How Long?

[cavediver256]

Well this is year #10, and I see no end in sight......

[RN]

In my 5th year now and don't see an end to it. I did move 2000 miles to be closer to the caves. But I also have found "something more to do than dive the known Florida caves." Although, like Mat, lots of the caves I'm diving are known, they just aren't known by too many these days.

[cavemark]

3.5 years and I'm just getting started. 1.5 years from now I'll have my Abe Davis and be able to see some new stuff.

I'm not sure how old Forrest is, but every time I see him some place everyone else is standing around talking and he's diving. I get inspired and hope that at some point I'll stop socializing and dive more. Not that he's anti-social, he just doesn't let it get in the way of diving.

[DA Aquamaster]

You should have made the "A" diver 0-2 years. There is no place for a brand new diver to vote.

Your intervals are uneven as well

1-2 = 2 years inclusive
3-5 = 3 years inclusive
6-10 = 5 years inclusive
10+ = year 11 to Forrest

It will skew the appearance of the bar graph in the poll and puts increasing weight on the B and C options separate from the actual number of responses in any given year in those categories.

The sample also only applies to divers on this particular board, not the population at large. I have met a few "experience" cave divers who seldom if ever go on the internet, so the over 10 year category is potentially under represented if it is true that older individuals who cave dive are also less likely to spend significant time on internet forums.

I think divers with 10 plus years in the sport are less likely to succumb to 1-3 noted below, but the fact that 32% of the respondents selected "10+" means a lot less than it would with unequal intervals. Try it again with 0-5 years, 6-10 years, 11-15, years, 16-20 years, 21-25, years, 26-30 years and 31+ years and you might get a much more accurate picture of the distribution within the range of active cave diving years.

"Active" is a key word as well - ask the respondents to only count calendar years in which they actually made a cave dive.


None of it is a big deal, just a hold over from teaching research methods at the university level and doing field level program evaluation.

-----

That said, I think there is probably some truth to the hypothesis of higher attrition from the sport after 5 years.

1. If the diver's motivation is to try something new, they'll stop doing it once it is no longer "new" and that is I suspect especially true for cave diving as it can be very time and money intensive to maintain.

2. Other divers will drop out of an activity like cave diving as it requires a minimum degree of currency to maintain the required level of skill. You can't just show up and do it over a weekend once or twice a year and expect to be at all competent. That requirement in many cases reinforces the cost aspectrs of number 1 above.

3. If you a) fail to maintain proficiency or, b) mis-perceive and then exceed the limits of your ability, and in either case scare yourself with a near miss, it can cause a diver to quit on the spot. At a minimum, it reinforces the need for number 2 and the requisite outlay of money and time.

The part time cave diver for whom cave diving is significantly less than a lifestyle is going to be much more prone to all 3.

[DA Aquamaster]

I'm not sure how old Forrest is, but every time I see him some place everyone else is standing around talking and he's diving. I get inspired and hope that at some point I'll stop socializing and dive more. Not that he's anti-social, he just doesn't let it get in the way of diving.

That's the truth. The one really good opportunity I had to talk to him, I blew because I was currently focused on correcting an equipment problem and had my head buried in dive gear in the back of my SUV. In retrospect it was an mistake in priorities as you don't get to talk to people who have done nifty things, like invent line arrows, every day. I guess it's also a case of not letting socialization get in the way of diving.

[rchrds]

As the friend to whom Skip refers, this has been a long held belief of mine- though the year varies somewhat, it is very common for people to cave dive for about 5 years, and then move on to something else. That doesn't mean that they don't come back some time later and try again, but generally if someone doesn't develop an addiction to virgin, survey, photography, or some other specialty related to cave diving, they tend to move on to something else- like making babies, or investment banking. Andrew is correct, however, in that the ones that make it longer than 10 years or so tend to be hooked for a very long time, even if they just hang around on the internet blogs.
This is not an indictment of anyone, just an observation- Of course it would be very difficult to get a representative population on a cave diving forum- the vast majority of the target population is no longer involved in cave diving and thus could not respond, and not many really think they will move on prior to five years, or they wouldn't spend all that money that Dive Rite relies on.
A classic example of this syndrome- G. Irvine- though a vociferous, and arguably paradigm changing cave diver, still only lasted about five years before he moved on to whatever it is he is doing now.
Since Skip is the psychologist (and not just of cave fish) why is this? Is it that cave divers, as "risk-seekers" as we have been called, we naturally have a shorter "attention span" and must shift around between "high-risk" endeavors to stay interested? Or is it something else?

