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Someone wrote:

>George, you don't have Open Water divers in Leon Sinks every weekend.

That doesn't matter. How many open water divers (or new cave divers, for
that matter) have died shallow in the cave in relatively simple systems
that had no permanent line to the surface? (Little River, Ginnie, Alachua,
etc...) Cutting the line back is a protective measure for the caves, not
for the divers, and its a poor practice. 

Now, I agree that new divers (and old ones) must know how to lay line, and
I will also agree that among a few instructors it seems to be becoming a
lost art. However, because a diver needs training is a poor excuse to cut
back a safety tool to a less than usefull position. There are better places
and conditions to teach a person how to properly lay line- Just for an
example- take your students to Manatee and make them find tieoffs on the
opposite of the passage from the main line- and then make them clean it up
again. Do it in the MIDDLE of the dive- perhaps they will get the hang of
laying exploration line with some time pressure, and when it comes to
really laying line, they wont be so excited that they put the line in every
trap they can get around.

Doing this the diver still gets his essential training, and as a byproduct,
no other divers are endangered by not having the line going all the way to
open water/surface which ever is appropriate. 

Open water divers will follow the line in. There is no way to get around
this. Open water divers will also go get walmart fishing reels and find the
cut-back main line. I saw this at Emerald. The guy was cruising around in
the deep passage with a damn zebco fishing reel. Of course, that is the
extreme. 

The issue of cutting back lines from the surface needs to be seriously
reconsidered for the tourist caves- Beyond that it isint much of an issue,
caves with less than pristine viz and active exploration almost always have
the line to or very near the surface.

While we're arguing about lines- lets talk about the whole jump thing. Bad
business. The majority of the line laid in Jackson blue should be used as
an example of great line management- no jumps, just WELL MARKED T's. I have
yet to hear a good explanation for T's beyond poor skills. If a person gets
lost in somewhere marked like JB, they are too far too fast, and its their
own and their instructors fault. 


Jason Richards
rchrds@gr*.ne*
  NSS 41539

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