Repairing Caves

[Jim Wyatt]

Calling a cave a "tourist cave" doesn't lower standards. Instructors do that all by themselves.

+1 Joe ....

The state of cave instruction is at an all time low. I just found about a person who completed cave 1 without ever doing a lights out/zero vis exit. I see poorly trimmed, poorly configured, poorly trained cave divers all more often now a days. Does anyone EVER fail a cave course anymore?

Some cave instructors have only been cave divers for a year or so & do not even live near caves...go figure that one out.


No cave instructors I know of have used the term sacrificial cave, tourist cave, training cave or any other such terminology or philosophy. We on the NSS-CDS training committee certainly do not train cave instructors to think that way, nor does the NACD or any IANTD instructor trainers I know of.

[Jim Wyatt]

IRT the OP. Bill Huth and I attempted to do some work repairing fin marks, handprints on the Roller-Coaster in the Devil's system one time. Spent about an hour and could not really see the benefit.

Repairing that section alone with trowels, spatulas etc would take MANY hours, and I am not sure it could be done.

Nature does it best....when systems flood .. handprints go away. We have seen it at Peacock many times ....

[DA Aquamaster]

Solutions make a lot more sense.

At the end of the day we're really talking about personal responsibility and that implies accountability and I don't know how you instill that in a student in a five day class......

Another issue is that how do you teach someone all of the necessary self rescue techniques without tossing someone around blind, screwing with buoyancy, etc.......blind exits, lost line drills, etc are going to cause dents in clay/mud.

Many of the marks I see are in sections where the divers are by virtue of jumps and navigational decisions supposed to be fill cave. So that's 8 days a training at a minimum, and in most cases it's two or three classes separated by some diving, mentoring or at least interaction with other cave divers.

I am pretty sure most full cave divers understand that hand prints and fin marks are prima facia evidence of either a crappy attitude or poor skills, especially if they happen on a regular/frequent basis.

Another larger problem may be divers failing to properly and accurately self assess their limitations, or perhaps following other divers and not turning the dive when they get in an area that exceeds their level of ability.

I agree with Kelly and others that we are sanctioning damage to caves when we formally refer to a cave a "training cave" a "sacrificial cave" or informally dismiss a cave as a training cave. Their are usually areas in the caves where training commonly occurs where the bottom composition is going to be much more resistant to any training induced damage. A responsible instructor is hopefully not going to conduct a lights out drill in an area of the cave where the bottom is clay or silt, especially when the line runs low along the floor, and a good instructor is hopefully not going to take students into sensitive areas when they are not demonstrating the required level of skill. Now, on the other hand, if instructors are regarding caves as "training" caves or "sacrificial caves" then all bets are off.

That might be a more productive area to seek solutions. If we adopt a general model of repairing caves, then we are also inferring that cave damage is less of a problem as it can be "fixed" and that damage is ok as we've got a repair team to come in and fix it later. That's just going to aggravate the problem.

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What is depressing is that the few times I've seen OG get a new floor due to floods over the last 5 years, the pristine floor didn't last long at all, suggesting there are an awful lot of crappy divers out there.

[Jim Wyatt]

. A responsible instructor is hopefully not going to conduct a lights out drill in an area of the cave where the bottom is clay or silt, especially when the line runs low along the floor, and a good instructor is hopefully not going to take students into sensitive areas when they are not demonstrating the required level of skill. .

NSS-CDS standards have a section that tells instructors where drills can be run and where drills cannot be run. Some of these apply to specific caves in Florida and specific caves in Mexico.

As I stated above there is no reference to tourist, training or sacrificial caves.

[MichaelAngelo]

Calling a cave a "tourist cave" doesn't lower standards. Instructors do that all by themselves.

But using those terms specialy when an instructor uses those terms creates a mindset. An it's that mindset that lowers starndards

[MichaelAngelo]

We could solve the problem with instant hydraulic cement. If everyone took a big baggie of it with them on every cave dive, mixed it and sloped it into the holes in the floor, then it would fill in the hole and harden it so no one could put another print in it. Eventually, after several generations of cave divers, we could stucco the entire cave. Then, the artist could go in and start making little crayfish statues, a bust of Sheck Exley in every cave, colored cement to permanently install arrows into the floor, we could set allthread into the floor for line tie off, make fake stalagmites and stalactites, the possibilities are endless.

I'll get right on it.

[MichaelAngelo]

+1 Joe ....

No cave instructors I know of have used the term sacrificial cave, tourist cave, training cave or any other such terminology or philosophy. We on the NSS-CDS training committee certainly do not train cave instructors to think that way, nor does the NACD or any IANTD instructor trainers I know of.

see post #11.

[Randy Thornton]

Hey guys,

Guess I made a huge mistake referring to Peacock as a "Tourist Cave". My gaff was not meant to imply that Peacock was in any way not to be protected or respected in any degree. I only used the term "Tourist Cave" to imply that this cave received a lot of traffic by many different divers with different levels of experience and skills on an ongoing basis. As a Cave Instructor, I obviously teach my students as well as personally strive to protect and respect the caves at all costs on EVERY dive! I would hope this principle is fundamental to cave instruction regardless of which agency is involved.

I will make sure I don't use that term in the future, as I can see how people could misconstrue what I meant by the term.

[Sludge]

Don't worry, Randy, not everyone is offended by that term. I'm a cave tourist (meaning I only go in caves with gold line, that a thousand people have been in before me), so any cave I go in is a tourist cave.

[AB8CD]

+1
Add sacrificial cave to that list of terminology that needs to go away. This term has almost cost us access to a couple caves.

Tell me more about these "Sacrificial" caves! Are we talking virgins here? I have a vision of grass skirts and loud drums... Going to my happy place now!