Tulum - what training should I get?

[LakeCountyDiver]

Your certification dives were held at these places,but did you enter the parts of the system that a direct ascent to the surface was prohibited? If so,then Boulderjohn may say that your instructor was in violation of standards.

Absolutely we did. I, like 100s of new OW divers every year do at these same sites. Is it wrong??? Again its your own call... If it were not for those sites I would not have been interested in cave at all. OW dive sites would be limited to the ocean and some lakes. Very few OW basin springs allow diving.

You have you opinion and I have mine.

I take it you are a fairly new cave diver with a TDI intro cert

Well yes I am but I sure you already knew that.. With your 20years of diving have you ever dove beyond your training?

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What is the appropriate training required to swim under the arch mentioned in post #55? Where should a diver with 1,100 lifetime dives seek out that training? What course should be requested?

Cavern is a good place to start.

Really??? For an arch?

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

Absolutely we did. I, like 100s of new OW divers every year do at these same sites. Is it wrong??? Again its your own call... If it were not for those sites I would not have been interested in cave at all. OW dive sites would be limited to the ocean and some lakes. Very few OW basin springs allow diving.

You have you opinion and I have mine.


Well yes I am but I sure you already knew that.. With your 20years of diving have you ever dove beyond your training?

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Really??? For an arch?

The commonly accepted line has been drawn at "overhead".

 

[karstdvr]

Absolutely we did. I, like 100s of new OW divers every year do at these same sites. Is it wrong??? Again its your own call... If it were not for those sites I would not have been interested in cave at all. OW dive sites would be limited to the ocean and some lakes. Very few OW basin springs allow diving.

You have you opinion and I have mine.


Well yes I am but I sure you already knew that.. With your 20years of diving have you ever dove beyond your training?

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Really??? For an arch?

My comments are not a flame,everything you said sounds great and congratulations on your cert. The thing I was trying to point out is this sport is like a book and we all come into it in different chapters. What newer people don't see is some of the problems we have encountered over time,and why some of us are vigilent about issues,which to newer people may seem overboard. Cave access is not an entitlement,but someone has worked hard to gain it,and others work to maintain. Did you realize we came very close to losing Little River permenantly over an accident that occurred at Royal spring due to some OW divers having an accident in the cavern? We also came close to losing Eagles Nest for same reason. Going back to my previous comment,we have lost quite a few sites over time,and we work hard to protect them. Losing a site because someone has exceeded their certification and can't read the signs that say," do not enter without proper training",is a greater loss to someone like you than me. Hope you enjoy your diving and exploration

 

[kensuf]

There is one very prolific and excellent cave instructor which has been teaching for over 20 years,and he does something to teach his students a lesson. When leading a class he will deviate around the lips at Devil's and will enter the step down room. This room has no line,and he will turn around and give the thumbs up. Most students have been blindly following him,and didn't run a reel,now the exit out is not evident. There are many lessons being offered here,that resonate with the student in the future,but the main point is people will follow guides blindly,get in a bad situation,and unable to self rescue.

So I disappeared for a couple of days to finish up an advanced class and this thread blew up. But the last part of the last sentence here is the important part to remember when talking about guided tours. A couple of years ago three people died because a guide in Mexico broke several rules, and I can not help but think that the people who signed up for the tour thought it was going to be just a fun safe day in the cenotes because they were going with a guide.

 

[karstdvr]

So I disappeared for a couple of days to finish up an advanced class and this thread blew up. But the last part of the last sentence here is the important part to remember when talking about guided tours. A couple of years ago three people died because a guide in Mexico broke several rules, and I can not help but think that the people who signed up for the tour thought it was going to be just a fun safe day in the cenotes because they were going with a guide.

Ken, I was wondering when you were going to show up, and do you best imitation of Gunney Sgt Hartman from "Full Metal Jacket".

