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Pete, that photo is the posterboy "stroke" that is taped to the door of
my van and is featured in the video "Extreme Cave Diving". This is the
perfect "what not to do " case of sheer stupidity that characterizes the
cave diving community.

Helmets are nonsense - they get in the way, they are dangerous, they are
an accomodation to using the wrong lights and other gear, and they
reflect the attitude of the user. The only time I EVER hit my head in a
cave was wearing a helmet. 

Only a real jerk would put lights on a helmet, so that when he turned to
look at his buddy, the lights would blind him, and only a moron would
think that putting work lights on a helmet made any sense, rather than
using the primary properly or properly stowing the backup lights. Only a
true jerk would compromise his whole rig for this kind of nonsense.

Helmets are not even a good idea in dry cave, unless you are caving with
a bunch of inconsiderate morons who climb all over the place and knock
rocks down on you, but that involves Rule Number One.

The big time strokes think that helmets and more crap is a sign of the
"technical" diver, and they plaster those stupid pictures everywhere and
give the wrong impression, just like the same guys do when they brag
about their deep air diving.

Look at that picture and just think what kind of abject stupidiity it
takes to hook two aluminum 80's to your back tanks rather than carry
stages, not to mention the other horrifying strokery displayed there,and
keep in mind that the dope who is in the picture never went more than
1000 feet into the cave, which is 1000 feet short of the first stage
bottle drop, and he was riding a fast scooter.

At the end of this "project", after they were onlyh able to get past
2000 feet in one of 129 attempts, these strokes said that "if they only
had rebreathers, they could go another 1000 feet". If they only knew how
to cave dive, thery would go the other 7,000 that we went so far in a
tiny fraction of the dives. The reason they got noplace and we smoked it
on a fraction of the gas on open curcuit is explained by that picture,
and the pictures of the Klingon cruisers, as well as the stories of
buddy-leving strokery and nonsense that charaterized and still is in
evidence with these same clowns, that is the few who are still alive.
Their attitude is "every man for himself".

Pete Young wrote:
> 
> George Irvine wrote:
> 
> > Jerry, I mixed your magazine up with "Diver" Magazine. I did indeed do
> > that interview with you, and I confused it with the one I did not have
> > time for in England ( they said it was a U.K. magazine ).
> 
> I was bemused by this at first, since I couldn't remember an interview
> with George appearing in Diver magazine. Then the penny dropped. The
> original message was referring not to Scuba World or Diver, but to
> the Imersed (sic) Winter 1997 issue, which features the article on
> WKPP which was discussed in this august forum a couple of months ago.
> 
> Accompanying an article by one Jeffrey Bozanic are two photographs of
> the same guy, one on page 34, the other on page 41, of a diver in
> Wakulla Springs wearing an assortment of gear which would not meet
> with WKPP approval This includes a wet suit, helmet, primary light and backup
> light mounted on helmet, stage bottles fixed high either side of
> back-mounted doubles, dangling 2nd stages everywhere, Jetstreams,
> stage bottle slung underneath a scooter, suicide clips and "butt-mounted"
> light canister. Is that the one?
> 
> The photos are credited to someone called Wes Skiles, and I'd rather not
> scan them in without permission. Perhaps you might care to email
> immersed@nj*.co* and ask them for an electronic copy.
> 
> Incidentally George, what is it that you don't like about helmets?
> Streamlining, or is there something else?
> 
> Regards
> 
> Pete
> 
>   ____________________________________________________________________
>   Pete Young     pete.young@bt*.bt*.co*.uk*      Phone +44 1473 605525
>       "Just another crouton, floating on the bouillabaisse of life"
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