(Like 5 years is about when all of your new tanks have to be hydroed, and if you dont get around to it, when you finally have to rebuild all of your aging regulators, and all of a sudden you realize just how much it will cost to keep on cave diving....)

Enquiring minds want to know...

10+, BTW.

[Cindy]

I had a couple of divers that trained me state that quite a few divers make 100 dives as a goal then slack off and sort of drift away. Usually if 200 dives were reached people stay. Which would be more realistic to me as people live out of town, have accidents, family obligations, take time off etc.
I suppose I will cave dive until I break a hip climbing into a sink hole etc. Then I can really do some fun stuff like work on the museum more. There is so much more to learn.

[DA Aquamaster]

Since Skip is the psychologist (and not just of cave fish) why is this? Is it that cave divers, as "risk-seekers" as we have been called, we naturally have a shorter "attention span" and must shift around between "high-risk" endeavors to stay interested? Or is it something else?

I started in my profession as a psychologist and counselor and it's hard to move away from that perspective. People who do not know me well, regard me as a risk taker as I am continually pushing the evelope at work in order to promote improvement in my organization and in the field in general.

However those who really know me, know that I am in fact very much into self control and risk management. I take what others perceive as "risks" and push the envelope but I only do so in situations where I possess a high degree of expereince or expertise, where I am confident I am "right" and where the cost benefit analysis supports the risk taken. It is very much a concept of "calculated risk" where the potential benefits far exceed the potential costs and the potnetial costs are something you can indeed afford to pay if you fail.

Those traits lend themselves well to cave diving. As a person in the 3-5 year category, I am a relative newby despite a couple decades of technical diving prior to caving. Both my personality and recognition that there is a lot I do not know often put me at odds with cave divers with more aggressive risk taking personalities or higher levels of confidence that change their impression (correct or otherwise) of the risks being taken as our priorities in cave divng are different.

I do tend to get bored in jobs that offer little challenge and once I master a position I quickly get bored and move on - usually up rather than across. And to some degree that could be true in cave diving, but then there is also an awful lot still to learn and I don't see the 5 year mark as being at all magical in that regard. More importantly, cave diving is sufficient to focus me solely on diving during the dive and as such is both fully engaging and very relaxing and that tends to be true on routine dives as well as on pinnacle dives, as you can always enjoy the continual pursuit of perfection even in a non challenging tourist cave.

Over the long term, I suspect divers attracted to diving who are risk takers and enjoy the adrenaline rush, will either remove themselves from the sport by seeking ever greater risks as they habituate to less challenging conditions until they finally bite off more than they can chew and get hurt or dead, or they will get bored and move on to something else that provides a faster or better fix.

I would guess that the majority of divers in the 10+ crowd are divers who are not risk takers, but rather "risk managers" who regard an adrenaline rush while diving as a clear indicator that they probably just screwed up. For divers in that group, I suspect the appeal is the relaxation that comes from conducting a well planned and controlled dive with no surprises and near perfection even under demanding conditions.

[rchrds]

I didn't say why people quit, I hear all sorts of excuses- the most popular being, I had a kid, and now my wife (husband) wont let me dive. 100 cave dives, abe davis? Sure. Sounds like a good excuse to me.



J

P.S. and I agree with DA's statements above.

[FW]

I never think of cavediving as risky. I have done some risky things, like racing motocross, and hang gliding, but the most dangerous thing about cavediving is driving to the cave.