Traverse dives (from the Divers doing stupid things thread.)

Thank You for the many good replies to my post. One of the main problems of my so called RANT was divers going in at Friedman that are not Full Cave. Highly respected cave divers made the determination that diving at Friedmans required a Full Cave Certification plus diving it with someone with experience in Friedmans. Divers were posting that they have been diving friedmans with Intro cards and the Rangers or Volunteers at the Ranger Station did not know any better. What bothers me is that my instructor for my Cavern or my Instructor for my Intro-Cave both gave us the speach about following the limits of the certification, both explained our responsibility to do this and to watch that other divers also do not exceed their training. I think all Instructor give the speach and if not should do so. The Cave Divers and Cave Instructors that set the limits at the training agencies and the rules at the dive sites are some of the best and most skilled cave divers in the world. These divers deserve respect, some of them have had to recover bodies and do not want to have to do that again. So that is why we have rules that we can live with.

:arrowred Ranger Chris
Manatee Springs State Park

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Originally Posted by erdcphotoman

Thank You for the many good replies to my post. One of the main problems of my so called RANT was divers going in at Friedman that are not Full Cave. Highly respected cave divers made the determination that diving at Friedmans required a Full Cave Certification plus diving it with someone with experience in Friedmans. Divers were posting that they have been diving friedmans with Intro cards and the Rangers or Volunteers at the Ranger Station did not know any better. What bothers me is that my instructor for my Cavern or my Instructor for my Intro-Cave both gave us the speach about following the limits of the certification, both explained our responsibility to do this and to watch that other divers also do not exceed their training. I think all Instructor give the speach and if not should do so. The Cave Divers and Cave Instructors that set the limits at the training agencies and the rules at the dive sites are some of the best and most skilled cave divers in the world. These divers deserve respect, some of them have had to recover bodies and do not want to have to do that again. So that is why we have rules that we can live with.

:arrowred Ranger Chris
Manatee Springs State Park

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See, that's a good post, informative and with a clear point.:-D

This is an interesting thread ! Here are a few thoughts: Who taught you to make visual jumps in the first place ? Why do that ? In making traverses or jumps(Long or Short)why would you ever even attempt it if you were never trained to begin with ? Does a -C- card make you impervious to error or poor judgment to begin with ? How will a DPV make your dive more enjoyable in tight quarters or low ceilings ? (if you cannot swim it to begin with, why do it?}
Sheck & Wes were extraordinary explorers with the skills & mind sets to push the envelopes ! As are Woody, Bill Main, & a few others. If you do not have the skills, training, & mind set to do advanced explorations, then why put your stupidity on the rest of this community?
Enjoy your dives, but dive within your limits....don't do something stupid ! Get the training & education, and then be smart !

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Originally Posted by erdcphotoman

Thank You for the many good replies to my post. One of the main problems of my so called RANT was divers going in at Friedman that are not Full Cave. Highly respected cave divers made the determination that diving at Friedmans required a Full Cave Certification plus diving it with someone with experience in Friedmans. Divers were posting that they have been diving friedmans with Intro cards and the Rangers or Volunteers at the Ranger Station did not know any better.

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Quite apart from the fact that the entrance is not suitable for an inexperienced diver, the line at Friedman's is T'ed into the main line just below the entrance at about 50 feet depth, so given that Intro divers are not supposed to negotiate Ts, an Intro dive at Friedman's would be pretty short.

A lot of rules we have are in place because someone died. Where we know the 5 main rules are there because that was the foundation,but if we probably look back,the people who designed the no traverses for intro divers may have done it for a reason. At that time there may have been multiple fatalities from doing this and the solution was to put it in the training standards.

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Originally Posted by Greenwood_60

Good point.

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yes quite an interesting one.. nevertheless it is taught in a complete different context.. I wouldn't abstract the possibility for a traverse from that though..

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Originally Posted by JE

This is an interesting thread ! Here are a few thoughts: Who taught you to make visual jumps in the first place ? Why do that ? In making traverses or jumps(Long or Short)why would you ever even attempt it if you were never trained to begin with ?

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Not sure who this is adressed at, but since it refers to visual Jumps which I mentioned and I don't recall anybody else did, it might be adressed at me.
If so, I think you completely misunderstood what I was saying. I have not been taught to do visual jumps, I have been taught the oposite and as I wrote earlier I don't do any and will never do any, but I have seen people doing so..
I also do not want to promote anybody doing anything for which he has not been trained for. My questions were simply aimed at the traverse rule as I am not aware of it and I had doubt (clarified in the meanwhile) What elements would not have been trained at Intro level.. In the meanwhile I think it is running a line from the mainline to exit at another exit is the element which has not been trained at Intro level..

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Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop

A lot of rules we have are in place because someone died. Where we know the 5 main rules are there because that was the foundation,but if we probably look back,the people who designed the no traverses for intro divers may have done it for a reason. At that time there may have been multiple fatalities from doing this and the solution was to put it in the training standards.

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Well but this is exactly the point. Such rule is not in IANTD standards and from this thread I am not sure it is in any standards at all. Some NSS-CDS diver lean towards that there is such limit, but the answers are not clear enough for my taste to assume that this rules exitence as of their standards is even confirmed..

Nevertheless. in 95% of the cases it will not be possible for an Intro divers to complete any traverse without breaking some Intro rule..

So now we have official scuba police, one who has power as a law enforcement officer to boot....great

I have a better question, has the friedman dive ever caused an issue for ANYONE?

What "rules" related to certification are you planning on following?
Is it legal for you to leverage your hobby into a whole new level of federal government oversight for the rest of us?

How about you do your job as a Ranger within the guidelines established for the park and stay out of using your experience and passion to insert your authority into our lives?

I'm sure this won't be a popular opinion, but it's mine.

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Originally Posted by mdax

So now we have official scuba police, one who has power as a law enforcement officer to boot....great

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Park rangers are NOT law Enforcement. They cannot arrest you nor write tickets/citations. They are there to maintain the park and interoperate the park rules.

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Originally Posted by mdax

So now we have official scuba police, one who has power as a law enforcement officer to boot....great

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Uh? I took it for a very personal and heartfelt reminder to us all, that there are rules to follow. Some people seem to have forgotten about (some of) the rules, including myself at times.
It can't hurt to make an honest assessment once in a while in regards to one's own diving practices, and re-evaluate (and eventually change) them.

That's refreshing, so he won't be able to throw people to the ground and arrest them for traversing, not having 3 lights or following their plan...however he can restrict access to OUR resources without much oversight, disallow diving and enforce diving "rules".

He helped shut down manatee for scootering for how long?
This wasn't done through public vote or voted politicians...we received that bonus because a park ranger got certified and decided to restrict access based on his observations.