I remember planning a dive in Mexico and the guide was laying out the plan. The plan was to see as much cave as possible and included 3 visuals. Everybody nodded to each step of the dive,and I said I will sit the dive out and why. I think when the guide realized he was about to lose a fee with me sitting out the day ,the plan changed. What troubled me the most is one of the other divers came up to me privately and said he was glad I said something because he didn't feel comfortable with that dive.
The thumbs up includes the surface too. Anybody can call a dive for any reason without repercussion.

 

[kensuf]

This problem of hero worship and trust me dives happens at every level of diving. I have to blame some of the fundamental OW training for creating the mindset that a person will be OK by being with a dive leader. Humans make mistakes, and dive leaders are humans too.

 

[boulderjohn]

Your certification dives were held at these places,but did you enter the parts of the system that a direct ascent to the surface was prohibited? If so,then Boulderjohn may say that your instructor was in violation of standards.

Correct. If an instructor led a student into an overhead during training, it is definitely a standards violation.

Two people around Christmas died at Eagles Nest,and the media called them cave divers,although they only held OW certs. Came close to losing this place if it wasn't due to the efforts of others. I have negotiated access at quite a few sites,and two places I couldn't because they pointed to some accidents,and were concerned about liability.

As a cave diver, I have the same concerns. As the person who wrote the report on this incident for the National Speleological Society, I am very familiar with the details. We all want this sort of thing to end. The issue is the strategy for ending it.

One strategy is to say that all overhead environments, no matter how simple and benign, are off limits to anyone without cave or cavern training. A second strategy is to provide more thorough education on overhead environments so that divers can make more intelligent decisions than they are making now.

One problem with the first strategy is that it is unenforceable. As I hope has been proven in this thread, there is no standard prohibiting divers from entering overheads, and there cannot be one because no dive agency has the authority to enforce such a standard. A second problem with that is that with so many thousands of divers going through simple, benign overheads every tear, and with dive operators around the world making access to overhead environments a selling point for their services, it is possible that the majority of certified divers have violated that non-existent rule already. With no guidance on the escalating challenges associated with more complicated overhead environments, these divers have no idea where to draw the line.

It is ScubaBoard's policy to prohibit threads or posts that advocate entering caves without appropriate training. If you go to the cave diving forum here, you will see that policy spelled out and explained. You will also see that I wrote and posted that explanation. It is absolutely absurd to say that I advocate diving in caves without training. Quite the opposite. I advocate accepting the fact that some overhead environments can be navigated safely without technical training, as is done all over the world every day of the year, and I advocate education that explains the fact that being able to dive in those simple, benign environments does not in any way prepare you do dive in environments like caves.

What do the two incidents that you describe have in common besides possibly getting the sites closed? The sites had clear and unmistakable warnings that told the divers they could not dive them without appropriate training. Apparently, however, the divers were not properly advised as to why the dives were beyond their ability. In the Christmas example, for example, what those divers attempted to do was simply absurd, and it is beyond my belief that anyone who truly understood why it was absurd would have attempted it. That is why I much prefer good education to blanket, unexplained, and unenforceable prohibitions.

 

[ucfdiver]

A photo to give some perspective of what's going on these days by guides who are following the rules for these types of tours:



I think it's frustrating seeing how Lynne's comments keep getting brushed over. There are rules for cavern guiding which are well established in that part of Mexico. No one has died to my knowledge while following these rules. Just as we've seen diver deaths by trained divers who break the rules (Peacock blind jump accident, Peacock 3 deep air accident during a training dive, Fyvie pushing his limits in Ginnie, intro divers in Little River scootering, Joe/Yessic at Waynes World, Bruce doing a visual jump at Ginnie, etc), we've had some cavern tour issues from those who break the rules.

Reminds me of a the mom of girl I used to date

Her Mom: Cave diving is dangerous, you shouldn't do it.
Me: We have strict rules we follow which make it a quite safe activity, actually.
Her Mom: Well I know someone who died while cave diving, it's not safe.
Me: They didn't follow the rules.
Her Mom: If they weren't cave diving they wouldn't have died.

