I need to interview some cave divers!

My name is Michael Gibby and I am a student at the University of Central Florida. No, I did not join the board just to make this post, I've been lurking here ever since I was enrolled in an OW class, a friend of a friend reccomended it to me. After a year and a half of diving, I am moving more and more into cave diving, and I'm going to get cavern and intro to cave training (and hopefully certification) this summer. I joined a month or so ago if memory serves correct, after reading posts here for almost two years.

I am in an English Composition II Honors course that has as its focus, "ethnographic research and writing." We are supposed to study a group and write on it from an objective standpoint.

I decided to try and research cave divers. Partly to understand you (soon, I can change that to "us" and I cannot wait for that day!) and partly so I can explain cave diving better to people who don't understand it at all.

I have developed a list of questions I would like answers to...there are a lot of them, the ones I feel are most important I put first, so if you don't want to answer them all, answer the first ones :) If any of you would like to answer but don't feel like typing, I can do phone interviews.

I will be using answers I get here, a few phone interviews from divers whose numbers I have, and notes from some dives with cave divers (not in caves, notes from the surface :) ) and from some social events/hanging out in the dive shops, to try and write a rough draft. I can put the paper up here if anyone has any interest in reading it... The second step will involve some historical research into this group...

If you want clarification on any questions, please feel free to ask. I wrote them in a hurry, deadlines snuck up on me...

Responses can be posted here or emailed to me, projektionstudios at yahoo dot com.

Question time!
1. May I use your user name and, if you provide it, your real name in my paper?

2. Why did you become a cave diver/why are you a cave diver?

3. How do you define the “group” of cave divers? (how do you see cave divers as being different from other groups(open water divers, golfers, whatever other groups come to mind)? What makes it a unique group and what makes it appeal to you?)

4. How did you get involved in cave diving?

5. What do you feel is the image of the “average” cave diver?

6a. What is (and, if you'd like to answer it, what should be) the main focus of cave divers?

6b. Are cave divers accomplishing their goals?

7. How often do you participate in cave diving (not necessarily diving, this could include social events or spending the night at the shop mixing your gas)?

8. What do you think the most serious issue facing cave divers today is? What have been the issues in the past? How is the group responding to the current issues, and how has the group responded in the past?

9. How well do you think cave divers have represented themselves to others/How well do you feel most people understand cave divers and cave diving?

10. How does one become a member of the cave diving society? Can you get kicked out, or just shunned? Why do people leave the group of cave divers/ leave cave diving?

11. How do you see leadership forming? (who leads the dives? Who explores the unexplored? Who heads up the regional groups? Who heads up the national groups? The worldwide groups? How do the power structures relate to the divers, and vice versa? It's a very open ended question...)

12. How has being a cave diver affected your life and your pursuits of other activities?

13. What is your biggest pet peeve related to diving? (you can list several if you want)

14. What is one funny story and one scary story you could share?

Sent you an email. Please post your paper once it is complete. I am interested to see it.

Thank you all for some very quick responses!!

I will post here my paper somehow...because I don't know how long I am able to edit posts, I might put it up on the server space the University gives me, so I can update it as I want to and I don't have to respost it every time. But I'll warn you, I'm a much better speech writer than paper writer, and I have never written an "ethnographic" paper before. The rough draft and the second draft might look nothing alike, as the teacher might point out that I went about it the wrong way entirely. We are going through the material at a fast enough pace that we haven't really gotten to practice writing out anything. It's an odd class, other friends enrolled in the same course, ENC1102H, are studying philosophy or rhetoric....

Ok...as you read this, please keep in mind that I've never written a paper like this before. And the teacher didn't really tell us exactly what to do, she just said to write and we'll figure it out. Secondly, I'm a business major, probably economics, not an english major. Moreover, I did not sleep at a Days Inn Express while writing this....

It's a bit of a read... I wouldn't mind any corrections or thoughts you had, this is the "final" draft but it's just a draft--usually she'll let us make corrections and turn them in later. Also, the second part of this paper is research into the history of cave diving, and I can make corrections or changes to the entire project while working on the second half as well.

On second thought, it's 3x too long for one post and I keep misguessing about where to cut it. Let me put it on a webpage and give you a link here....

Also, I am in the process of adding citations...when I get that all done, I'll try to resubmit the paper online. I tried very hard to make sure I always used names and quotation marks so that a reader can see without looking at citations where I got theinformation.

Paper

A very good first draft.

Rick

Great start, Michael. I'll be interested to see how this shapes up. Good luck!

Thanks to everyone whose commented on the draft so far! Yes, I will correct the spelling errors, and yes, I will correct TDI to International intsead of Institute, thank you to Sludge for pointing that little bungle out to me! :)

Only thing that I saw on there is my dogs name is Brutis! Nice paper, looking forward to seeing you soon

Chris-

Ooh...sorry about that Chris! I added that bit in when it was pretty late (or early. 2am is early and late at the same time, which is one of the reasons I love it). I'll fix it!!

You may want to add a short version of the pressure & volume relationship as it pertains to diving physiology. Through in some of the inherent hazards of diving, i.e. inert gas narcosis, barotrauma, hypercapnia, hyperoxia, hypoxia then some of those hazards specific to cave diving, i.e. overhead, silt, darkness, directional disorientation, restrictions, etc.

Good luck.

It's fun to be quoted in somebody's paper!

