Safety suggestions

[jlillest]

Regarding the film, I was confused why you'd i) dive a cave in a typhoon area, ii) dive a cave in typhoon season and iii) stay in the cave a few days ahead of an incoming storm.

Because expeditions are normally pretty dull from a filmmaker's perspective.

[WJH]

Because expeditions are normally pretty dull from a filmmaker's perspective.

Well said. Understated. Didn't even need to use the word "sensationalize".

Even the real documentaries get sensationalized when the funding entities, such as Nat Geo, get hold of the voice-over script. Need more danger and excitement to get and hold the attention of the ADD audience.

WJH

[Bobby]

Deep Dark,
Welcome to CDF. At least for me I am happy to see you here as this is a board designed to share information about cave diving. Shouldn't matter if you are a non diver, want to be a cave diver, or the worlds greatest explorer (which a few think they are the latter, LOL). It is all about sharing information and talking about cave diving. There is plenty of off topic stuff here as well.

Now to your ideas and questions. At first glance they are good ideas. When applied in real conditions though more technology and complexity tend to fall short on reliability. Yesterday on a rather simple dive in a well known cave one of my dive computers decided it didn't want to turn on. Fortunately I have an older computer that I can manually turn on at any depth and it will start the dive from there which made it so I did not have to surface and get it to wake up. This simply saved us from wasting some time and gas in the end. What I did have to do was keep it set in my head that the one computer was off with both my bottom time and decompression due to being turned on late. Not a big deal or anything that was dangerous however it was one more thing that added a small bit of complexity.

Now if you add in more features to the computers the reliability will most likely be less. Adding color to line increases dependency on sight with enough light to distinguish colors, etc. As others have said your point of experience is the most prudent. When I learned to cave dive I was taught that the line is a last resort for knowing how to exit the cave. First comes progressive penetration with the most attention paid to knowing what the cave looks like on the way out. It takes more time to learn the cave however it also reduces the dependency on the line and reduces stress. It also is more enjoyable, at least to me, because I spend my time looking at and learning the cave rather than worrying about how far I get.

The other side of the coin is complacency and I have and am guilty of this as well. One that I have struggled with for the last few years is knowing how far I am at a certain point in the cave. I know where I am however I have become complacent about the distance. It is fine when it is just me because I know how much gas I will use to get from X point to the exit. However it makes team planning more difficult as I have difficulty helping teammates determine their gas when I don't know the distance. It may be minor yet I have to work at paying attention to distances and even yesterdays dive there were many times I just simply let it slip out of my mind.

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[LCF]

What's really amazing about cave diving is not that we have an occasional fatality, but how many cave dives are safely executed in many places in the world, every single year. In fact, the equipment and protocols we are taught to use reduce the risks of this rather insane activity to a quite acceptable level, so long as hubris, complacency and sloppiness don't get in the way. I can't offhand think of a fatality that would have been prevented by any of the ideas you presented, because most of them occur because people ignore the already pretty simple basic rules. Someone who is well-trained and prudent won't need a locator beacon; someone who is sneaking in somewhere they aren't trained or qualified to dive is unlikely to have the receivers.

Now, if you can come up with a way to deal with arrogance, carelessness, complacency, blind trust, and some of the other factors that actually cause accidents, I'll prick up my ears and listen closely!

[whodunit68]

I know i don't belong here and someone PM'ed me saying perhaps i should use scuba forums instead. I see OW and cave diving as two separate entities as OW divers don't relish that extra nuance of having a ceiling above them. That's what fascinates me about 'you lot', your ability to dive deep in enclosed spaces...i want to understand and hope i don't offend with my questions / suggestions

After an incident, we have many complain on the forums that the general public doesn't get it. Then, someone with an interest does some research and comes to us for clarity and wants to think out some ideas and at least one tells him to get lost. Seriously? I can't imagine anyone being offended, either. DeepDark, welcome to the forum.

One of the things I have noticed-and is discussed ad-nauseum-is the degradation of training. This discussion will ultimately lead to some talk about protocols and the "why we do things this way" discussions. I see this as a positive. Additionally, we are back to...if you don't want to read it, dont.

I agree with Niko that it is partially adventure. There are multiple levels of cave divers. There are some that like their 90-minute dives and forever will, only following well-known passage in popular systems. The next is the 4 hour diver who pushes a little further and wants to go where it is slightly less traveled. Finally, you have the explorers. I am certain that a professional could do a better job of breaking even that down. Most in these groups probably wouldn't want the additional work. The only ones who would generally really benefit are the ones who push past the existing lines and they're already task-loaded with survey gear, etc. It also likely goes against how they are wired.

