See Something - Say Something

[JohnAd]

This is what's wrong with this picture. With no voice, you can't expect much. The few of us working behind the scenes can only do so much. My last campaign to get emails flying to the state resulted in less than a dozen being written. Seems to me we will take the back seat and continue to co drive from there. Unless of course the group wants to take the wheel and drive it like we stole it!!

I am curious as to how you know how many were written. I wrote one, emphasizing that I am a non-Florida tourist looking for places to dive, with Mexico and the Bahamas being very viable options I have pursued in the past couple of years. I got a reply summarizing what happened last year. I accomplished nothing that I can see, but at least I gave it a shot. Am I in that dozen you know about?

I live in Colorado. There's not a diveable cave anywhere near me. I don't have instant access to anyone in the Florida cave community. I would like to do anything I can to help, but not living next door to the rest of you, I need guidance. I need leadership. What I see instead is petty quarrels and infighting. A friend of mine who is also a cave diver from another state said that he or she is fully turned off by all the "politics" (to be polite) of the Florida cave community. If I had a clue as to the consensus of the community, I would happily join it, but I certainly don't see such a consensus.

I guess this is just something of a rant from a clear outsider. If the Florida cave diving community could agree to come together on a goal like this, then maybe something good can be done. Looking fin from the outside as I do, I am not seeing it.

[mdax]

At first I was going to point out that DEP and FWC wouldn't take reports of improper cave certifications anyhow...That SeeSomething SaySomething campaigns were typically knee jerk reactions by organizations to give the image of doing something while they stay on bureaucratic cruise control.

However the image of older guys, red faced and hollering, getting all tweaked out at each other and demanding to see cert cards at cave sites was too awesome, so I changed my mind. It's a great idea!

[Superlyte27]

I feel this way a lot about cave politics. If you don't have a better idea, stfu and get out of the way.
If you do have a better idea, lets hear it.
I for one am sick and tired of morons dying needlessly. I'd try just about anything these days. Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way.

[JoeyP]

Joe:

OK, this is what I said on TDS about how I would handle that situation (in that instance they were talking about Spivey):

Me: Hey there, it's really cool that you get to cave dive with your son. I have a boy, (nephew, grandson, whatever) that age. I'd sure love to dive with him like you're doing now. Who trained him? I'm looking for someone that is good with young people.

Them: Um, ... err, ... ummmmm

Me: Well it's none of my business but you do realize that if you (he, whomever) are not trained for cave diving there is an extremely high probability you will have a bad time of it. It really isn't worth the risk. Plus, and I'm not really sure of this, but it might even be illegal. Anyway, you guys have a great day and please be careful. I'm part of the recovery team and I really don't want to come back here.

Then I walk away and take pictures with my phone.

Another good ploy is to ask them if their wife (family, whatever) knows what they are doing and how would they feel if there was an accident.

There is no need to be confrontational at all. Often time just the suggestion that it might be illegal and you are taking pictures is enough to have them think twice.

[skip]

I have trying to digest a lot of what has been posted as to access to cave sites located on private or public lands. The economy and the effort to produce smaller government has affected private parties as well as government. On July 1, 2012, the Department of Environmental Protection and its law enforcement officers were merged into Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. This resulted in more duties for the FF&W officers over a larger spectrum of law enforcement jurisdiction as well as more geographical area to cover. They need our help!

I am proposing we as cave divers do something pro-active. Get to know one another as was done in the "old days" and if a stranger appears at a dive site engage them. Be polite, ask them who they are, who their instructor was, where did they do their training? If you're put off by any of the replies or actions ... do something!

Neither Spivey, or his son were trained. They were not victims of Eagles Nest they were victims of their own making, perhaps encouraged by some perhaps not. They killed themselves as soon as they packed up their car on Christmas Day. LtCol. Spencer and MCPO Hartfrant weren't trained either. Their bodies were found in School Sink but their deaths were put in motion the minute they set their plan in motion. McDaniels, also untrained remains missing but people who knew he was not trained to cave dive said nothing.

I'd like to see a banner/ logo on this site that reads.

Promote safe cave diving if you "See Something - Say Something" Call and report untrained divers entering an underwater cave!

I'd like this banner to fly on the NSS-CDS and NACD Journals and websites. I will implement it for the IUCRR. It's the right thing to do!

No. I am opposed to this idea, the whole concept of it. If any of you come up to me and start asking me personal questions regarding my training and such, I'll tell you to kiss my ass and get off your high horse. You ain't the boss of me and when cave diving folks invade the privacy of others, questioning who has the right stuff to be where they are, doing what they do, a community of informers, please, just go ahead bring back the Nazi gangs of Hitler and call me Jew.