It's a good first draft. It's got some jumpy transitions in it, and I'd go through and tighten up the flow a little, but I think you do convey the variety of reasons that people cave dive, the overall feeling of fellowship, but the existence of some divisions within the community.

Interesting idea and good job putting so much information together.

One minor error I noticed:
"Inside of caves there is usually a permanent line run called a Gold Line, but sometimes, where the line would have to cross large open rooms, they leave gaps which a diver must connect with his own line."

The gold line crosses large rooms all the time. If there is another tunnel to the side then a new line is started and you would need to run a gap/jump reel to get there. If the big room is actually open water then we often don't run a gold line across it - to keep OW divers from being drawn in by curiosity.

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Originally Posted by JahJahwarrior

Ooh...sorry about that Chris! I added that bit in when it was pretty late (or early. 2am is early and late at the same time, which is one of the reasons I love it). I'll fix it!!

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Thats Alright....He is trained to eat Rich's Cavern and Intro Students...

I think it looks OK. Id add some stuff about the history of cave diving, how it came about, and some of the different equipment configurations, sidemount, rebreathers, etc. A short discussion of international cave diving might not be bad either. what about some hydrogeology? take this for what it cost ya. : )

--jm

Lynne--my teacher made some comments about transitions as well, and I'm going to try to fix it up a little, and break the paragraphs up more too.

Moonfuzzy--ok...I think I understand better. But you mean that only if the big room is the cavern, or start of the cave system, do you leave out a line, right? I mean, if there's a large room 1000 feet back, you run a line through that, right? So the gap reels are used to go from the gold line to various tunnels off of the main room? Thank you for correcting me!

Marinediver--as long as I don't show up dressed as a white horse with wheels for feet, I think I'll survive.... :) (your dog atleast. Rich on the other hand...)

Jmaddox--I believe that's what the second half of the paper is about, but the teache rhasn't explained the second part of this multiple-part-project to us yet...

Thanks for the input guys! I got a 98 on this rough draft!

Alright! Bill Rotella has encouraged me to submit the article to Cindy Butler to be put in the NSS-CDS journal, so I finally got around to re-editing it! It got longer, then I shortened it....I added in some citations where I saw that I'd missed them...

Please, tell me anything you notice that bugs you! I tried to incorporate all of the suggestions given so far, but might have missed things!

I have made this into a .pdf, formatting it in HTML didn't work out so well last time.

Click to Download PDF

Hey man, I'm a SR Computer science student at UCF, if a fellow diver ever needs a dive partner, or even help with school related things (avoiding those "evil" professors lol), feel free to PM me.

jj1987--I'm fine with the professors but can always use some help with the ladies.... ;)

To everyone else--I made two corrections--gases instead of gasses, and NSS CDS chairman, not president (thanks dive buddy for using the wrong word...), thanks to Sludge's observant eye, and put up the corrected PDF, the link should work just fine, only now my paper has two less errors than before! :)

And, I've had yet more people volunteer their time and information! Very famous people! I am amazed at the generosity of the cave diving world!!

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Originally Posted by JahJahwarrior

jj1987--I'm fine with the professors but can always use some help with the ladies.... ;)

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Can't we all. My best advice for finding ladies is.......don't become a computer science student.........the only ladies we ever see in the engineering buildings are girls that are lost! Save your gen eds, you'll enjoy the view! :smt081

This is probably a typo that you've already corrected but just in case, the error is on page 2 in the first paragraph (which begins on page 1). You say: "The air from the tank is delivered with a two-stage regulator system: the first stage attaches to the tank and reduces the pressure from 3000psi to approximately 250psi. The second stage is inserted in the diver's mouth and gives the diver air at ambient water pressure so they can breath just like a person on the surface."

The typo is the 250psi. You're refering to the intermediate pressure of the regulator system which is, on average, 150psi (not 250) with some manufacturers setting it a bit lower and some a buit higher depending on model - never though anywhere near 250psi. Remember too, that this is 150psi over ambient pressure so, at the surface, the total intermediate pressure would actually be 164.7psi.

The next sentence too has a minor error too. The second stage actually delivers air at a pressure slightly above ambient.

Good luck with your paper.

I corrected the first error, but not the second.... the paper has been turned in and I received a 98: thank you much CDF for your help with that!!

A slightly edited version will be appearing in the U.W.S., thanks to Bill Rotella and Cindy Butler. Cindy actually referred me to this forum when I first got certified...a friend of mine is her neighbor and introduced us through email. I partially blame her for making me broke now.... :) (the paper was edited somewhat: the basics of dive equipment were removed, as were the names of some of the shops I discussed)

I will be working at Ginnie Springs this summer...possibly looking for dive buddies every night I get off work.... :) Around springs I usually wear a white shirt with JAHJAHWARRIOR spraypainted on the back and I do respond to that name...I drive a black Ford Ranger with an ugly white topper. If you see me, please introduce yourself!

Gibby,

Can you post a final version? I'd love to read it.

Danny

I'll see if I can get around to it at some point here...


And I know a user here has the same user name as my last name....in person I respond to either my username or my last name. Hope to get the chance to meet many more of you all this summer!!

yeah I would like to read it too.

Congrats on the high marks :)

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Originally Posted by battles2a5

Congrats on the high marks :)

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"Marks"? Is someone inadvertently revealing their age?