To the OW divers I "met" at Jackson Blue last weekend

[ScubaSam]

John - You saved their lives that day by going in after them.

I don't want to put this out in the Universe but the one who said, "I know how to dive, I'm not an idiot" will die in a cave one day. He had no remorse in his tone or his attitude when we spoke to them at the surface.

 

[redacted]

I'm not sure what the right way is to keep someone from doing something very dangerous when authority is lacking. I suspect it is a matter of the right mixture of education and condemnation but I doubt if the same mix will work for all. I hope your approach worked.

 

[Kenny13]

And sometimes there is just no way to get through to some people.

 

[WillYanni]

Is this not clear enough?

The problem is that sign is easily out of the cavern zone at jb (maybe it is right on the cusp). Plus how many people even care when they see those signs

 

[Captain Bil]

A big part of the problem in that area begins at Vortex Spring. I can't count how many OW divers I have seen at the stop sign wearing an AL 80. i've even seen them back there with no lights. The story I got that time was the tunnel was lit up, they saw no problem! (Remember the disco lights?) Past and present management has always tacitly encouraged this practice. Morrison has the same thing going on, but at least the cave entrance was sealed off (pity, but probably for the best). JB should be permanently off limits to ANY OW diving, period.


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[Cave Diver]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

When I first started after the divers, I didn't realize there were 3 of them. One outside, two inside. My back was to them when they swam up so I thought there was only one in the cave. I figured he wouldn't go too far since his buddy was outside and seemed a bit scared. I thought the other one might have just been brave enough to take a quick peek inside.

When I dropped down into the first cavern area and saw no sign of him, I swam in a bit more to see where he went. At this point I hadn't even bothered turning my light back on because I expected to find him right there. Instead, I saw TWO of them inside with some small handheld HID's and I watched as one of them swam OVER the top of the sign so close his knee almost hit the edge of it.

They took off swimming towards the back and I ended up near a reel that had been placed on the mainline to complete a circuit. They stopped and appeared to be debating following this new line to see where it went. That's when I caught up with them and as I closed the distance I turned my 24w HID on. (There was still enough ambient light from them for me to see my surroundings).

To say the least they were startled when the cave suddenly lit up. They had no clue I was there. I signaled to them to get their attention and pointed to the exit. Then I waited for them to pass me and I followed behind to make sure they both got out.

When we surfaced, I told them "Guys, I'm not trying to be a d**k but you have no business being back there. That's a good way to get yourselves killed. If you want to see whats in the cave, go get some training."

One of them responded with "Yeah, I was scared. That was creepy, don't worry, I'll never do that again. I'm not stupid." I replied with, "Well I won't call YOU stupid, but that sign you almost ran smack into pretty much said it was stupid to dive any further without appropriate gear or training."

While I was inside with the other two, Donna brought the third one to the surface and was busy scaring the beejesus out of him. The three of us stayed at the surface until the three of them started to swim back to the boat. Then we exited and watched until they motored off.

 

[Gmsg]

I have a 22 yr old son AOW, and a 17 yr old son OW, not only would I have been all right with you chasing them down and making them turn back, I would send you a Thank You card for it. That would be after I kicked their respective butts for demonstrating such a HUGE lack of common sense. So THANK YOU for being willing to tolerate the bad attitudes to try and help someone learn safe diving habits.

 

[Rhone Man]

I remember hearing a story about a cave instructor who saw some guys in regular open water kit gearing up getting ready to jump in near a cave entrance in FL.

He pulled out some T-shirts from his car which said "The Good Divers All Live" and handed them to the divers, telling them that until they understood what they meant, they had no business going near any caves.

 

[Jax]

I'm not sure what the right way is to keep someone from doing something very dangerous when authority is lacking. I suspect it is a matter of the right mixture of education and condemnation but I doubt if the same mix will work for all. I hope your approach worked.

There's one approach that works well, but it's not PC.

 

[ScubaFeenD]

Glad everything worked out