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From my own experience I can confirm what George says. Most of the caves were closed to the public a long time ago and the closings had nothing at all to do with the WKPP. They were closed because of landowner concerns about deaths and the potential liability they would face if they allowed diving on their property. Starting in the mid 70s cave diving deaths skyrocketed. There are still 3-4 divers dying in N FL caves in a typical year. Forget the cost in human terms; wives, mothers and children left behind when a diver dies, the deaths bring bad publicity to the sport. Every death is a headline. When my wife found out I was learning to cave dive she had a fit. She was born and raised in Florida and has seen the headlines all her life. She was convinced that cave diving was closely akin to suicide (I have so far proven her wrong). What George has done is negotiated limited access to some of the previously closed sites by promising the owners to STRICTLY regulate who dives there and under what conditions. I can assure you that if the WKPP had the same death rate as the cave diving community at large they would be booted out in a New York minute. George has never gone out to have publicly available caves closed to diving. All he has done is to regain access to caves that bad press lost to everyone. Also, as far as I know, Wakulla Springs has never been open to the public for diving. The WKPP dives there under a special research permit. You imply that the WKPP is taking away your freedoms. With freedom comes responsibility. When members of a group act irresponsibly then usually the rest of the group suffers because of it. The poor training offered by many instructors and the common policy of certifying anyone with money to pay for a C-card have both contributed to the loss of freedom for all cave divers. If you want to beat the drum and wave the flag in the name of freedom you are blaming the wrong people for your loss of cave access. Look to the agencies that continue to retain instructors with outrageous track records, agencies that do not even enforce their own standards and turn out unsafe divers and point your finger in that direction. And you should know that the caves in the area you refer to are different. They are big, dark and deep. Depths are typically 150'-160' minimum and 250'-300' is common. With most agencies still teaching air diving to these depths the Tallahassee caves would be death traps. They are no place for neophytes. I suggest you look more closely at your sources of information. Perhaps your friends have an ax to grind? I don't deny that George Irvine can be a bit outspoken (is this an understatement?) and his uncompromising attitude does tend to piss off some people, but he keeps his team alive and his safety record has regained for those that want to make the commitment some of what was lost to all of us. And do yourself a favor. If you want to be the best (safest) cave diver you can be, call GUE for training.
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