>The reality is that the caves themselves are 'Benign' other than their
>natural changes and growth. They do not 'Kill people'. 
>It is only when we screw up in some manner and everything goes 'Pear
>shaped' with the results so often seen, that we suffer the consequencies
>of our actions.
>I agree though that there is some pretty grim instruction going on out
>there! and it makes me very sad when I see the results as posted.

Michael,

Agreed that my blanket statement about "caves killing people" was 
inaccurate and not what I meant to say precisely. It is more a shorthand 
for saying that there was a time when divers were doing stupid things 
_in_ caves and dying there in a variety of ways, depth, lost, lack of 
training and experience, panic, poor air management and just plain old 
stupidity. The leading cause in recent years has been depth on air. Which 
leads us to Trimix. It seems we have traded one set of problems for 
another.

The problem with tech/cave diving is that unlike other activities which 
require a modicum of physical training and experience to even get in the 
door, cave and tech diving is deceptively easy. Guys get certified in OW 
diving, see the articles about the "macho" deep and cave divers and they 
want it too. The fact is, you could put Grandma on that wreck and stand a 
resonable chance of getting her back--if everything went right. A new 
diver could get certified and by the time he had ten dives could probably 
find an instructor to take him through the entire cave diving course to 
full cave, then teach him 'Mix. Add a scooter to the mess and by the time 
this guy has 40 total dives underwater breathing _some_ brand of air he's 
doing a 300' 'mix dive on a wreck or in a cave, scootering with every 
piece of BS gear he's been told about in a dive store or that he's seen 
in a magazine, and shown clusterf--ked onto some "explorer's" body.

Diving isn't the only sport with this problem to be sure, but if you 
whitewater kayak, and you eddy out into a class five rapid, you will get 
hammered the first time and if you survive it, you might just have the 
sense pounded into you to know, "Hey, maybe I should do some more threes 
and fours!" Cave and tech diving isn't like that. You may do a dozen or 
more advanced dives before you realize what you're doing wrong and by 
then the problem may not occur near the entrance where you may or may not 
be able to handle it, but 4-5,000 feet back or 300' deep or maybe just at 
30' with a long deco ahead and no one willing or able to help. 

It's the fact that we're essentially "weightless" and that we can have 
machines pull us far and deep and computers that can tell us the safe 
profile. It's that there are places to buy our gases premixed and tested 
and tech BCs, lights, harnesses, helmets and valve protectors. Forget 
that some of this is BS, forget that some people take years and hundreds 
of dives and training and mistakes and soul-searching to get where this 
guy is after a couple of months and a Gold Visa card.

Tech diving instruction is not the long sought after summit of diving it 
once was--or maybe it never was. It's advertised, accessorized and 
sanitized. Divers are made to think, "It's the next step," when it may be 
a last step. Not every diver needs to be a tech diver, even if they want 
it. Tech agencies are apparently unwilling or unable to cull paying 
customers; their margins are probably too slim to exert any but the most 
rudimentary and self-serving of controls. I'm not, as others are here 
are, singling out the IANTD; I think it runs deeper than just them. I 
wonder if Tech diving today isn't where the Space Shuttle program was 
just before Christa McAuliffe stepped into the Challenger for her first 
and last flight. Whether high or deep, some things are just not meant to 
be consumer items.

That is not to say that this young lady fits the above profile. I don't 
know her or her experience level. She may have been ready, but was simply 
unlucky enough to have found an instructor who was not ready, or there 
may be other reasons. That remains to be seen. Regardless, the safety 
record for tech instruction and diving lately seems to be a poor one. The 
self-control that exists in OW diving seems not to be there for tech 
diving, I believe, because the very nature of cave and tech diving is 
that it is considered to be "beyond the bounds" and "out there." You hear 
more macho BS out of tech divers than just about any group I can think of 
in sport. So long as this attitude persists, but it's taught to anyone 
with the cash and the time, that mix will produce dead divers and let us 
not forget, devastated families.

Later,

JoeL
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