Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
I appreciate all of you maintaining radio silence as regards the horrendous ignornance being displayed by the usdct with their scooter and other problems. I know all of you know what is wrong, but wait until March 1 to discuss it. What really is telling about these guys is the willingness to continue to bet the lives of those kids on what they are clearly too inexperienced to understand. I think now everyone can see why there are no US cave divers on the "US" dct. I have scooters that burn for hours that have never been repaired in seven years of diving. We all know that electric motors are continuous duty. We also all know from high school physics just how pitifully stupid the concept of "helium cooling" or fanning an enclosed motor is - this is how a convection oven works. Remember the question about opening your refrigerator door to cool the house? PhD in WHAT? The other thing that is obvious is the what we have here is a Competition To The Death in cave diving. Notice that there is no mapping being done anymore, and that the areas of the cave these guys are pounding on is not being recorded at all. I do have a complete wall map going out 18,000 feet, but with the vis like it is now these guys can not even see the walls. All they are doing is following our lines trying to prove something until something goes even more wrong than it has already. All this and they have merely gone where we went on open circuit in two dives, not two months. After getting into Wakulla to make an "accurate map", it turns out that the survey I did is dead ACCURATE based on their cave radio findings. I had that tunnel under the road to Cherokee, and they confirmed this. So much for our "compass and string" and our "little piker weekends". Notice they do not see any tunnels that are not on my map or not t'd in. There are over 25,000 feet of passage for which I never released the data - they obviously seemed to disappear. They did find the other two tunnels that go to Cherokee from A , but they looped back into a circle and missed the way on there for some reason, probably the bad vis caused them to miss the jumps - those tunnels are the absolute worst nightmares in cave diving, as they problably found out, and as one of them alluded to when he turned back at a restricion - actually a good call on his part. When I was surveying that restriction the whole tunnel collapsed on me with JJ and Brent on the inbound side. I held still and Brent cleared the debris off of me and we continued on, but what a mess that was. I had to keep moving forward to read my instruments. I also see that when these guys did find a tunnel to put line in ( B Tunnel) in the clear water, they did not survey it. I suppose they expect me to go do that? No chance. That thing is like the area behind the Hinkel with white walls at 285 feet - no thanks. We reeled back out of it after we had to push our scooters ahead of us a couple of times, but we did that one an a triple stage open circuit. In fact, we left our last stage bottle right there to get through one spot. I am concerned that these guys are going to follow that line out there (the conduit) in bad vis, have scooter and other problems, and not get back out. They do not understand how long it takes when you have to tow a diver, or how fast the gas goes on open circuit when you have to drag bottles. You can not get out without strong scooters, that is why we use so many. This potential for death is a real shame since as you all know and witnessed, Brent, JJ and I did that dive easily in one shot with one setup that was also an exploration dive. We ran that one from the door in six hours. For us and the team, this is SOP - no big deal. We have the contingenices accounted for ( we know what it takes to get out), as you can see by reading the story of those events. There is nothing to prove here worth dying for, and what they already have proven to the World is how long , how much money, and how much wasted effort it takes to "compete" with what the WKPP can do in one day with its proven methods and teamwork. Yes there are other ways to do things, and these guys have sure proven that. I am also concernd about the physical beating these people are taking doing the wrong deco. They must have smoked lungs by now, and permanent lung and bone damage. It will take months of extemely expensive Human Growth Hormone treatment to get any relief from that damage, if at all. Those treatments cost over $4000 per effort, and insurance will not pay for it at all. In addition, the battery of tests that must be taken to do this are prohibitive, and if there is any sign of any predisposition to cancer, they will not give the treatment, especially to women. The alternative is lifetime of shortness of breath and emphasema-like conditions. I will bet that none of them can breathe properly right now. They are probaly all coughing constnatly. As you know, we measure our vital capacity by running and swimming times the next day, and have figured out how to beat that problem before it happens. Do not discuss how we decompress with anyone but Hamilton until Mar 1, and continue to not discuss scooters , lights, rigging or anything else until then. You can see they are perfoming superfical bad copies of everythign we do, and it is not working. Look at how long it takes to do everything. We can talk about it in one month. Let's hope that this competition does not result in those kids getting killed. I do appreaciate all of the WKPP guys worldwide keeping quiet - I know the temptation is overwhelming, but wait one month. It is not our responsiblity if they keep sending kids out there on faulty equipment - they KNOW it is faulty. The State can see they are no longer mapping - it is not our problem, it is theirs. If they want to run a their own Thunderdome, Autie would be proud. They know the rules, "break a deal, face the wheel", and they are breaking the deal now.
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]