Your suggestions are fair but as you know, uninformed. Search the forum and you will find discussions of safety bottles left in caves and more permanent lighting. The general community is against these ideas but they come up. Don't let one or a few scare you off. I may be only one voice but your curiosity, interest, etc, I welcome.


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[whodunit68]

Deep Dark,
Welcome to CDF. At least for me I am happy to see you here as this is a board designed to share information about cave diving. Shouldn't matter if you are a non diver, want to be a cave diver, or the worlds greatest explorer (which a few think they are the latter, LOL). It is all about sharing information and talking about cave diving. There is plenty of off topic stuff here as well.

Agreed.


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[apitkin]

From this website, it lists accident reports and i got the feeling the main reason for fatalities was the main line, whether it's a lost line or getting tangled. So with all the triple redundancy prevalent in cave diving (rule of thirds and three lights), i was left thinking...what about navigation? How can divers rely on only a single line as their life-line to the surface?

More chance for entanglement and confusion. Memorizing the cave as you go is the primary navigation method, with the line as an essential backup. There have been some near-misses associated with multiple lines in cave passages.

Line lighting

From this video, it shows a lost line procedure and at the end he attaches a torch, why? Surely, it would be better to attach a high-powered, omnidirectional strobe that flashes every 10secs. Perhaps you could carry a single strobe beacon for different purposes - a) when you explore a side cavern and leave the main line, you attach the strobe and switch it to green, so it marks the T-junction, b) if you lose the line (as in the video), you attach the strobe and have it flash orange and c) if it's an emergency (silt out + lost line), you leave the strobe attached to yourself and turn it red to assist buddy location or recovery.

Many of us already use strobes as an adjunct to navigation, especially when exploring large rooms or passages where it isn't clear where the main route is. I love the idea of color-coding, but nobody has built a powerful enough underwater strobe that flashes in different colors … yet.

Reeling

Watching some vids makes me feel very uncomfortable when they spool off the line as they dive. You're meant to do it at arms length, but some people show their flippers kicking the line behind them as it's deployed. Perhaps the reel should have an extension rod to make sure the line is deployed away from the body and underneath.

We need more videos of competent cave divers running reels.

Line identification

I watched a video where he knotted the line for survey purposes. What if the line was colour-coded? The first 100ft = green, 100-200ft = orange and 200-300ft = red; the next 'depth set' could be blues, eg 300-400ft = blue, 400-500ft = purple and 500-600ft would be aqua blue. Also, what if the line was braided in such a way as to identify direction? It would be rough when rubbed one way with your fingers and smooth the other way, so no matter where you are along its length, you'd be able to identify the exit direction in silt-out without having to find the last cookie, marker or REM.

Nice idea, but unfortunately not practical. Underwater caves are a hostile environment to guideline. Often they get stained by tannic water and degraded by mechanical abrasion. Also the direction to the exit may change as the cave is explored or even depending on which way the divers entered, so the braiding idea wouldn't work. We do have a very effective system of marking line direction using plastic arrows, although like everything it is by no means foolproof.

Computer

What if your dive computer could track lateral movement? Perhaps have a laser or echo-locator attached that pings your surroundings and feeds back into your computer. This combined with depth would create a 3D mapping. If you get lost, you hit [Return] on your computer and it shows you the way out as it's mapped your journey to that point.

This is obviously batman stuff, but i'm just thinking aloud. Perhaps divers could place semi-permanent beacons in the cave, lodged at some safe point in a rock. A diver could then press a button on their computer to search for any location markers that would return simple data like depth and distance from exit, so they'd be able to create way-points on their journey in the micro-controller. Lithium-polymer batteries and an asynchronous request from the beacon would increase longevity and a light on the beacon would turn red when it needs maintenance.

Please feel free to design, build, test and manufacture this system. I would love to have it! Those of us who still use old-fashioned survey methods like compass and tape would love to have a reliable 3D mapping system using sonar and inertial guidance. One got built by Bill Stone for his Wakulla project, but the price tag would be a little beyond most cave divers.

