Waterhole sink at Peacock

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Originally Posted by jj1987

I think we should close the passage to anyone who can't prove they've cave dove in FL at least 10 weekends in the past year. Thoughts?

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The local zip code diving phenomenon - no cave country political discussion is complete without that....but I'll assume you intended to make a point other than "local zip code divers must be better than non-local zip code divers".

Still, a lot of non-local divers would come close or even exceed that mark - some would easily exceeed it and I know some divers here who head south on every holiday weekend. We are not in that category, but normally we come down on week long trips arriving on a Friday or Satruday, staying through the week and leaving the following Saturday after 1 or two dives on Saturday. So that hits two weekends with dives in them during each trip. Doing the math for you that means 4 trips and 8 weekends per year. This year I had an extra short trip to FL and picked up another weekend, and had two more FL wreck diving trips where, had I known of this proposed requirement, I guess I could have hit cave country coming and going on one of them and had 11 weekends. Thus by your proposed standards, becoming a diver worthy of diving Waterhole III.

But alas as it was, sadly, I'm only at 9 weekends a year and obviously don't meet your stringent criteria.

On the other hand, a local zip code diver could do one dive a day on 10 Saturdays during a calendar year and still meet your criteria with a total of only 10 cave dives per year. Since we probably agree that is not enough to stay current, let alone highly skilled, your proposed criteria has some validity issues. This is particularly true when you consider the average non-local zip code diver doing only a single a 5 day trip to FL a year would get that same number of cave dives per yearm, but by the latter half of the week is potentially diving better than the occassional local zip code diver ever gets with 10 widely spaced dives per year.

So in short, you'd need to add some additional criteria and qualifiers if you want to go that route, or perhaps just go with a specific number of cave diving days or number of cave dives per year.

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Originally Posted by Tegg

Larry does not agree with me so I have to repeat myself...Again...I ask you to sit there a few days on the "busy weekends" and count the number of intro divers rushing to jump in and destroy waterhole.

I'm interested to hear the report.

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How about you just take pictures of the edges of the head pool now and then again at 3 month intervals, see what happens and post them here.

I'd be interesting in seeing the pictures.

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Originally Posted by DA Aquamaster

but I'll assume you intended to make a point other than "local zip code divers must be better than non-local zip code divers".

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You'd be assuming wrong. My point was to show you that everyone believes *THEY* should get to dive xyz site, but no one else. You see, you're not a fan of the local zip code discussion, yet you're all in favor of placing other artificial limits on site access at a popular state owned tourist cave, so be it they don't effect everyone's favorite novel writer. Don't you find that ironic?

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Originally Posted by jj1987

Don't you find that ironic?

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You want irony? Check out my latest Facebook post.

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Originally Posted by jj1987

You'd be assuming wrong. My point was to show you that everyone believes *THEY* should get to dive xyz site, but no one else. You see, you're not a fan of the local zip code discussion, yet you're all in favor of placing other artificial limits on site access at a popular state owned tourist cave, so be it they don't effect everyone's favorite novel writer. Don't you find that ironic?

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Let's straighten out the logic here.

The only real limit that existed in the first place was the belief by most cave divers, and in particular those most likely to frequent a state owned toursist cave, that Waterhole III was closed. Thus protecting it from damage form diver who might otherwise have decided to enter and exit there.

The only "change" is that it is now *officially* open, creating potential for a greater level of damage to occur.

A problem expressed by a number of divers, prior to the whole offially open versus closed issue, has been divers with low skill levels in the Waterhole tunnel, and those concerns were in reference to full cave divers -due to the need to jump to the line if the Waterhole III entrance is closed.

I have suggested that it might not make much sense from a conservation perspective to open the entrance, in light of the potential for more damage to occur from traffic in and out of the sink, as well as in terms of opening the tunnel to a broader range of cert levels that could make the dive.

In that regard, closing Waterhole III to entry and exit would continue to leave the Waterhole tunnel effectively off limits to Intro (and Cavern) certed divers.

Beyond that however, I have not suggested anything other than a "limitation" that would be self imposed by each diver being responsible enough to honestly self assess their skills and opt out of going there if their skills are not truly up to the task of doing the dive cleanly.

I'm not asking big government to step in and tell everyone what to do/not to do on a dive, I am just suggesting that it is a diver's responsibility to accurately self assess their ability level, and that at the same time it appears to be a responsibility that many divers seem to be very challenged to successfully uphold.

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Originally Posted by DA Aquamaster

Let's straighten out the logic here.

The only real limit that existed in the first place was the belief by most cave divers, and in particular those most likely to frequent a state owned toursist cave, that Waterhole III was closed. Thus protecting it from damage form diver who might otherwise have decided to enter and exit there.

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Its CLEARLY evident from this thread and the last Waterhole III thread, that it was assumed that Waterhole III was a viable entry. So the rest of your diatribe is rubbish, aint it?

Nothing has changed.

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Originally Posted by DA Aquamaster

I'm not asking big government to step in

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Actually Larry, I believe you said earlier in the thread that by allowing it as an access point, you felt that management (a gov organization) was poorly managing the resource.

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Originally Posted by DA Aquamaster

The end result of the "Officially Open" change is that unlimited access that will result, will over time potentially eliminate any access, including the prior limited access by the well informed (again no big deal as few did it anyway) but sadly will do so only after erosion damage to the edges of the head pool itself has occurred.

IMHO, it's just poor management of the resource.

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Since this is an either or situation (allow access or not), if you believe that allowing access is poor management, that only leaves one conclusion-- you want the gov management to shut down access.

Forrest,

I think you hit it right on the head. I would be surprised if the impact on waterhole is dramatic based on the new "policy" (that I was obviously not aware of) as it is more of walk and the entry into the basin does require some level of dexterity.

Similarly, I think that this factor most likely reduces traffic at P3 (more so than the lower vis. or the fact that is syphon). My buddy and I were the only divers in P3 last Sunday that I am aware of even though the conditions were quite good.

And as far as local vs. tourist; I think we are all tourist's underwater - words from a nomad.

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Originally Posted by FW

Waterhole is already safe from too much traffic. Most divers are too lazy to walk that far :rollguy

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Originally Posted by jj1987

I think we should close the passage to anyone who can't prove they've cave dove in FL at least 10 weekends in the past year. Thoughts?

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guess that counts me out

I think Kelly may be the one that hit it on the head. It was hardly ever used as an entry, until this thead. If it does get a lot more traffic, it will be the fault of someone "daring" people to go through without silting up the silt. Now everyone will want to try it for themselves :roll: