Mailing List Archive

Mailing List: techdiver

Message Display

Greg, "California cave diver" is also an oxymoron. With your 12 resort
course cave dives under your belt, you certainly make a good "expert".
In fact, you should have been diving with the "usdct" - you could have
fixed all of those broken lines for them and maybe they would have been
able to get someplace and would not have missed 25,000 feet of cave, not
to mention missing the end of the line by two miles. 

How about a little sympathy for me and the WKPP - just think, you
stroke, there was NO LINE in the cave where we went, and let me tell you
I sure was pissed when I had to put 50 some odd thousand feet in there
just to dive. I am still pissed about that, and just between you and me,
I blame it all on the "usdct" - they cost me about $2000 in cave line.


Kuiper, Greg wrote:
> 
> List,
> The recent fatatlities at Madison Blue have made me reflect on cave
> and wreck situations I have been in where if the line had broken I
> would have had similar problems.  How many of you have gone through
> tight restrictions in tanninc or fine clay/limestone silt where you
> couldn't see jack squat?  I know I have and what a pain it the ass it
> would be to all of a sudden run out of line on the exiting portion of
> a cave dive.  I was taught to take my safety reel, tie off to the end
> of the line and go in search of the other end.  I can think of many
> spots I have been in where that could be almost impossible due to
> current blowing the line downstream or multiple possible routes
> through a zero visiblity area.  It is also a pain in the ass to find
> broken cave line amongst stalagmites in a zero vis environment.
> 
> Cave line is tough, but after reading about the recent unfortunate
> accident at Madison Blue and all the broken cave line that USCDT found
> in Wakulla it makes me realize that it might be smart to run your own
> line through certain areas where a broken line could mean life or
> death.
> 
> I don't mean every single tight place where there could be zero
> visibility, but in those areas where there could be multiple paths and
> only one leads to the exit.
> 
> An anology that springs to mind is from when I used to rock climb.
> Most American climbers use one thick rope for their climb where many
> of the European climbers I used to know would use two ropes at a time
> for their ascent in case one failed.
> 
> In a life threatening environment like caves I don't think it would be
> a bad idea to run a separate line on top of the already existing cave
> line in the appropriate places.  The divers at Madison blue might be
> alive today if they had tried that.
> 
> Dive safe everybody,
> Greg Kuiper


--
Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.

Navigate by Author: [Previous] [Next] [Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject: [Previous] [Next] [Subject Search Index]

[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]

[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]