DiveLikeAMuppet
Contributor
In your experience, what are some unique issues of mine diving? Do you have any lessons learned?
Here’s something to start that I picked up along the way but looking for less obvious problems.
Dry section:
Here’s something to start that I picked up along the way but looking for less obvious problems.
Dry section:
- Don’t touch the ceiling, stay away from walls, especially bulging stacked deads
- Access is usually physically demanding, muddy
- Assume that any airbells are toxic, preferably don’t surface at all outside of the dive base
- Sites require landowner permission
- Slate and mud get everywhere
- Helmet with a good torch really helps
- Higher CO2 levels?
- Floors might be false?
- Silt is everywhere, the entrance might be zero viz
- Viz might take days to weeks to clear as there is no flow
- Chemicals leaching into water (heavy metals for ore mines etc.), also agricultural runoff
- Potentially complex navigation, in some mines it’s better to bring clothing pegs rather than cookies, maps may be unreliable, lines unmaintained
- Cold water - thick dry gloves, thick undersuits, heating, thicker lines in general, cold also kills batteries faster
- The first dives are brutal for someone trained in warm water caves
- CCR is potentially safer than OC - no exhaust bubbles
- Don’t stay in one place for long on OC or stuff starts to fall down (percolation or worse)