The Cave Politics, Rumor Monger and Gossip Guild is alive and well. Let's end it!

[Trace Malinowski]

I think we ought to just get smart and start doing reality television and at least get paid for it. It would sell as no one does cheezy drama like north florida cave divers.

This was the result of Big Table Media posting they wanted cave divers over in CDF. Proof you are so right!

 

[WarrenZ]

That is just the sensationalized made up drama that makes me glad I dont have satellite anymore.

It also makes me jealous since my local lake's sunken foundry is currently about 60' above the water level and the vis is about 4 inches where there is water..

 

[PhatD1ver]

Doc (et al),

Let me tell you what this little story says to me. I don't know Rob, Ed, or Jim. I don't know Steve Martin, Boagarts, or Andy Davis personally. They are faces and names I've either seen in youtube videos, or read their blogs, visited their websites.

But, I do know the guy that trained me as I've started my walk down the path to tec diving with Tec40 and Cavern, learned and practiced in the 'warm' water depths of Asia and Sipadan (yes, its true, the informed know about the Turtle Tomb, and I assume that they recognize that it ranks as a 'real' cavern diving location). I know he was committed to quality and solid performance. I know he was scared senseless to think my wife and I would ever hazard diving a cavern alone together. And we hope his faith in certifying us is rewarded by us knowing we need to keep practicing and training, and diving with a guide until we an learn more. And more, he's earned the opportunity to keep training and mentoring us if the opportunity is there.

As for Cave? I don't know how far I'll take it. I have a pronounced fear of tight spots (I mean, this is the kind where I can't even watch someone crawl their way thru a really tight restriction in a video). I'm not the kind of guy that really panics, I tend to get really calm in a pinch, work my way out of things. But, that said, I also don't purposely try to squeeze myself thru openings I know I won't fit thru easily. I am all about the ability to egress in a hasty manner when the time comes. So, I don't mind squeezing and wriggling my somewhat portly self thru a simple wreck restriction (and I mean simple as in, drop both tanks and superman them thru the gap). But to be honest, the feel of cold steel against my wetsuit versus the idea of tons of rock? I'm a steel man.

I mean, I want to dive cenotes and the big rooms I see, I don't care much for tiny tunnels. And I'm not the guy who wants to explore long expanses of water filled tunnels just to see where they go. I like pretty. That means if I can get there, I want to see rooms filled with underwater geofeatures. And I'm willing to learn how to get there. But again, to be honest, I don't know how I'll get time to do Intro or Cave unless I do it here in China where I know I won't get the quality of training I want, or need. So, at 55, it may never happen, especially with morons who think anyone over 45 can't make it out there training.

Worse, is that your story tells me that there idiots like the instructor in question who are less worried about training people, and more about self aggrandizement. And all it does is push me to find people who are recognized to train with. I'll pay the extra dime, take a little longer vacation, match my schedule to theirs. A big mouth frog like that guy? He's doing everyone in the profession and the cave industry a disservice. He destroys his own credibility by bad mouthing others, anyone who claims to be his friend is also suddenly poison in my mind. Why would I want to train with a creep like that or any of his buddies? Even if his course only cost a fraction of what someone like Jim charges?

Anyway, I'm on a rant. But if anyone reads this and thinks it's too late for me, feel free to PM me, I'm willing to listen.

 

[Imbodie]

[QUOTE="Bennno, post: 7591424, member: 463432"

btw: I heard a rumor that superlyte is an amazing diver.[/QUOTE]


Was just a rumor

 

[Imbodie]

I tell every student in every cave class that picking up a cave diving buddy in the parking lot is more dangerous than picking up a whore in a bar.

I have more than one dive logged with someone I met at the site or one of the shops. Everyone has been proficient and fun to dive with. I question if a few were violating their standards, but that is their concern.

If you don't have warm fuzzies you can always turn the dive, so how is it dangerous?

 

[Germie]

I have more than one dive logged with someone I met at the site or one of the shops. Everyone has been proficient and fun to dive with.

If you don't have warm fuzzies you can always turn the dive, so how is it dangerous?

Exactly, I have same experiences.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

f you don't have warm fuzzies you can always turn the dive, so how is it dangerous?

