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George, If nothing has changed then that is a bad state of affairs. But, I am sure what you may mean is that change has been slow. Because there has been change and we both know that. What has not changed is that there are still those men and women who want to do daring things. Despite how much you or I (or anyone for that matter) get on our soap boxes we cant reach them all -- we may be lucky if we can reach 20 or 30 in a year. What has changed overall. Significant increase in the use of helium, more use of standardized enriched air mixes, cleaner gear configurations, a greater application of the "team approach." Will we ever be able to stop fatalities in diving across the board. I don't think so. But once in a while we may just stop that one diver who is at the fork in the road; his choice is a difficult one because he's ignorant, not stupid, just ignorant. Agencies? Agencies don't train people -- people train people. Even there we cant assure that it is always done "perfectly" since perfection is something that can be strived for but never really achieved. One by one we learn how to do it better. Community is important its part of the human spirit that cannot be ignored. New ones join, and some leave. If you look back over the very short 7 years, even you have changed. Methods, approaches, tools, equipment, and tolerance or lack thereof. The only thing that is constant is change. So where do we go? I know what I am doing, I'm making changes, some of them are even credited to you. But in the long run we do need to remember some of the tragedies as little wake up calls. The Rouses (who i didn't know) just happen to be one of the nastiest that pop up each year for me. You have others you can remember I am sure. Billy Deans has his, Capt Steve has his, and the line goes on. We have both seen people come into this sport, burn hot for a few years then sell all their gear on tech diver, they have their demons too. Don't give up on community. regards, jds At 02:30 PM 10/12/1999 -0400, you wrote: >Joel, seven years ago I was appointed Director of the Woodville Karst >Plain Project, and there has not been an accident or death since while >the most extreme cave diving on record was executed flawlessly. > >Screw the "community", they don't understand why. If they did, we would >not be having these conversations, now would we? > >Nothing has changed in the "commmunity", and nothing has changed at >WKPP. > >Beat goes on. As fast as we get the word out, the training agencies >multimply your "nightmare". What we end up with is an elite group >worldwide and a lot of accidents happening or waiting to happen with the >rest ( a much larger and growing group). > >Joel Silverstein wrote: >> >> Seven Years Ago >> >> Once again those feelings catch up with me each year about this time. Te. Of most significance, however, during that year >> were the deaths. Before this date that year more than ten had occurred. (If >> my numbers are correct 1998 met those death tolls as I believe has this >> year. 1999- has been a tragic year. . The death toll that summer was more than 10. >>. And there were more fatalities and >> accidents around the world that I cant recall . >> >> The community, and yes, there was a community then, was upset and concerned >> that what we had unleashed in the interests of fun, and exploration, and >> challenge had become a nightmare. > > -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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