What Do You Do When You're a Bit Freaked?

[AB8CD]

I should note for the larger audience CDF enjoys... "Jesus Loves Me" is a children's song which I grew up singing years ago. It is funny how those songs from ones childhood come back to us.

For the topic of my question... I was simply stating that I sing (or hum) when I am in an environment that is lacking some other spacial sense (such as sight)... e.g. a deep descent that finds one... flying on instruments without other references.

I used the verse as a calculation of time, one time through... one minute. another time through... second minute... etc.

Maybe I'm just weird!

[Benthic]

I channel Paul Atreides:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer.
Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see it's path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

But I'm a Sci-Fi nerd...

Brian

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I'd pee(more than usual) if I saw those big worms in the caves :/ luckily, they don't seem to like water much.

[AB8CD]

I channel Paul Atreides:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer.
Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see it's path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

But I'm a Sci-Fi nerd...

Brian

I LOVE that movie... It was ALMOST as good as the book. Which is a tough task. BTW, when I read your post I could hear that quote in my head from the movie... cool!

[amphipod06]

I'd pee(more than usual) if I saw those big worms in the caves :/ luckily, they don't seem to like water much.

LOL, Shai Hulud would come because your heart would act as a thumper, water or no water....

Dive safe,

Celia

PS I love Frank Herbert.....

[LCF]

I've never had a prolonged true zero viz situation, except in a class, but I've dived in Lake Washington, where the viz can be literally one or two feet. I don't like it at all; I get vertigo when bereft of a visual or tactile reference. So, on the worst dive I've done, I listened to my breathing, to make sure it was slow and regular, and chanted, "I'm maintaining, I'm maintaining, I'm maintaining very well . . . How long are we going to do this again? I'm maintaining . . . "

My worst viz in a cave was on our last trip to MX. I was asked to lead a group of four into a strange cave, which turned out to be very dark stone with relatively poor viz (20, 30 feet at most?) I wasn't very happy, because the walls were dark and my light wasn't picking up much distinct structure, and the floor was dark and smooth, so I felt as though I was swimming in an undefined dark space, following a thin, white line. Luckily, the cave was punctuated by open water, so about the third cenote, when the viz was the worst (probably down to 3 to 5 feet in the shallows there) I surfaced the team and asked how long anybody wanted to keep doing this. We had a specific interesting feature we had hoped to reach, so we negotiated, and someone else took the lead. With more light, I was much happier.

For me, breathing is the key. If I can keep my breathing disciplined, my mind stays disciplined with it.

[Picea]

What a great thread! I hope there will be loads of posts on this one.

I'm relatively new to diving, even less experienced with cavern (read mine) diving and a very careful person by nature. So, it isn't surprising that I sometimes feel, if not freaked out, but rather uneasy for some minor reasons like unfamiliar sounds or just unexpected shadows moving in the low viz. What I'll do is tell myself how exactly I would solve the problem, if the thing that I'm worried about would go wrong. This is easy since the overall feel of unease usually quite quickly takes a shape of some kind of possible scenario like "what if the hp hose would rupture right now?” This works every time and I can continue the dive feeling fine.

And yes, I’m new around here, too. After following the forum for a year I finally registered today. I’ll try not to make stupid comments and look forward of loads of interesting conversations.

[Mart]

Every cave student should have experienced a zero viz situation in class, several times and for more than a few minutes. Touch contact, touch contact with air sharing, lost line, etc.
Why does it sound like all you cave divers were never in this situation???

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Every cave student should have experienced a zero viz situation in class, several times and for more than a few minutes. Touch contact, touch contact with air sharing, lost line, etc.
Why does it sound like all you cave divers were never in this situation???

What in this thread leads you to that conclusion?

[Sludge]

There's a HUGE difference between, "I'm doing a zero-vis drill. If it gets to be too much for me I can open my eyes and turn on my light" and "Man, vis just went to zero. I wonder how long and how far I have to swim to be where I can see a darned thing."