Repairing Caves

[Jont]

Jont this is not a personal attach I have never dove with you but I will ask you to be very honest with yourself when accessing your buoyancy and trim.
I can promise you that even if you have perfect skills your instructor will find a nick in your armor.
That is what he or she is supposed to do.
My plea not to just you but all divers RESPECT whatever environment you are diving in.

JCG

Hey, Thanks dude, I could care less if it was a personal attack, attack away, insult away.....I really don't care.

First off I am far from perfect in fact my single biggest issue was/is buoyancy control, I've been diving since I was 8 so that 30 years of deep colds water wreck/lobster/monk fish diving (solo) during the most impressionable times of my life, so I've developed some bad habits to say the least. The reason why I ask is because I dont want to leave anything to chance, if I see something that I perceive to be a discrepancy I ask the question because whats obvious to you with the collective experience that exists on this board isnt to me.

Respect is why I asked, if I didn't have any I wouldn't be here.

[RN]

I think all y'all are missing the point. Lynn's observation on the problem of not having a lead in class for buoyancy, trim, configuration, etc prior to cavern is separate from having instructors who hand out c cards.

There's room for both, and even if all instructors maintained adequate standards and failed all students who did not meet the standards we'd still have issues.

1) If a diver lacked the buoyancy and trim skills to enter a cavern and dive without beating it up, then conceivably the entire "cavern" class they are supposed to be taking - and will in fact fail - will happen in the basin. With that approach you are in effect creating a de facto lead in class that the person has to pass before taking an actual cavern class.

2) The problem with doing it that way is that the instructor now has an impossible job managing expectations. Student dissatisfaction will be high as they won't feel they got what they paid for and the odds are the instructor will lose the student to someone else. Which is why instructors are extremely unlikely to keep even a roto tiller out of a cavern and the best we can hope for is that they keep it somewhere like the Ginnie ball room where damage is unlikely and would go un noticed.

It makes a lot more sense to just approach it head on with a lead in class. Unlike Fundies, it does not have to be mandatory but rather could be something that a prospective cave student could knock out with demonstrated ability.

Com'on Larry! We got the point but what kind of thread would this be if we didn't stray from the point??

The majority of the first dive in my cavern classes are in the basin where I can evaluate skills and my students can learn the skills. If buoyancy and trim are good enough we take a peek in the cavern at the end of the dive. I believe most cave instructors do something similar. Unfortunately though there are instructors who drop in the water and head right into the cavern at the beginning of dive 1.