Let me preface this by stating that I am a fairly new, well very new, cave diver. I received my Intro training from Rick Murcar the first weekend of April, and have only logged 23 Intro dives in the past month. I try to learn more and more by watching other cave divers, talking with them, and asking questions. All of the cave divers that I've met and talked with have been great. This past weekend at Ginnie, there were a few things that happened that seemed to be a bit out of the ordinary from what I've been trained and common sense, that I thought I'd share them. Maybe I'm just too new, and maybe these are lessons for us all.

Over the weekend, at least 3 different times, I saw used condom caths sitting in the showers. I used handy plastic bags or paper to throw them away. Granted, the drunks at Ginnie do their fair share of messing up the bathrooms, but do we, as a community need to contribute?

As we were coming out of the cave on one dive, two divers on scooters came flying out of the Hill 400 jump turing corkscrews on the scooters. A few seconds later, the viz dropped dramatically, and it was pretty clear that at least one of the scooters had gotten into the clay in that area. Another team we know was ahead of us and noticed the viz drop as the scooters went by. We noticed lots of gouges in the Mud Flats on other dives. Aren't we supposed to stay out of the clay and the mud?

On one dive, we were coming out of the Ear while another team was entering. The team was just hanging on and there was really nowhere to go. It was clear that they saw us, as their light was right in my eyes. So we had to pull back into the Ear and and wait for them to enter before we could exit. Is there any rule of thumb that exiting teams should wait for entering teams in the Ear due to the flow. Again, I'm still learning and althouh I was taught to always yield to exiting teams, I don't know if there is some overriding factor that is an exception to that like high flow.

Again, as I said, I'm new to this and don't want to complain. These are just some obesrvations and questions for a new guy. As noted previously, I've met lots of great people in the cave community who have been really helpful and supportive!!

Don