The answer is not encouraging all of us to become overseers of all of us, to spy on our neighbors, watch for and report possible abuses, to essentially become vigilante's. It's not the answer. The answer is that those who go where they don't belong will die and that's ok. i cannot imagine the horrors of a world in which everyone is interrogating everyone else as if we all must be watchful in case there's someone not behaving as we think they should.

I will violate my training. I will dive beyond my experience. And I will do it solo. It is my right as a human being to have the freedom to behave so as to result in my own death, either by intention or by plain ole stupidity. Nanny State or Fascist State? No thanks. I am more than willing for some to die and to be one of them if I make the wrong decisions. You want to see my c-card? you will have to pry it from cold dead hand. Or look on my dashboard (where you will also find a copy of my dive plan).

skip

[Superlyte27]

Yikes.

[Sly-vester]

No. I am opposed to this idea, the whole concept of it. If any of you come up to me and start asking me personal questions regarding my training and such, I'll tell you to kiss my ass and get off your high horse. You ain't the boss of me and when cave diving folks invade the privacy of others, questioning who has the right stuff to be where they are, doing what they do, a community of informers, please, just go ahead bring back the Nazi gangs of Hitler and call me Jew.

The answer is not encouraging all of us to become overseers of all of us, to spy on our neighbors, watch for and report possible abuses, to essentially become vigilante's. It's not the answer. The answer is that those who go where they don't belong will die and that's ok. i cannot imagine the horrors of a world in which everyone is interrogating everyone else as if we all must be watchful in case there's someone not behaving as we think they should.

I will violate my training. I will dive beyond my experience. And I will do it solo. It is my right as a human being to have the freedom to behave so as to result in my own death, either by intention or by plain ole stupidity. Nanny State or Fascist State? No thanks. I am more than willing for some to die and to be one of them if I make the wrong decisions. You want to see my c-card? you will have to pry it from cold dead hand. Or look on my dashboard (where you will also find a copy of my dive plan).

skip

Skip, Nazis, really? Would you rather it be nonintrusive and have no cave to dive, or have to show your C-card and have a cave to dive?

[Kelly Jessop]

No. I am opposed to this idea, the whole concept of it..... just go ahead bring back the Nazi gangs of Hitler and call me Jew.

.....Fascist State?

This has to be a world record to justify Godwin's Law.

There was a time in the early 70s that the sport was facing complete elimination and was going to be made an outlaw activity. I am sure when certification requirements came about,then attitude of,"nobody is going to tell me what to do" was prevalent,and perhaps some nanny state or fascism analogies were made,but of course Al Gore hadn't invented the internet for us to read the thoughts of this era. What was put into place is SOP now,and we accept it. Since this time we have seen very large number of sites that we've accessed disappear,and with things like development and litigation concern that pool gets smaller. As these pool of available sites get smaller,this puts more pressure on other sites which invokes conservation issues,and this is where you see carrying capacities implaced to reduce access. With increasing difficulty in opening new sites,it becomes imperitive to protect the sites we have,and nothing like this incident at Eagle's Nest and the lawsuit from School sink to cause the loss of sites. This has nothing to do with "cave politics",but trying to find a means to protect our access. I commend Ken for offering a suggestion,and finding an implementation that everyone would be happy with will be difficult,but if you like places like Eagles Nest,and quite a few others,being proactive and outside your comfort zone may be key.

[MORGAN]

Would you rather it be nonintrusive and have no cave to dive, or have to show your C-card and have a cave to dive?

This to me is the crux of this matter. In an ideal world, I'd advocate free access for everyone, and let Darwin sort 'em out. But deaths, no matter how stupid and preventable, attract the eye of the press and the attention of the state bureaucracy. Since the bureaucratic imperative seems to be to always impose more restrictions whenever they have the opportunity, it's best that we stay off their radar by doing what we reasonably can to decrease the number of ignoramuses dying in caves. I'd rather have reasonable restrictions imposed by the cave diving community than whatever non-caver, non-diver politicians and bureaucrats motivated by press coverage of "Killer Caves!" might come up with.

What's reasonable? That's where opinions vary.

Mike

[Kelly Jessop]

This to me is the crux of this matter. In an ideal world, I'd advocate free access for everyone, and let Darwin sort 'em out. But deaths, no matter how stupid and preventable, attract the eye of the press and the attention of the state bureaucracy. Since the bureaucratic imperative seems to be to always impose more restrictions whenever they have the opportunity, it's best that we stay off their radar by doing what we reasonably can to decrease the number of ignoramuses dying in caves. I'd rather have reasonable restrictions imposed by the cave diving community than whatever non-caver, non-diver politicians and bureaucrats motivated by press coverage of "Killer Caves!" might come up with.

What's reasonable? That's where opinions vary.

Mike

Well said. Now a days a cave fatality has a ripple effect.