Trip Report: Peacock III

[Sludge]

Sort of like when a guy says he drove home drunk as a wild Indian & made it home safely?

Don't be a xenophobe, Jim. It's "as drunk as a wild native American."

[DA Aquamaster]

I am blessed to be 75% ambidextrious, and have endured hundreds of batteries involving task-loading under duress (mostly those involved with military training and tactics and construction management), so my ability to function with little to no decrease in performance while enduring the narcotic effects of breathing air at depth is commensurate with all other aspects of my life. I am not, however, blessed with efficient lungs and most divers will probably still be breathing their stage while I have already switched to back gas.

BTW- I suppose that the disparity (>30%) between some of our run times to the rock at the jump can be attributed to dropping the stage earlier, thereby ridding oneself of drag and the additional effort required to negotiate some of the tighter areas within the cave. Also, not running a reel would free up some of that time as well...surprised nobody mentioned that.

I agree that different divers have different skill sets, and I'd argue that some divers are pretty fricking impaired compared to others before they ever leave the surface. Depth just maginifies those already apparent differences. But everyone's mileage will differ and a limit that works for one diver may be exessive for another - and vice versa.

I know in flight training I did very well at task loading activities where for example during an instrument approach you may have to navigate in addition to maintaining general situation awareness, communicate on the radio tune both come and nav channels, fly the aircraft in heavy turbulence, deal with equipment failures and fly a partial panel approach and do it all with an instructor induced case of vertigo. Not everyone can manage it as well and still fly with the required degree of precision.

I'd love to see some solid research on task loading abilities at the surface and at depth and see how much is lost at depth and whether greater ability at the surface equates to greater ability at depth on air. An analogy here might be having to do multiplication and division in your head at depth - people who suck at math on the surface are probablyy going to have more problems at depth than say, Albert Einstein just due to the differneces in their inital unimpaired ability.

But theory aside, the fact is that regardless of anyone's ability at the surface, everyone is going to be impaired to some degree at depth and will experience a decrease in their ability to solve problems that may arise. In that regard, doing a dive to 185 ft in Hendlys Castle an air may be "safe" in terms of being able to complete it successfully, 1, 2, 3 or even 100 times. But the critical issue will be what happens when your ability to solve a problem at depth comes up just a little bit short due to your level of impairment on that dive. In that case, having a lower END may have made just enough of a difference to get you out alive.

Personally, I am just not comfortable ever going to an END greater than 150' regardless of the conditions and regardless of my abilities on the surface or underwater. In anything less than perfect conditions I am going to limit the END to something less than 130', in some cases a lot less than 130'. I find the older I get the more I learn and the more I appreciate the need to be both prudent and conservative.

Do whatever you feel is appropriate as its not my place to tell you how you choose to die, but please have the courtesy not to die in a cave as it threatens the ability of the rest of us to continue to access a number of cave systems. I suspect more than a few cave divers would probably be tempted to kick your lifeless corpse if you have a stupid attack, die and risk closing a cave.

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I agree that running a reel into P3 takes a few minutes. Unless you have a favorite rock it can take a minute or two to find one and running the line cleanly there takes a couple more minutes.

I am hoping when you say you were not running a reel that you are stating that you already had a primary reel in place from a previouse dive. If not, then it needs to be stated that P3 can be silted out in fairly short order and the siphon is not strong enough to clean the cavern out all that soon. The cavern also has lots of potential wrong turns once you get back to the start of the mainline, so exiting from the mainline to open water in zero viz is not a foregone conclusion. It's not a place I'd go without running a primary line.

Edit: I re-read post number and understand what you did. Yes, PIII is not PI and you definitely need to run a line. It could take a while to reverse engineer your exit from the mainline to OW and a safety reel might not have quite enough line to do it in truly zero viz.

[Sludge]

I'd love to see some solid research on task loading abilities at the surface and at depth and see how much is lost at depth and whether greater ability at the surface equates to greater ability at depth on air.

I used to know someone who, when someone said they aren't narced at 100', would hand them four different-sized bolts and four corresponding nuts, in a ziploc bag. He would time them removing and assembling them at 10' and at 100'. He said the results changed a lot of people's minds.

[jj1987]

It could alternatively be construed to mean that it is not safe for some of the readers. I'm sure there are literally thousands of divers who have better skills than I in some fashion: be it buoyancy, propulsion, referencing, surveying, etc. I would wager that some of those same divers do not have the mental capacity to multi-task while in (what some consider) an impaired state. The level of impairment for some may be extraordinarily high compared to some of those whose tolerance for- and ability to function while under its influence- nitrogen narcosis is negligible.

Of course I'm being defensive, but did anyone expect otherwise when their rationale is questioned? By implying that my behavior is stupid, some have interjected an ad hominem argument where none was necessary. Let me return the favor: perhaps someone's reluctance to complete tasks because their cognitive abilities may be infinitesimal compared to other divers, coupled with their lack of civility when broaching the subject, leaves them with no other choice but to belittle those with which they disagree.

Ad hominem attacks do nothing to further the conversation, do they?

I am blessed to be 75% ambidextrious, and have endured hundreds of batteries involving task-loading under duress (mostly those involved with military training and tactics and construction management), so my ability to function with little to no decrease in performance while enduring the narcotic effects of breathing air at depth is commensurate with all other aspects of my life. I am not, however, blessed with efficient lungs and most divers will probably still be breathing their stage while I have already switched to back gas.

BTW- I suppose that the disparity (>30%) between some of our run times to the rock at the jump can be attributed to dropping the stage earlier, thereby ridding oneself of drag and the additional effort required to negotiate some of the tighter areas within the cave. Also, not running a reel would free up some of that time as well...surprised nobody mentioned that.

They don't accomplish anything, but since you're violating the standards you were trained under (which have been presented to PSSP as guidelines to limit accidents) and posting about it, I think Jim might have felt the need to post to show we don't all do that. Remember, PSSP staff reads this board, and you're describing a dive very similar to one that was fatal at that exact location.

[WEPIV]

Any dive in a cave deeper than 130 feet should be a trimix dive. Deep air in a cave to 185 feet is not smart.

I second this.

[MichaelAngelo]

Sort of like when a guy says he drove home drunk as a wild Indian & made it home safely?

Jim as someone who is part American Indian I have to take offence at this. But then again thinking about it being Italian, Irish and American Indian really does explain why I eat too much, drink too much and like to dance naked around camp fires. So I guess I really can't take offense. Never mind.

[huxley]

, and you're describing a dive very similar to one that was fatal at that exact location.

do you have more information to the mentioned accident?

[Jim Wyatt]

Jim as someone who is part American Indian I have to take offence at this. Never mind.

My great grandmother was full blooded Cherokee.

[LiteHedded]

do you have more information to the mentioned accident?

i think that one is written up on the iucrr site

[MichaelAngelo]

Any dive in a cave deeper than 130 feet should be a trimix dive. Deep air in a cave to 185 feet is not smart.

I agree with you Jim. And will take it further. Even in open water or wreck diving He is added to anything below 130. Even if its a little bit. A 20/30 or even a 20/20 mix has the same deco as air and there is no reason not to add it. Again I am not an instructor but this how I prefer to do it