The future of cave diving . .

[aw]

I was talking with a couple of people last night listening to their cave diving stories. And it got me to thinking about the future of cave diving and where it might be heading - if anywhere.

This is an open ended question and I'm not really sure where it will lead. Where do you think cave diving will be in 10 years?

In business, we know there are some industries whose opportunities peak rather quickly, the market then becomes saturated with product, the market matures, and death follows.

Cave diving has only really been around for about 40 years. But my perception of cave diving is that it reached its peak in the late 80's - mid 90's. This seems to be when a lot of the big names got bigger, exploration was at its peak, the political climate between factions was at its strongest, technological innovations were exponential, and procedures like mixed gas were being refined. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm a late bloomer, not coming into cave diving till 99.

Look where we are today. We've become a law-suit happy society where everyone is afraid to open up their dive sites, KP has begun loosing ground, technology looks more like "bigger mousetrap syndrome", there's very little virgin cave to explore, agencies are working together a little more, new big names don't really seem to be rising to the top, and experienced cave diving seems to be doing the mile run in peacock for the 100th time.

Back in the day, it was interesting to hear about dive incidents of the great names. But today we hear stroke 1 dives with stroke 2 who kills stroke 3. Today, everybody's a "stroke".

I guess my question is this - has cave diving reached its maturity and will it begin to die in 10 year's time?

Just something to ponder. I don't have a lot of facts to base my perceptions. I may be wrong. I genuinely hope so. I love cave diving and hope there are enough pieces of the pie for all who wish to put forth the effort to be the best at it they can.

What do you think?

[Serota]

As a newer cave diver, I would say that the lack of "virgin" cave passages is of little importance because almost all of them are new to me and the excitement and satisfaction derived from a successful dive is not diminished because lots of divers have been there before. Secondly, there certainly doesn't seem to be any shortage of younger people taking cavern and introductory cave courses or any lack of activity at the popular caves, so no I don't see cave diving disappearing any time soon.

[Jordan]

All of the caves will be dried up in 10 years. Anybody want to take me on in 'King of the Hill' on that big rock in the Florida Room at LR?

[dshuman]

If Florida continues to grow as rapidly as it has with a similar level of incompetence when it comes to management I expect that the aquifer will be bled dry.

It will be interesting when a group of school kids can hike to the Flag room in Diepolder and read a plaque about mythical "cave divers".

Of course, soon thereafter, global warming will fill it all in with sea water.

[MengTze]

In the next 10 years the rebreathers will be cheaper and more widely spread. Improvements on technology and procedures will happen.

This will lead to cave diving (and other diving) being long dives on RB's, for miles. A computer in one chip, native environmental shielding, self powered (bio powered) for 20 years. No more failures, now more floodings. Realtime monitoring of tissue loading perhaps.... well maybe in 25 years!

The sky is the limit... the question is who is going to spearhead this, is there a market, what is the market willing to bear? The technology is here......

[nic160]

there's very little virgin cave to explore,

There's plenty to explore, you just haven't looked under the right rocks !!!

[Jordan]

Yes -- the new Dive Rite five hundred dollar kit includes: dual-sidemounted rebreatherS, each simultaneously working at 1/2 capacity feeding a full face mask, voice communications with all team members and comms to surface support. The Skilescan will be permanently mounted in your heads up display and will have many new tertiary functions, including laser vision and infrared capabilities. Tired of lugging heavy scooters around? The New and improved Self-propelling/venting/heating drysuit will eliminate the need for condoms, undergarments and dpvs.

Just thought I'd share a glimpse into Dive Rite's future the way I see it

[dshuman]

there's very little virgin cave to explore,

There's plenty to explore, you just haven't looked under the right rocks !!!

Plus, cave diving is really just ramping up internationally. I expect there will be an increasing number of major expeditions in southeast asia, central america, and possibly some of the freshly exposed antarctic.

[Miner]

Very interesting question. I've been cave diving for 13 years and have seen a significant change in the sport. When I started, I was fortunate enough to be a part of several exploration projects that involved many cave divers and made some great friends as a result. Mentalities were very different 10-12 years ago. The big group seperation was whether you breathed the long hose or short hose and whether you but-mounted your light or not. There was also a drive to improve technology, skills, and knowledge for exploration purposes.

Today, there are many cave divers, which is great, but there seems to be a trend towards just enjoying cave dives as opposed to a drive to explore, which is also fine. The explorers today are some of the same people who were exploring 10 years ago. Today, the efforts to find new cave or passage is much more difficult and time consuming and expensive, which eliminates many people very quickly.

I think cave diving will survive just fine (as long as we don't pump the ground dry), but the emphasis will be on pleasure cave diving as opposed to exploration and discovery. With tighter restrictions on places to dive and developer encroachment, there will be less places to dive, which may slow the sport some. I also think that many will eventually get out of the sport because they dove all the caves they can and look to find something else to challenge them, BUT there will be new cave divers to take their place, which will keep the sport alive for many years to come.

Dave Miner
www.divingindepth.com

[Tegg]

there's very little virgin cave to explore,

There's plenty to explore, you just haven't looked under the right rocks !!!

That is very true.