Damaging silt

[LCF]

I wrote to David to find out exactly where we were -- I think we had done two jumps to the right, but honestly, I didn't take notes that afternoon so I'm not sure. (By that time, I was too depressed to be recording things much.)

[JahJahwarrior]

Those same people who are giving you crap for leaving a mark have most likely all left their marks on a cave before. While no one should encourage trashing a cave, I think there is a difference between trashing a cave and making a small accidental movement that leaves slight damage, while you learn from the situation and improve your diving technique. If your buddies are harrassing you for not being some cave diving goddess, I'd suggest finding people who will be more supportive. Never met you but from the tone of your posts, I can tell that you are one who learns from her mistakes, and therefore any damage you leave is different from an idiot who is trashing a cave, and I don't think you deserve to take crap for a small mistake like that. (I figure it's probably just normal buddy-to-buddy hassling, but don't let it get to you. You mentioned being too depressed to remember anything...if cave diving is depressing, that's a problem. Even the worst dives I've ever had have never left me depressed.)

Now, if you happened to be the idiot who left footprints at one spot in Ginnie... but I don't think that was you.

[LCF]

Cave diving isn't depressing, but the class was.

It was more than a tiny handprint -- I think I went up to my elbow in the silt!

[JahJahwarrior]

Ah, that is pretty...impressive... I really don't think any class should be depressing. I've got to admit, I'm really not an amazing diver. I've made my fair share of mistakes. I've left marks in caves. But neither my instructor nor my dive buddy has ever made me feel depressed about a dive, no matter how dumb the mistakes might have been. I've been scolded, but the scolding was delivered as part of constructive criticism, so I was always left feeling like I had room for improvement and could leave the mistakes of the day behind me once I'd learned from them.

[BabyDuck]

jah, her report is on divematrix...give it a look.

[RN]

I wrote to David to find out exactly where we were -- I think we had done two jumps to the right, but honestly, I didn't take notes that afternoon so I'm not sure. (By that time, I was too depressed to be recording things much.)

Were you upstream or downstream? Did you tie onto a gold line the began on the ceiling of a duck under or on the floor of a limestone bank? I'm guessing downstream if you were off the mainline. The upstream jumps shouldn't be used in training dives and wouldn't really accommodate 4 divers.

[LCF]

You know, I just don't remember. We did so many dives in so many different systems, and I didn't take notes (my bad), and by that day, I was so tired and discouraged that my memory just isn't real clear. I'm hoping David will respond to my e-mail, so I can let you know where we were.

[350xfire]

You just destroyed about 1,000,000,000 years of ecological, astrological and metereological records... Your SCUBA license needs to be revoked immediately...

You are not the first and will not be the last to do this. Don't sweat it.

[skip]

.... You mentioned being too depressed to remember anything...if cave diving is depressing, that's a problem. Even the worst dives I've ever had have never left me depressed.)

training can be depressing. i don't think a day went by that I wasn't depressed - about my performance, the lack of it that is. every day i asked whether it was worth it and every day at some point i decided i was going to quit ... right after this next dive. each night i thought long and hard about continuing and went to sleep leaving the decision until morning after a good night's sleep.

-skip

[LCF]

training can be depressing. i don't think a day went by that I wasn't depressed - about my performance, the lack of it that is. every day i asked whether it was worth it and every day at some point i decided i was going to quit ... right after this next dive. each night i thought long and hard about continuing and went to sleep leaving the decision until morning after a good night's sleep.

Glad to know I'm not the only one! The only thing that kept me in this class after the third day was the fact that I was sharing a car with a classmate, so I had no way to the airport without him . . .