Yes, if we stopped doing cavern tours, we'd lower the risk to zero-- but even trained cave divers don't do that. The fact is, I knew almost as many people who have died cave diving as I did who have died in a car accident. I know a LOT more drivers. So yes, there is an acceptable level of risk that's OK in diving. I can't statistically define it, but it's clear to any rational cave diver that we're adding risk to our lives by choosing to cave dive, and mitigating as much of it as we can when doing so.

While a death might close a site, I can almost guarantee you that banning cavern tours at some of these sites would close them as well, as that's most of the landowner's income, and what justifies having someone there to collect the money.

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

A photo to give some perspective of what's going on these days by guides who are following the rules for these types of tours:
View attachment 189267


I think it's frustrating seeing how Lynne's comments keep getting brushed over. There are rules for cavern guiding which are well established in that part of Mexico. No one has died to my knowledge while following these rules. Just as we've seen diver deaths by trained divers who break the rules (Peacock blind jump accident, Peacock 3 deep air accident during a training dive, Fyvie pushing his limits in Ginnie, intro divers in Little River scootering, Joe/Yessic at Waynes World, Bruce doing a visual jump at Ginnie, etc), we've had some cavern tour issues from those who break the rules.

Reminds me of a the mom of girl I used to date

Her Mom: Cave diving is dangerous, you shouldn't do it.
Me: We have strict rules we follow which make it a quite safe activity, actually.
Her Mom: Well I know someone who died while cave diving, it's not safe.
Me: They didn't follow the rules.
Her Mom: If they weren't cave diving they wouldn't have died.

Yes, if we stopped doing cavern tours, we'd lower the risk to zero-- but even trained cave divers don't do that. The fact is, I knew almost as many people who have died cave diving as I did who have died in a car accident. I know a LOT more drivers. So yes, there is an acceptable level of risk that's OK in diving. I can't statistically define it, but it's clear to any rational cave diver that we're adding risk to our lives by choosing to cave dive, and mitigating as much of it as we can when doing so.

While a death might close a site, I can almost guarantee you that banning cavern tours at some of these sites would close them as well, as that's most of the landowner's income, and what justifies having someone there to collect the money.

Cavern Guiding isn't a certification nor is it something we teach to OW students. In fact we discourage trust me dives.

Isn't staying out of an overhead environment part of the "rules"? Seems to me that it is. As trained rational cave divers we assume this risk. Untrained illogical OW air suckers not so much.

---------- Post added July 20th, 2014 at 07:14 PM ----------

To the best of my knowledge I can't take a three hundred foot mix dive just because I have a guide. Soft or hard, overhead requires training not a guide.

 

[ucfdiver]

Cavern Guiding isn't a certification nor is it something we teach to OW students. In fact we discourage trust me dives.

Isn't staying out of an overhead environment part of the "rules"? Seems to me that it is. As trained rational cave divers we assume this risk. Untrained illogical OW air suckers not so much.

The "rules" they're following state that it's OK to go on a guided dive, and have been laid out quite well by Lynne. These guided dives are being done multiple times a day, every single day of the year. Could you point me to 3-5 fatalities in the last 10 years that I could use to justify saying these dives are unsafe? Assuming there are only 1,000 divers per year being guided (and I'd guess that's a conservative number-- only 2.7 divers a day), 5 deaths in the last 10 years would make for a fatality rate of 1/20th of a percent. Assuming 10 divers a day go on cenote tours now we're talking about 1/100th of a percent. Assuming 25 divers a day now we're down to 0.0054% fatality rate.

To the best of my knowledge I can't take a three hundred foot mix dive just because I have a guide. Soft or hard, overhead requires training not a guide.

No, but some cave agencies do allow intro to cave divers to be guided at the full cave level by an instructor, or cavern divers guided at the intro level.