appropriate for many divers.

 

[boulderjohn]

I think @boulderjohn did work on this topic for PADI, defining swim through vs. overhead

i don't know if this is what you are talking about, but....

A few years ago I confronted PADI about the language in their wreck course saying that no one should ever "penetrate" a wreck without running a line. I made two points.

• Earlier that day I had done a wreck dive with [some really famous names that I specified], and we all penetrated, and none of us ran a line.
• I provided a video someone had made diving a popular recreational depth wreck in the Fort Lauderdale region. It had a wide open deck with a roof and almost no walls. At one point the videographer who was swimming around the wreck cut the corner through that wide open deck, thus putting himself under the roof area for 3-4 seconds. I asked if he shouldn't have run a line.

Well, I got a reply that set me straight.

• My dive that morning had featured extremely competent divers who were not (according to my description) actually penetrating the wreck. So no one means "inexperienced divers," ever means "except in special cases," and and penetration means something different, too (explained in the next bullet).
• What the diver did was acceptable because it was not a penetration. In a penetration, the diver enters at a specific point using a line, turns the dive, and retrieves the line while returning to the entry point. What the diver did in that video (and what we all did on our morning dive) was a swim-through, where you enter at one point and exit at another. A swim-through is open water, not an overhead. (This was not mentioned anywhere in the course.)

As you might guess, that led to quite an exchange. In my opinion, what was going on was a fear of putting anything in writing that suggests that divers have to make make decisions about really anything. They want their language to be as clear and objective as possible, and "just say no" is as clear as it gets. It is also as safe as it gets--for them. ("We clearly told them not to go there.")

I said that nothing in any language I had ever seen said that swim-throughs are open water, and they replied that everyone in the world knows that because the 2001 4th quarter training bulletin (sent to active instructors) said OW students could go through short swim-throughs. (I'm sure everyone reading this post is familiar with that.) For more evidence, they pointed out the fact that all over the world, dive operations lead divers through coral swim throughs and wrecks, showing that they know it is safe and aceptable.

Well, eventually they asked me to provide alternative language, and I did. I talked about the need to match your growing skills to the circumstances and make good decisions about entering overhead environments. They published a version of that a couple years ago in the professional journal, and they said that it would be used in future course revisions.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Esoteric definitions of swim thru, over-head environments and parsing words will now also ensue…

I resemble that remark.

My answer depends on which hat I'm wearing. As a dive buddy to a person I moderately care about surviving, I'd say it depends on the person and the details of the swim-through.

As a DM/Instructor I think I'd err a bit more on the conservative side. Lack of familiarity with the divers and my perceived (if not real) added liability would give me pause.

I've done dives off of Hawai'i, Lanai'i and Maui'i where we swam through lava tubes or into "caves." There were DM's who determined the group could do it safely. In hindsight I think some of these (cathedrals at Lanai'i., some of the Maui caves) were places I wouldn't want to be be responsible for a group I was leading. Others were no big deal. But I'd go with a moderately competent buddy in any of them.

There are lots of other places that we might not question but perhaps should. How about swimming under mooring lines or other line-like things that pass overhead?


You could get hung up on lots of stuff underwater if you weren't careful. Sure the swim through adds a roof, but is swimming through a narrow chasm better than a wide swim through?

 

[covediver]

Depends on what you mean by a swim-through. Anacapa Island in California has an underwater arch near the Landing Cove. You can enter from either side, see the other side the entire time, and yes, share air if you had to. I would have and have had no problem doing that. I guess its not a "cavern" if you can see the other side. By extension, may wrecks as artificial reefs I have been on have swim throughs the structure. If I enter and can see the exit and turn around and see the entrance, no problem. Some folks may not like it but I do not see why not.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

This entire thread is really all about what most folks would "define" as a swim through.

For example, if the pic below of the Cabo arch was underwater at 60ft...... I would say that most OW divers would be totally fine doing the "swim through"...

Bottom line for me is that an OW diver is just fine doing some swim throughs and that it's really more about experience, competence and qualification........rather than "Certification"...

 

[AJ]

Bottom line for me is that an OW diver is just fine doing some swim throughs and that it's really more about experience, competence and qualification........rather than "Certification"...

Yep, exactly my opinion. Diving into the Thistlegorm or through the blue hole arch at Dahab in the Red Sea can both be classified as 'swim throughs'. However, imo they are in a very different league. I know some OW divers without Cave training and in OW gear (air) that did both.

The Thistlegorm is a not an issue as far as I'am concerned, even for relatively inexperienced divers. Not even a need for a line. It's an easy and clean wreck. The Arch however is something I would not even consider doing with simple OW gear and experience.

 

[Vicko]

Can you provide a link to a youtube video of this cave/swim through?

Nope, people stoped diving and advertising it in the early 2000. It's not pretty or interesting in any way.

 

[Librarybarry]

Nope, people stoped diving and advertising it in the early 2000. It's not pretty or interesting in any way.

Is it the Pognacia cave? If so, there are a couple of videos on YouTube.