It is all good until there is an issue, a problem and then you may have absolutely no idea how they were trained to respond, or even *if* they were properly trained to respond. Just showing you a cave cert card alone should not give you ANY confidence that they will respond properly.

You can turn the dive *if* the problem hasn't happened already.

There is not a lot of consistency between cave diver training "agencies" -- I am constantly surprised by the incompetence I see amongst cave divers who are trained by part time / newbie cave instructors. Particularly those "cave" instructors who fund a trip to cave country once or twice a year by charging tuition for a cave class here.

Just in the past week I have seen "cave divers" flopping around on the bottom stirring up silt, I have seen "cave divers" on DPVs that clearly have no clue how to properly and safely ride a DPV in a cave. I have seen "cave divers" installing lines that flap in the breeze and cave divers who have no clue as to who has the right of way in a cave....

And you want to take the chance of diving with one of these idiots?

 

[karstdvr]

And you want to take the chance of diving with one of these idiots?

Couldn't agree more. Nobody here would have unprotected sex with a crack whore,but we are willing to dive with unknown entities in a cave. At least with a crack whore mistake ,if you got AIDS or herpes ,the new drugs give you some quality of life. With an unknown entity in a cave,if something goes wrong, you could get a nice pine box with brass handles- a little more terminal.

 

[Germie]

First, a certified cave diver needs to get time to become more experienced. You cannot expect a newly certified cavediver is really experienced. BUT: he has to be good enough to dive SAFE. Experience grows by doing it. But a newly certified cavedive must have some good basics to dive safely. I don't mind if such a new cavediver asks me to dive with if he is not lying about experience. I don't like if someone says: I have already done that and that and I know he is lying.

Yes there can be a big difference in divers, good divers, bad divers. I don't mind to dive with divers who are not so good but don't know better because of bad instructors. If they want to learn, why not?
On the other hand, the more experienced divers have to expect the limits of the less experienced divers. If they take newbies too far, then it goes wrong too. But a newbie need to get the chance to learn and to build experience.

Same with a newbie instructor. Every instructor, how experienced he is now, has been a newbie in teaching. If the new instructor never teaches, then there will be no growing experience. As student you may expect a minimum level of the instructor of course. And maybe check the credentials if you are student and want to do a course.

So: there are certified divers who did not get the right instruction, there are instructors who founded their own agencies, I don't agree with this. I have seen fraud with a cave instructor card too. I had 1 time that someone told me he was cave instructor, he showed me a cert, but it was made by himself. Difficult to see, but I asked about his own instructor course and then I knew I have to check something.

So if you want to dive with an unknown diver: ask him about his experience and tell about your own. Ask further. I haven't been to Florida, but an example about France: I had a diver who told me he had dived the drop-off to 80m in the resselcave in France. As I know there is no dropoff to 80m, and the diver is diving on oc I asked further: what gases, how many stages? He said: we took a twinset with trimix and 2 decogases. Then I already knew this story is absolutely wrong. With a twinset, twin12 it is impossible to reach the 80m. You need scooters and serveral stages of bottomgas too. So I asked what was the swimmingspeed, how far in the cave and what was the total divetime, there came answers like: I swim really fast, 20m/minute I can do easely. I don't know the exact distance, but I have really done that dive. I knew enough. There is a dropoff around 450m in the cave, but that goes just to 45m. Most divers who just finished a full cave course have seen that dropoff, but haven't been down there (as limit of depth of max 39m).
So don't say directly no to diving with an unknown diver, but ask some basically questions. This can avoid diving with idiots or wannabees. And make the first dive easy, even with normal answers there is a chance to get a bad buddy. But by asking some questions, the chance is lowered.

 

[cerich]

Recently I was at my fave N Florida gas station, the Cave Country Dive shop. I like it because it's clean, I feel welcome and I get to meet a lot of interesting people. In fact, it's easy to waste a morning visiting with all the cool peeps who hang out there and I find out who's going where and doing what. For the most part it's awesome. But today I met a new guy (name withheld) that alarmed me. Oh, he wasn't wearing horns and a red suit. In fact he was nice enough and was checking out my Sprinter Dive Machine. He was impressed with it to the point he asked me how I found the time to create it.

