My worry was more that some teenage kid might grab a tank and tox on it, not so much head off and steal it.Originally Posted by Slüdge
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Extend the gold line to the beginning of the big cavern
Extend the gold line to the beginning of the big cavern, including loops for O2 deco tanks
Leave the gold line where it is, I like it the way it is now
My worry was more that some teenage kid might grab a tank and tox on it, not so much head off and steal it.
I don't think that's happened so far and don't think it will anytime soon.
If it does, I say evolution was going to catch up to that kid anyway. So is the circle of life.
I think of running a line as the beginning of every dive, part of the trip.
I know that many with more experience than me prefer not to run a line in JB, and, as a new guy still working on perfecting my reel skills, I can see how skipping that would be a time saver. However, I'd like to think that when I have as much experience as the divers who opt not to run a reel, doing so will be such a breeze for me that I won't give it a second thought, and it won't cost me hardly any more time. So, what's the point of skipping it? Then, moving the gold line to mitigate the risk of skipping it? I don't understand how this thought even got started.
With all due respect Oliver, the only point that I understand is that it could reduce the mess on a busy day. I haven't seen it like that though, do you have a picture?
Zach
zklukkert.com
Someone who is experienced at it, will run a line at pretty much the normal swimming pace of his buddies.
If there are several primaries installed already, it can be a bit more of a time consuming process to route the own line properly.
Where it gets more difficult, is when you use multiple stages with scooters, especially when the flow is up.
Running a line can then be a painful experience because it gets fairly difficult to do without banging your scooters and stages behind the back.
So for these kinds of dives, one would prefer to swim in and prepare the line before the "big" dive.
However most people at this stage don't bother to run a line at JB, myself included.
I would need to check my videos. The most annoying part about the spiderwebs is, on a very busy day the deco room can be so littered with O2 tanks and 3-4 lines on the right side coming in, that it gets a bit difficult to find a nice spot to hang out for decompression.With all due respect Oliver, the only point that I understand is that it could reduce the mess on a busy day. I haven't seen it like that though, do you have a picture?
Dr. X and I run lines in JB, Devils Eye & Ear, etc.. We even jokingly fight over who gets to run the line with the winner being the one that runs it. IMHO if running lines is practiced enough it does become second nature & each time I run one I do my best to do it perfect (never is) and critique my work while taking it out.
That being said, proverbial "spider web" of lines is quite doable. Where many people feel they have to tie into the beginning of the gold line, I prefer to run along the left wall, avoid all the lines, and then right angle into the gold line about 30ft from the beginning.
"Not all change is improvement...but all improvement is change" Donald Berwick
It used to take me FOREVER to run a primary to the gold line in JB. I've gotten MUCH faster now, but still slower than without running one (obviously). I'm very curious to see what a scooter will do to me.
As for the spider-web, that can be SUPER bad. July 4th a few years ago, there were literally a dozen lines in JB. Not all of them ran to gold, though. A couple of OW courses were being taught on a "Mexican Cenote Guide" type of cavern, where they run a line in a circuit and the divers get to follow it. That meant there were extra lines.....it was bad. This can be mitigated several different ways. One way is for a group of people to share a reel. Be the first team in, tell people you're installing a reel and to cookie the reel near gold line while they're in the cave. At the end of the day, if there are no cookies, pull it. If there are, just drop it off at Edd's when you're done. Another option is that for certain "events" there have, in fact, been "Temporary extensions" of the gold line. I think we did that at the CDF Anti-Social at JB whenever that was. We assumed it was going to be busy so someone installed a reel and called it gold.
Good point. One of our favorite runs is the lower cavern on the left going in to the Horse Shoe Circuit, then tie in to the gold line off the Horse Shoe past the drop down.
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run it out further..it will give some pruning practice and keep the gold line maker in business.......
Chris Richardson
My experiences running line at JB include the spiderweb experience and the spider web experience with a scooter. Running your line under all the other lines you cross while handling a scooter may well have been good practice for me, but I certainly did not enjoy it and I certainly wished I did not have to do it. (I am not yet at the stage where I break rules.)
Here are some random thoughts:
1. Oliver said in post #24, "most people at this stage don't bother to run a line at JB." I believe him; I know I feel tempted. That means that the current practice at that site is an incentive for experienced cave divers to ignore a key safety rule that has been around since Exley. Isn't this a more serious incentive than the supposed incentive of the permanent line to draw unqualified divers into the cave?
2. Any free swimmer or diver in the open water can see into that extensive cavern area and be tempted to enter. I am not sure seeing a line would make much difference in that temptation.
3. When divers lay a proper line all the way out to the open water, won't unqualified divers be just as tempted to follow that line in as the gold line? In fact, isn't it more of a temptation to follow a line from the open water into the cavern than to follow a line that stops before it is readily visible to open water divers or swimmers?
4. All of my diving there has been in the winter, with no one but cave divers present. I have never seen it in the summer. I suspect I would feel better under those circumstances with deco bottles farther in. What if a swimmer decides to go in, take a breath off a bottle, and then hold that breath back to the surface?
5. Needing to run a line for the purpose of a class is not relevant because you can always do that regardless of the placement of the gold line. When I first learned to run line, it was at Ginnie Springs, with all of the caves in the area blown out and undiveable, including the ear entrance. Expecting a flood of divers, Ginnie Springs ran a line through the eye down to the gold line, with a sign saying all divers should use that line and not run their own. My instructor just had me run line over and over again in other places (mostly the Catacombs).
6. I think the argument that if an unqualified diver did succumb to the temptation to enter a forbidden area, it would be nice if the way out were clearly marked is a valid one.
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