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You wrote: > >Dave, > >I agree with you 100%. Ms. Soler's question albeit a bit broad, is pertinent >to this list. While I have 15 years of diving experience, I have only been >caving and tech diving for 1 year and consider myself a novice of limited >experience. I lurk on this list to learn, and rarely post unless I really >need info from a fellow list member. The reason I rarely post is clearly >defined by the answers received by Ms. Soler. > >We were all novices when we began, and with that goes a thirst for knowledge. >That is what is so attrative about tech and cave diving. Not just the doing, >but the learning and the planning and the mental ability it requires to be >successful. > >dan >dkeenan@mh*.sb*.co* > > > > > > > > > > > >Date: Tue Aug 29 15:16:41 1995 >From: daemon@te*.ne* >Subject: Tech Diving?? >To: techdiver@terra.net > > >Ms. Soler asked a question. Maybe a naive question by (some of) our standards, >but a question nonetheless. She is probably a recently certified diver, or >one who has been pretty restricted in her diving. She has heard of this >"technical diving" realm. She sees the title of this list, and asks her ques- >tion.... > >Civil answers might induce another diver to follow a course of instruction >and experience-gaining, and thus enter the "fold". Isn't that what we want, >or is it an exclusive little club for those already there by talent or luck? >Maybe she will see how multi-ramous the term "technical diving" is, and how >many options for having fun with it there are. Maybe she will decide to >pass, and not get hurt trying to extend her range by herself. All are legit- >imate and laudable courses. > >But-apologies in advance to any who may have e-mailed her a courteous reply >via private e-mail-instead she gets various eyebrows-raised wise-ass comments >designed to put her in her place and show her just how little we (for some >unstated value of "we" < 100%) think of her and her diving. Very productive. >Maybe she'll just die or quit and leave us alone in our self-importance. > >One need not ever strap on a tank to achieve "strokedom"; a keyboard and >modem will suffice. > >Dave Ventre "Flames cheerfully scoffed at" >Quincy MA >-- >Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'. >Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'. >-- >Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'. >Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'. > Interesting thread. I think what are taken as snide remarks reflect a reality of tech diving that people seem to forget: until recently tech divers were subjected to uncomplimentary remarks almost any time a technical dive was mentioned in open discussion. With apology if the language offends, I well remember being refered to as one of those "swinging dicks that do decompression diving" after mentioning a deep dive just a few years ago. Protection then was the fellowship of other divers that understood, that did it. It is natural that tech divers still react when they sence an "outsider" Ms. Soler innocently touched a nerve and didn't realize it. Anyway, the thread is interesting for another reason. Maybe I am a bit behind the times, but I still tend to think of diving as a physical art: something that requires study but is only perfected in doing. You may have read and been told all about deep dives, but until you have edged up the line in a current, short on gas and freezing, well you don't really know. It seems like a bad idea, in my opinion, to think about complex profiles until you have worked your way through a few single stage 10 minute hangs, progressing to 30 minutes, then two stage etc. Then you start to find out about subtlties; like someone breathing your oxygen hung from the boat to zero before you get there. You learn to carry your own. Or are taught by experience to keep a weather eye down below on an anchor line during a hang, because divers like to send lift bags up the cable which skip along until they reach you at 30 feet then knock the crap out of you. Lots of little things, too much for print or talk. Yes, learn as much as you can before hiting the water, for sure. But diving, well you can only progress by diving. It often seemed to me that there is some "ladder," albiet a rough guide, that could be followed into more and more challenging dives. Steps leading to the deep. I have never quite been able to define what they should be for ocean diving. I don't know if such a concept exists for caving, because I am strickly a wreck diver. At any rate, I would be interested in what list members think. Good diving
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