Does Devil's make people rude??

[RN]

I was over diving Devil's last week for several days doing a co-teach. It's always nice to get back there every now and then and see a different cave than the ones I'm used to diving on a regular basis. A couple of things really bothered me while diving there, though.

First, it was upsetting to see OW checkout dives being done in the Eye. This is a huge disservice to the new divers. Sure, they get their 20' of depth (when they drop their depth gauges to the sand) to get checked off on their skills, but there is no where in that spring to do a tour. The agency standards I'm familiar with all state the dives must be done 20' or deeper for 15 minutes or more. Unless these instructors are counting a swim around the Eye as the tour, which is BS, they are violating standards. Okay, that rant over. Now for the real one...

The first couple of days there were during the week and a little on the chilly side, so we didn't see many other divers in the cave. That changed on Friday and Saturday, though. What also changed was the courtesy and following of rules that should have been established during training. I have always been taught, and teach, exiting divers have the right of way. Over those 2 days, we passed 3 separate teams as we were exiting that just barreled their way on into the cave! Our students did that once during the course and a long discussion about this followed. Then they have it happen to them 3 more times. I know it was busy and crowded and people just want to get in to start their dive, or they're trying to get as far back as they can before they hit their turn pressure, but complete disregard for exiting teams is not the way to behave. Hell, the flow wasn't even that bad last week! I hate to say this, but Devil's is the only place I've ever encountered this. Is there something about that system that does that to divers?!?

[LiteHedded]

I think it's just the volume of divers ginnie gets combined with the restrictive bits right at the front of the cave.

[netmage]

I was over diving Devil's last week for several days doing a co-teach. It's always nice to get back there every now and then and see a different cave than the ones I'm used to diving on a regular basis. A couple of things really bothered me while diving there, though.
...
The first couple of days there were during the week and a little on the chilly side, so we didn't see many other divers in the cave. That changed on Friday and Saturday, though. What also changed was the courtesy and following of rules that should have been established during training. I have always been taught, and teach, exiting divers have the right of way. Over those 2 days, we passed 3 separate teams as we were exiting that just barreled their way on into the cave! Our students did that once during the course and a long discussion about this followed. Then they have it happen to them 3 more times. I know it was busy and crowded and people just want to get in to start their dive, or they're trying to get as far back as they can before they hit their turn pressure, but complete disregard for exiting teams is not the way to behave. Hell, the flow wasn't even that bad last week! I hate to say this, but Devil's is the only place I've ever encountered this. Is there something about that system that does that to divers?!?

Saturday (3/6) was about the worst I've ever seen.

The parking lot was not terribly crowded, but we did have probably 3 teams entering at the same time, and I think 2 teams exiting, we tried to make the best of the situation.

What ended up happening, could only have looked like a major CF to anyone observing.

We entered the ear, the other two entered the eye.
I *think* we hit the gallery first and were a little slow making it to the ceiling, and the team behind us diving wet played frogger leaping over me; I'm sure I nailed a guy in the face w/ my frog kick... Sorry pal...

I think we ran into a exiting team in the Gallery. A tunnel wide enough to 'give way' to egressing team. What happened next was a major CF, as we hit the park bench. Our plan was to make the bone line jump, and we found a class pulling their spool. I assume a class, as I saw a lone computer lit up hiding on the ceiling... As a team of 3, one tucked in to the side, and two of us held on the upstream side, as another team was right behind us, and the passage to the keyhole is cramped single file. We let them pull, trying to stay out of the way then placed our own; which unfortunately for a new drysuit diver; resulted in a little knee plant into the rock. I think we had a logjam of 4 teams caught up right there with a limited choke point leading into the park bench compounding the CF.

-Tim

[Tegg]

Lots of new holes in cavediving...

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Comon Rob, I can be a hole and I've never dived the cave at Devils Ear/Eye in my life(and don't want to - for reasons being found in this thread and more)!

[diveconjeff]

Rob

We were over at the Roost next to you on Sat. I came over and introduced my self (Jeff).

Not surprisingly, we were having the exact same conversation amongst ourselves as we decided to hold several times on exit to avoid a "head-on".

Not really surprising that the people you are most likely to run into in that situation are the people you would want to run into the least...

Saw some very "creative" line work coming out of the eye that dive as well.

[netmage]

Saw some very "creative" line work coming out of the eye that dive as well.

ns....

When will people learn to not bisect major cross sections of the cave....

[WEPIV]

ns....

When will people learn to not bisect major cross sections of the cave....

When they are taught this, understand and practice it....

[ntheath]

I was over diving Devil's last week for several days doing a co-teach. It's always nice to get back there every now and then and see a different cave than the ones I'm used to diving on a regular basis. A couple of things really bothered me while diving there, though.

First, it was upsetting to see OW checkout dives being done in the Eye. This is a huge disservice to the new divers. Sure, they get their 20' of depth (when they drop their depth gauges to the sand) to get checked off on their skills, but there is no where in that spring to do a tour. The agency standards I'm familiar with all state the dives must be done 20' or deeper for 15 minutes or more. Unless these instructors are counting a swim around the Eye as the tour, which is BS, they are violating standards. Okay, that rant over. Now for the real one...

The first couple of days there were during the week and a little on the chilly side, so we didn't see many other divers in the cave. That changed on Friday and Saturday, though. What also changed was the courtesy and following of rules that should have been established during training. I have always been taught, and teach, exiting divers have the right of way. Over those 2 days, we passed 3 separate teams as we were exiting that just barreled their way on into the cave! Our students did that once during the course and a long discussion about this followed. Then they have it happen to them 3 more times. I know it was busy and crowded and people just want to get in to start their dive, or they're trying to get as far back as they can before they hit their turn pressure, but complete disregard for exiting teams is not the way to behave. Hell, the flow wasn't even that bad last week! I hate to say this, but Devil's is the only place I've ever encountered this. Is there something about that system that does that to divers?!?

The same thing happened to myself and my buddy on our first dive to Little River as intro divers. We were exiting and untying our reel from the mainline when were just barreled over by a team of 4-5 (or maybe two teams bunched together??). A couple of them were nearly vertical in the water column and were so intent on getting in that they failed to notice that they had snagged our line on one of their fins. I had to literally swim back in after the diver to get our line off her fin. Maybe I should have just pulled real hard until she noticed but either way I don't think this behavior is isolated to Ginnie.

[ssmdive]

I was with Tim and the mess at the bench was terrible. We tried to get out of the way and let the class clear but there was also a team on our ass that went right past us on the main line....

We did encounter an exiting team in the gallery, but we moved right and they were on the other wall so we just passed by each other with a smile and a wave.

The worst I have ever seen was a team of 4 divers all just hanging out at the lips. They would not go and would not get out of the way. We just sat behind them waiting and waiting and waiting. I should have taken the bypass, but I thought they would go on any min.