Self-safety

Know your limitations! As much as i think that some people shouldn't be allowed to drive if they fail their test five times, perhaps a similar bench-mark should be set for diving. An ideal test would be for kinesthesia / proprioception or self-awareness. If you can't locate a line in a room blind-folded and spun around twice, then you know you'd struggle in a silt-out. You also need to be aware of your personality type, as ego & over-confidence don't belong in caves; your inner voice is the power of sub-conscious telling you that it knows your limits and you're at the edge...listen to it!

Bang on the money with this one.

I have the utmost admiration for cave divers, your minds are wired differently to two-dimensional land dwellers; you relish the dark and crave the deep for pleasure when ordinarily it's the most terrifying experience for others.

Not sure this is true either. I think the desire to explore in some way is a part of human nature and one of the reasons we are so successful (in an evolutionary sense).

Andy

[DeepDark]

I'm still lurking and learning

I read Steffi Schwabe's 'floor of fire', which was much better than the vids.

I then watched vids about Eagle's nest and it all seemed so scary and confusing, until i googled the cave map of Eagle's nest; i then began to understand how complacency can creep in...the nest is simple, it goes deep and then up & downstream.

When you watch vids, it's always 2-dimensional and the slowness of a dive doesn't give you much depth perception, so this gives caving that danger perception to 'outsiders'. When i started to look at maps, they show orthographic projections that allow you to visualise the cave in 3D. I then looked at the complex cave of Jackson Blue and can see how it's intriguing to slip off the main line to do a King's Canyon run - easy enough as it just loops to the side and back again.

So if you plan the dive and dive the plan and all that jazz, then the only possibilities are equipment malfunctions.

However, i'd like to ask this: do divers follow a strict written checklist when they're in the water before entering the cave? Or do you just purge your reg and check your flip-flops are attached to your feet?

Regarding above, it seems some accidents occur when there's miscommunication between the team. Some may blindly follow the leader and miss their T or others will dive into a hole when others are expecting the next line. Do you draw a dive-plan on the map and strap this to you arm and each member uses the same plan, or is it just verbal?

This is also a really stupid question, but can you talk to each in the water, or is it just grunts through the reg? Is there anyway to use a walkie-talkie in a cave?

[DeepDark]

Finally, you have the explorers. I am certain that a professional could do a better job of breaking even that down. Most in these groups probably wouldn't want the additional work. The only ones who would generally really benefit are the ones who push past the existing lines and they're already task-loaded with survey gear, etc. It also likely goes against how they are wired.

I read a funny post about someone following a line deep down a silty squeeze and at the end was a small hole, but the line continued beyond. The diver managed to talk to the person who made the line and he said he just threw the reel in.

Two things then sprung to mind, i) is it the mindset to get your name on an REM / cookie thingy as far as possible at the end of a line? ii) what if you had a small hand-held unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV)? It could have a small camera to poke around inside small holes controlled by a little joystick on your arm.

If i cave-dived, i'd stay in the uber-noob category where i'd just wallow near the entrance. In fact, i could make cups of tea in the air box (piano room) for the more adventurous divers as they come and go.

[whodunit68]

I'm still lurking and learning

Keep on keepin' on.

I then watched vids about Eagle's nest and it all seemed so scary and confusing, until i googled the cave map of Eagle's nest; i then began to understand how complacency can creep in...the nest is simple, it goes deep and then up & downstream.

Complacency is a dangerous, often quiet, killer.

So if you plan the dive and dive the plan and all that jazz, then the only possibilities are equipment malfunctions.

Very much incorrect. To begin with, the science of decompression has many gaps that may never be filled. Oxygen toxicity can occur when the rules are followed. Medical events occur. And so on. There are many elements to diving, more in caves than recreational open water.

However, i'd like to ask this: do divers follow a strict written checklist when they're in the water before entering the cave? Or do you just purge your reg and check your flip-flops are attached to your feet?

You're killing me with this use of "flip-flops" and "flippers." Fins...
There are some guidelines and checklists, some of which have their very own pneumonics.

Regarding above, it seems some accidents occur when there's miscommunication between the team. Some may blindly follow the leader and miss their T or others will dive into a hole when others are expecting the next line. Do you draw a dive-plan on the map and strap this to you arm and each member uses the same plan, or is it just verbal?

This is also a really stupid question, but can you talk to each in the water, or is it just grunts through the reg? Is there anyway to use a walkie-talkie in a cave?

Miscommunication can occur and it could create problems. A fairly significant part of my cave training was spent on uw communication, though little of it is done with speech.
There are means by which folks can talk to each other so your question wasn't stupid after all.


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