Cave Diving Police

[floridabob]

I know Peter and I cannot call him a bully. I can call him many other things, but not a bully.

As for all this other stuff: own it, get better and move on.

I cannot blame your instructor for your class 20 years ago. I was not in the water and did not see what you did or how you were geared. I will say this, though, if Peter felt that he should wait for you to discuss your performance you probably have some work to do.

Take the gift of feedback and get better. We can all always get better....

I must add one last thing: every piece of critique I gave Peter he reacted to it. He embraced the affront and moved on. I have video to prove it.

Bob

[Superlyte27]

It is always interesting that people tell on themselves when they display bad behavior. Ill admit that I hit the silt. As for the pistol grip light that was a GoPro with a small brand new video light on a tray. I was working with my new GoPro and lost buoyancy sorry. If I messed up your dive sorry. It seems that you feel you need to act like a Bully. I was a little rusty with backmount I usually side mount. I did notice that the Forum Moderator had to edit your response due to profanity. Men admit when they are wrong and take responsibility for messing up. I will work on my skills. Stay safe and I will try to do the same.

OMG!!! I'm so glad you responded. I'm all a twitter with excitement. I hardly know where to start. I guess I'll start with myself.

First, a bully targets the weak and undeserving. I'm pretty indiscriminate in that I hate everyone equally. While you are certainly weak in cave diving, I have no idea whether you are lacking in mental capacity, physical attribute or moral compass. And I'm pretty sure that "weak" cave diving skills isn't really what bullies are looking for when selecting a target. You are certainly not undeserving. Your skills in the cave are atrocious. They needed to be pointed out, mentioned and discussed. But we'll get to that in a second. Secondly, a bully would never publicly mock and ridicule you, then offer for free to help you get your skills up to par so you can dive safely. Sure, I'm a A-Hole, but my love of the hobby is genuine.

Now, lets get to you. I'm not certain if you were the lead diver or the diver in the 70's era orange wetsuit. Can you elaborate? Diver #2 was in fact carrying 2 Pistol Grip Flashlights. If memory serves they were incandescent pelican lights. I didn't notice any GoPro, and frankly I didn't notice ANYTHING about the lead diver. Diver number 2 was the one I was focused on. So, I read the paragraph above and you "tell on yourself" about hitting the silt. You were working with a new GoPro and lost buoyancy. I'm going to suggest you master your photography in good, clear, safe open water before you task load yourself in a dangerous cave. This has nothing at all to do with messing up my dive. My dive was awesome. This has to do with your safety. I'm still a little frightened in the fact that while you mention silt, you didn't mention anything about improper tie offs on the reel. The fact that the reel was blowing wildly in the flow. Kneeling on your knees in mud, flutter kicking for more than 400' in the silt. But I re-read that you are rusty in backmount, usually you sidemount. So you think it's a good idea to re-master backmount while trying out a new camera in a cave? C'mon man, that's just bad common sense. And that's what this post and my comments that afternoon are all about.

I appreciate you admitting when you are wrong, believe me. I'm wrong a lot, and I admit it a lot. Call me well practiced. But my fear is you're missing the point. Do you really believe the only issue was your buoyancy? Because I see a lot of skills that are lacking and some problem with decision making... like unnecessarily task loading yourself. Do you even recognize all the problems? I really don't know. I've listed them in the beginning of this thread, but let me list them again, not to beat a dead horse but to give you a checklist of what needs to be resolved. Your tie offs were improper. Please don't tie on top of other people's tie offs. You crossed over my line in several places. If you must cross a line, cross under it. Your line wasn't tight at all. It was very very loose. You didn't yield the right of way to exiting divers. You knelt in mud completely vertical. You bounced off the bottom several times. You flutter kicked the entire time I witnessed you. I'm not sure you can put aside our differences (and by that I mean the fact that I'm a giant fizzy douche), but if you'd like, we can go diving and work on some of this stuff.

Now, since I've taken a few minutes to point out your weaknesses, lets point out some of mine. Ready? 1. I'm a prick. 2. Yup, that really encompasses it all.

Honestly, if I had stood at the top of the steps and said, "You know mister diver, that really wasn't your greatest dive." Would it have been a second thought in your head? You'd have forgotten the conversation the moment I was out of site. And maybe next time you dive, one of those bad techniques wouldn't be so forgiving. Maybe you don't come back. Would it have gotten more than 3000 views from other divers who also possibly suck at cave diving on this forum. Maybe people really don't know it's not cool to kneel in the mud. Honestly, you didn't know, or would you have really done it in front of three other guys?

It would be nice if people could openly tell someone they need to improve. Oh wait, that's exactly what I did. Sure my delivery could have been better, but would it have had the impact? Who knows. Good luck man. Let me know if I can help.

[RGU]

The question is not "How long have you been certified?" but "How many dives have you made in the past 12 months?"

Just where is the guy supposed to dive to get those practice dives? Evidently not Ginnie.

[Superlyte27]

News Flash, you can work on buoyancy, trim and frog kick in a pool. But if that's not to your liking... how about Ballroom. Blue Grotto, Devil's Den, Alexander Springs, Rainbow River, Crystal River and 10 other places closer to his house than Devil's Eye.

[Garth]

It is always interesting that people tell on themselves when they display bad behavior. Ill admit that I hit the silt. As for the pistol grip light that was a GoPro with a small brand new video light on a tray. I was working with my new GoPro and lost buoyancy sorry. If I messed up your dive sorry. It seems that you feel you need to act like a Bully. I was a little rusty with backmount I usually side mount. I did notice that the Forum Moderator had to edit your response due to profanity. Men admit when they are wrong and take responsibility for messing up. I will work on my skills. Stay safe and I will try to do the same.

Sooo.... would you be willing to show is some of the footage you got on that GoPro?

I love a good video.

Cheers,
Garth


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jj1987]

I had no idea people ran lines in Ginnie outside of class. Guess you learn something new every day.

[Sly-vester]

Running lines at Ginnie?

[SLIM]

Its like those who say they need a shake down dive on thier first dive back to caves for a year. Well if you dive in OW, then even OW should be treated like a cave dive with all that goes with it, mentality, bouancy, trim, and I could go on. Once a cave diver all dives are dove like a cave dive. That is what shows our differance in ability.

SLIM

[RGU]

News Flash, you can work on buoyancy, trim and frog kick in a pool. But if that's not to your liking... how about Ballroom. Blue Grotto, Devil's Den, Alexander Springs, Rainbow River, Crystal River and 10 other places closer to his house than Devil's Eye.

Fair enough!
I do get a kick out this since I live in a part of the world where if you are productive enough citizen to own your own boat; you can pretty much dive any place. No one checks for C cards or cares if your gear is politically correct.

[Superlyte27]

Pretty sure that the Great Lakes aren't going to get closed if some idiot screws up and kills himself. However, that kind of crap happens all the time in cave country. We have to be self policing. Damage to these caves never heals. Kneel in the mud and those impressions can stay there for years. Get killed in a cave and we might lose access to the cave, or worse, lose a good agency and caves at the same time.

There's acceptable practices that we all agree to and learn in cave class. Get on board, or go buy a boat and dive somewhere else.