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> Richie, you really need to quit recommending stupid shit to people - because > you are such a nice guy, they think you know what you are talking about - you do > not - not even close. Once again, I find myself marveling at the irony of how your statements about me EXACTLY match my inclinations about you. > There are far greater condsiderations in diving that Mr Wizzrdry, and I just > proved it by beating your mentor senseless in cave diving rebreathers - this Who is my mentor? More importantly, who is Mr. Wizzrdry? (Wizardry?) Does this have something to do with hanging stage bottles on a line, or have I missed something? > Convoluted "wouldn't it be nices" are crap, and the real test is getting it > done and getting it done with the least risk and greatest flexibility to deal > with situations . I've been "getting it done" (finding new species, etc.) at depths in excess of 200 feet since the early 1980's. That works out to be almost half my entire life. How long have you been "getting it done"? Granted, most of this was "naked with the magic stone", and it earned me a year of paralysis early on, but these are the ways I have learned how to do this stuff "right" (by finding out how to do it "wrong" the hard way). You see, you had real mentors - people like Parker and Gavin. Florida cave diving has a long history of other cave divers (Sheck, Martz, etc.) with good examples to follow. My only instructor was the guy who gave me my Basic (not open-water) PADI certification. I picked up a few more cards after that one, but never learned anything from the instructors. Back when I was figuring this stuff out on my own - in my teens - I didn't even know there WERE caves in Florida, let alone people who dived in them. I didn't know about the Andrea Doria, or that people dived on it, or that anyone dived in that area at all, either. Until AquaCorps came along, I thought I was the only guy in the world doing this stuff. I was incredibly relieved to find out that I was not. If you understood evolution (the bioilogical kind), you'd understand the significance of concepts such as convergence, and different adaptive peaks. Remember when I gave you the lecture about adaptive peaks? Please don't tell me the cotton was in your ears. The Florida cavers, and the New York wreckers, and the Hawaii fish nerd all arrived at different adaptive peaks through learning from their own mistakes and (in the case of the cavers and wreckers but not the Hawaii fish nerd) the mistakes of others. Many of the early cavers and wreckers died. The Hawaii fish nerd almost died. The smart the ones with the right combination of intelligence, talent, and luck are still alive today. They've all arrived at different adaptive peaks partly because they dive in different environemnts, partly because they are conducting different tasks, and partly because they devised different solutions to similar problems. In a surprisingly large number of cases, they've independently arrived at identical solutions to similar problems - this is what we evolutionary types would call "convergence". Now, the only measure I can think of to even roughly approximate a comparison between the "rightness" of the different adaptive peaks is accident rates (RATES mind you, not shear numbers - that is, the ratio of accidents to number of dives done). The Hogarthian system has a large number of dives, and a superb (low) accident rate. I don't know what the numbers are for the wreckers, but I have a hunch they have both larger numbers of accidents, AND larger numbers of dives. What I don't know (and I don't think you, or anyone else knows), is what the accident RATE is. Personally, I don't care one wit, because the Hawaii fish nerd has the best accident rate of all - he's still alive and well. While he doesn't have as many total dives as all the cavers combined, or all the wreckers combined, his ratio of number of dives to number of divers is probably right up there near the top. > Your one-dimensional solutions which are based on ignorance of > available gear > and techniques are not the answer, and give away the fact that you have not > really put this into play Dude, get your math right. A cave is linear - it has one dimention. The ocean is much more volumetric - it has three dimentions. What does this mean? It means stage bottles are one HELL of a lot harder to find in the ocean than they are in a cave. That's why we clip them off on lines. Come to think of it, don't you guys clip your stages on lines also? It seems to me that the only difference is that your lines are horizontal and always within your reach, while our lines are vertical and must be found with other forms of navigational skill. > Bullshit does not work underwater I couldn't agree more. As you say, the proof is in the pudding, and the eating thereof. I'm starting to get a little sick of eating so much pudding, and I suspect you are as well. Whew! That was very....theraputic. Aloha, Rich
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