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Bill , all I can say is the biggest problems now come from "trained divers" and divers who are supposed to be "professionals", or in the business. Most of them are emanating from two "tech " training agencies. For instance, just three weeks ago one of the crew off of the Ocean Explorer died diving solo in a cave on Andros, who knows if he was diving air or what, but the fact is this is the same operation on which Rob Parker got killed doing something extremely stupid with the captain of that boat( diving side mounts of one air, one mix at extreme depth and ran out of mix ), and the fact is that these guys don't get it and don't learn, yet keep fucking up in public for all to see and judge us. I saw this same operation at New Providence a week ago, and they were anchored near us. When my dive partner and I went down, there we saw the stream of solo diving morons jumping off into 6,000 feet of water with steel stages , steel backtanks and wetsuits diving solo and looking like complete strokes. Nobody gets it. The strokes and morons are killing it for us, we need to treat them like the plague that they are, and stay on them mercilessly until they are embarrassed into compliance. I hate idiots, and the idiots are all coming from the same places. The less tolerance we give them, the sooner it stops. -----Original Message----- From: Bill Bott [mailto:aquadart@ix*.ne*.co*] Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 10:12 PM To: techdiver@aquanaut.com Subject: Re: [Fwd: Artifacts or not] I don't want to get into the personality issues here (god knows I have a bit of personality myself) but George is right that it may not be long before tech divers/cave divers have no place left to dive. Up to a few years ago the entire diving industry was self regulating and out of the lime light. For each of the past few years I have responded to new threats to my right to pursue and enjoy this sport. And each year the pressure for regulation grows. I suspect that in a few more years (if it takes that long) we will see regulation from outside the sport which will severely limit how we are able to pursue our sport and based on what George said, about his Helium supply, I guess some people are already dealing with outside interference. The worst part of it is the we will all be judged by the actions of the worst among us. The best instructors will be held accountable for the actions of the incompetent without regard for agency affiliations or personal safety record. The diving community as a whole will be judged by the number of dead bodies that turn up in a year not by my record of 100+ dives in a year without a scrape scratch or pain. The community as a whole will be judged by the few people caught stealing property from protected wrecks not by the quality of the photos and video that we capture and make public for all to see. These are the facts which many of you refuse to face. These are the reasons (often unspoken) why so many of us get angered by when we see the same dumb situations over and over again. This is why some of us have a low tolerance for the poor training afforded so many divers these days. When the hammer finally falls on this industry every diver, agency and organization is going to get hit on the toes. No one will get a free pass. not GUE, IANTD NAUI or PADI!!! My only hope is that I have seen what I want to see and do what I want to do before it happens. Because when the regulations and restrictions come down we all know that tech diving will be the hardest hit and many of you will have no one to blame but yourself. Bill (aquadart) Bott -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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