To ALL newbies please read this:

[rovic]

Before you enter the world of Diving...think a million times...and read this article, it might save you from deep trouble.
--------> Most dangerous sports in the world

 

[Chugwhump]

Yeah....
Stay out of caves.

Chug
There are very few Lions in caves.

 

[Nirvana]

Really? "To all newbies"? I'd expect a person to take cave diving training when they are not a "newbie" and when they have gained access to information on the risks of the sport through more reliable sources than top 10 lists.

This particular list, by the way, is really precious. Does anyone really think that all the training and equipment available to cave divers still are not enough to make it safer than being chased by a bull? And that cave divers not only use an oxygen tank while penetrating the cave, but that it is their sole gas supply, meaning a regulator or cylinder failure has them swimming as fast as possible towards the exit? The icing on the cake was citing David Shaw's fatality as an example of common cave accidents.

I guess that list is useful, in a way. As long as a diver thinks that what is written there makes sense, he should stay as far away from a cave as possible.

 

[TSandM]

Note that there are no statistics given, and that's because nobody knows what they are. This is just the author's personal perception that this is a dangerous sport. In addition, people contemplating taking up diving don't even need to THINK about what the dangers of cave diving are. A truly miniscule minority of people who learn to dive will ever take up cave diving.

 

[drrich2]

Perhaps we should think about making the different examples more relevant to diving.

So, how do we make 'Running with the Bull' translate to scuba diving? Cageless great white diving?

Richard.

 

[supergaijin]

Joining South Africa's Sardine Run with a pocket full of day-old anchovies?

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

Rovic

I find this post and its title "to ALL newbies" somewhat irresponsible. Sure, there are some sorts of diving that incur smaller margins for error - tech diving and cave diving specifically being 2 examples - however to suggest that these risks need to be considered at entry level is ridiculous. New divers are taken through several recreational courses and must provide proof of relevant specialty course completion (eg Deep, Nitrox, Cavern etc) at recreational level, and in many cases a minimum number of logged dives before they are allowed to embark on any kind of technical courses such as cave diving. Yes, there are increased risks involved with cave diving. There are risks involved in every type of diving. That's why there are so many safety checks, drills, skills, backup systems, redundancy planning and academic coursework etc (I could go on, but you get the idea) to complete so that students are informed of, and learn to avoid the inherent risks. And that's at any level not just cave diving specifically.

Surely the whole point of Scubaboard is to offer advice and encouragement to new and potential new divers, not scare them away with an over dramatised news article, clearly written by someone who knows nothing of the sport (several references to Oxygen use rather than trimix, nitrox etc - Oxygen has an max operating depth of 6metres) and has just included his own (largely uninformed) opinions and bias to make his news story as sensational as possible.

This featured article is not a true representation of diving, and as long as the irresponsible re-posting of stories like this continues on dive forums, who knows how many true 'newbies' out there will put off diving for good, or never give it a go at all. They will never know what they are missing. And shame on you for encouraging it.

 

[Tortuga68]

He's a troll, ignore him: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...55999-guys-before-you-consider-any-sport.html

 

[DevonDiver]

Troll thread... silly.

 

[teecup]

It was an interesting slideshow. I just don't think newbies would attempt to try cave diving without knowing the risks and without making ample preparation.