Indulge me to admit a horrible secret. I've met a lot of people and lots of people know me, but I can't remember most of their names. I'm not popular as much as I am notorious, so when someone comes up to me I have no idea if they know me, if we've ever met or maybe have even dove together. Even worse, if they do know me, I'm often too embarrassed to ask them their names so I just fake it. It was obvious to me by his question, that this guy simply had no idea who I was or that I essentially played for a living. To answer him, I asked if he had ever heard about ScubaBoard. Wow. The resultant descriptors were like a punch in the face. My beloved ScubaBoard was being described as being a mean place, full of bickering and strife where this guy named Mike Irvine would go around slamming all the non DIR divers. The forcefulness and conviction of his condemnation was intense to the point that I almost didn't reveal who I was. You could have knocked me over with a feather. It was supposed to be such a fine day and I got dumped on instead. Tentatively, I asked if he had ever been on SB. He hadn't. I then asked if he meant George Irvine III and he realized that this was the name indeed. At that point I introduced myself as the owner of SB and also told him that no, GI3 had never ever posted on SB as a promise he made to a good friend and that I found his description of SB to be absurdly wrong. I then asked him where his information came from and he said it was his cave instructor (name also withheld). Wow. His impression and opinion of SB wasn't even his own and yet he obviously believed it. I suggested that he check us out and he said he would, just to see who was right!

That's OK. I know that SB has its critics and they can be harsh. We have far more fans, but that doesn't seem to faze them. In any event, I try to learn from all my critics. Perception is everything on the Interwebs and SB is not immune to that. But then things got interesting. Elena was finishing her full cave cert with Jill Heirnerth and he commented that he was glad she didn't have one of those dangerous instructors like Capt. Jim Wyatt. I asked why he said that, and he told me that everyone knew how he killed that girl over at Peacock. Wow. It was a day of wows. I asked if he got that information from his instructor and he said that he had. His instructor also told him to watch out for Rob Neto and Edd Sorensen too. I laughed out loud since I had never met anyone who hated BOTH Rob and Edd. Usually they are in one camp or the other, so this was novel.

To say I was aghast, would be putting it mildly. Go to the thesaurus and look up the synonyms for aghast and I was all of them and more. Inside I was seething, but not at this guy. I was mad at his instructor. As gently as I could, I told him how wrong he was in his opinions of these people who he had never met. I added the caveat that I was personal friends with everyone he mentioned and that I was staying in Jim's house and that Jim was the one who got Elena started down the dark side.
Now, I can't remember if it was his car that had the sticker on it or if was the other guy who was spouting off about how bad someone else was because his instructor told him so, but I thought it was rather ironic.

Dive More. Post Less.

Wow.​

None of the rumors I had heard this morning came off of the interwebs. All of them were a result of an instructor telling some BS to their students. Candidly, none of these rumors would ever survive on the internet and def not on SB. People would be calling BS so quickly their heads would spin. I reflected how often I have heard someone complain about SB or the internet and it became obvious where the real problem lay. I call them the Cave Politics, Rumor Monger and Gossip Guild. Let's call them the CPRMG Guild for short. These are the people running their mouths during surface intervals, trying to one up each other for the most horrendous gossip and slander they can come up with. "Did you hear about so and sos dive in XXX? That idiot's lucky to be alive!" "I heard that so and so broke standards when they took a student to XXX!" You certainly won't find their schlock on any forum. First, they don't want that viciousness traceable back to them and second, they know that someone will call them on their BS. Forums are a great way to get the truth out there and a wonderful way to debunk the CPRGM Guild's lies and distortions. Obviously, it's a horrible way to spread rumors.

So, how do we deal with this? First, I'm going to be sure to only spread good vibes in Cave Country. Second, when someone starts to tell me crap about someone else, I'm just going to stop them. If they were there, then I might deign to listen, but none of this second hand BS is getting any of my time or attention. Third, I'm going to tell their victims about what they said. That's right, if you talk ill about any caver or instructor, you can be sure I will make sure they hear what you're saying about them. Finally, I'm not going to pass judgment on anyone in absentia. You earn or lose my trust in the cave: not on the picnic benches. I'm not interested in bolstering anyone's ego by tearing down another person's reputation. Not even my own.

new bumper stickers that say

DIVE MORE, POST MORE- Share your passion SCUBABOARD