Pull and glide vs ???

[Wizard]

When I started cave diving everyone told me when in high flow look for the white rocks. That's what the people before you used.
Another alternative to pull and glide is hand walking. In moderate flow like Ginnie after the park bench go negative and walk on your palms.

[REastman]

Ok, newbie question here.

In cave training, students are hammered with the idea of cave conservation and preservation. We are admonished for putting hands down, feet down, feet up on the ceiling, etc. Have been a dry caver from a young age, and a former employee of DEP, I take conservation of natural resources quite seriously.

But that leads to an interesting problem for me as a new cave diver. When is it ok to touch the cave. I remember struggling to try to get through Devils to the lips. Getting absolutely hammered because I didn't know the good line to take in, and I was running the reel. I remember doing Little River on the final day of class, and being told to use pull and glide through certain areas to make reasonable forward progress.

Clearly, silting is not a concern in these high flow areas but how does a diver, new to caving, make the deliniation as to when it's ok to pull and glide, and when it is not? Yes, I wil pose the question to my instructor, but many here are also intructors and many who are not have a wealth of experience and knowldege.

So what say you?

Buy a scooter

[PerroneFord]

Buy a scooter

LOL!

Yea, I can see it now. Scootering to the keyhole. Whooo Yea! That's worth $3800.

It's great to be intro... but it sucks to be intro!

[Janet]

Bill & I did two dives this week in Little River, even though the flow is low it is still there, if I did pull & glide it was with one finger in a depression of solid rock something which would not break off, nothing fragile. The nice thing was when we turned to exit the cave we got to float out without moving our feet, my kind of diving. The viz was great, Little River is my favorite dive.
Janet

[Mike]

Yea Janet, I love Little River ever since it whipped my butt doing intro there, I always love going there to try to conquer the flow, but I was there on the 15th (April) & it has definitely calmed down for now(pray for rain).

Mike M

[FW]

If you don't want to pull & glide, you should learn to "read" the cave. There is usually only high current on one side of the passage. It does switch sides often, though. The best rule of thumb is stay on the inside of every turn. When you pass a turn, you usually need to move to the other side of the passage.

Think of it this way, you are shielded from the flow if you are behind somthing that will deflect the water, like the cave wall on the inside of a turning passage.

[BillGraham]

If you don't want to pull & glide, you should learn to "read" the cave. There is usually only high current on one side of the passage. It does switch sides often, though. The best rule of thumb is stay on the inside of every turn. When you pass a turn, you usually need to move to the other side of the passage.

Think of it this way, you are shielded from the flow if you are behind somthing that will deflect the water, like the cave wall on the inside of a turning passage.

That's some really good advice.

I was recently diving in a river cave with my good friend who's a cave instructor with a bazillion cave dives. It was basically clay with nothing to hold on to, extremely high flow. I was beating myself to death, huffing and puffing my way to a headache, and it looked like she was barely exerting herself. Moral of the story, the more dives you do, the easier it gets to find the path out of the flow.

My instructor had an analogy: why would someone want to dive the same cave over and over?

It's like a golfer that plays the same course every week. Each round is different. The golfer finds that playing a 2-iron from a certain spot is more effective than a fairway wood. But in other spots, the wood is better.

A cave diver "reads" the cave, as Forrest says, and may try a different approach than the way they dove it last time. For example, in Cavern I was taught the ceiling walk, but didn't use it at all my first five years or so of cave diving. I have found that there are places where it is the best method of all, such as going through the Lips.

[PerroneFord]

If you don't want to pull & glide, you should learn to "read" the cave. There is usually only high current on one side of the passage. It does switch sides often, though. The best rule of thumb is stay on the inside of every turn. When you pass a turn, you usually need to move to the other side of the passage.

Think of it this way, you are shielded from the flow if you are behind somthing that will deflect the water, like the cave wall on the inside of a turning passage.

While I agree this is great advice, it speaks more to someone with experience in caving. As someone quite new to caving, and not versed in the ways of "reading the cave", and as someone following the general rule of not criscrossing the cave with line from the reel, it makes this a bit challenging.

It seems to me, that cave education, marvelous as it may be, leaves a few subjects out that would be helpful to those who lack the experience to make some good judgements. This "reading the cave" is one of them. And I think some effort could be put forth in helping new cave divers understand the concept a bit better. Even a few slides showing good spots would be helpful to me. Perhaps I'll put something like that together for my own purposes and for the purposes of helping others.

[JimC]

This was one of the major topics of discussion on my app and full. It dovetails in nicely with all the global awareness talk. At the end of full we pulled off the bat circuit with gas and time to spare. I found that part of my full class to be the most valuable, day-to-day skill taught.

It seems to me, that cave education, marvelous as it may be, leaves a few subjects out that would be helpful to those who lack the experience to make some good judgements. This "reading the cave" is one of them. And I think some effort could be put forth in helping new cave divers understand the concept a bit better. Even a few slides showing good spots would be helpful to me. Perhaps I'll put something like that together for my own purposes and for the purposes of helping others.