Don't take a DPV where you haven't swam before ?

[chimie007]

This is a poll for folks that have used a DPV. I'm curious to hear your personal experience and not an opinion which can be discussed in a thread.

Recent discussion have brought the following advice "Don't take a DPV where you haven't swam before". Some have said it was good advice. Some have said that it might be too hard/complicated/impossible to swim there. Some have have said that the important was to be able to swim back (smaller gas requirement in high flow system to swim in than out), carry a backup scooter, etc.

While everyone has an opinion on it, the question is what did YOU do on your first dive to the Henkel (or similar distance in a high flow system, 3000'). Did you swim or scooter ?

[billybones519]

... I'm curious to hear your personal experience and not an opinion

While everyone has an opinion on it, the question is what did YOU do on your first dive to the Henkel (or similar distance in a high flow system, 3000'). Did you swim or scooter ?

Scooter. It would never occur to me to swim back to the Henkel.

[EGIB]

This is a poll for folks that have used a DPV. I'm curious to hear your personal experience and not an opinion which can be discussed in a thread.

Recent discussion have brought the following advice "Don't take a DPV where you haven't swam before". Some have said it was good advice. Some have said that it might be too hard/complicated/impossible to swim there. Some have have said that the important was to be able to swim back (smaller gas requirement in high flow system to swim in than out), carry a backup scooter, etc.

While everyone has an opinion on it, the question is what did YOU do on your first dive to the Henkel (or similar distance in a high flow system, 3000'). Did you swim or scooter ?

I was planning on swimming it first, but then I scootered.

That was not my first scooter dive in Ginnie though...I first went to Double Domes (I had swam there before), then I went to the Insulation Rooms, then I went to the loop past the insulation rooms, then the Bear Room, then the Henkle. All in all I did about 25 dives (not all scootering but a lot of them were) from the time I first scootered to the time I went to the Henkle. I gradually got familiar with the gold line passages and jumps farther into the system before I all out went to the Henkle. I actually ended up going there on the scooter before I was planning to but I was ready I think.

Since then I have gone farther on a DPV than I have swam in other systems, using very conservative gas planning. I have also had gas leaks, multiple gas leaks, regulator failures, been towed on a scooter quite a few times, seen a rock fall on my friend, and had an incident where I nearly killed my instructor in DPV class (not actually, he just choked a little). All things that would have scared the crap out of me even after my full cave training, but now are just little things you have to deal with during the dive...actually some of them were so funny I almost drowned because I was laughing too hard.

I just think it is important to plan on having enough gas to swim out, carry gas in multiple bottles, and be confident in your own ability to get yourself out when the sh*t hits the fan.

[jpdiver]

My first dive and everyone thereafter to the Hinkel was with a DPV. The same goes for Jackson Blue ( Banana room etc). I always take enough bailout gas so that I can swim out in case of scooter failure.

I can see the point of " don't DPV where you haven't swam before" in systems that are more restrictive and siltier. I did many swimming dives in Telford ( Ardvark room) etc. before I scootered.

[Sludge]

As JB is my "home base," I can describe my experience there better than at Ginnie.

When I got my first cave scooter, I stressed to my buddy that I wanted to obey the "swim then scooter" rule. As I had swam to within a few feet of the third T, we scootered to there, clipped off the scooters, and swam to the Trash Room. The next dive, we scootered to the Trash Room and swam to stage rock. Next, we scootered to Stage Rock and swam several hundred feet beyond it.

Then it got tricky. There's nowhere good to leave a scooter in the next thousand feet or so. So I bent the "swim then scooter" rule. I would scooter to a hundred feet past my previous max. It took me ten dives to go from p2,500' to p3,500'. Which is pretty much the limit for a Tekna or Mako.

[FW]

I think you may be missing the point of the recommendation. The idea is not to buy a scooter, and make the Henkel your first scooter dive. You need to work up to something like that, so you have some idea of how long it takes to swim out of a place, vs scooter out.

FWIW, I scootered to the Henkel first, but my first scooter dive was in 1981. I also had staged about 3/4 of the way there before I scootered it.

[FW]

Russell has the right idea for progression. Scooter to the farthest place you have dived a system, then swim. Then you can add that to your farthest "swim" dive for the next scooter dive.

[Jay]

OK, since we are being honest, my third dive after full cave cert was a scooter/stage at JB. I did swim JB as far as I could the dive before though.
My 4th dive was the mile at Peacock.
I swam about as far as I could in ginnie up a lot of lines before I scootered to the henkle.

And the first time I scootered in Cow...... j/k.

Yeah, do it Russells way.

[rjack]

Russell has the right idea for progression. Scooter to the farthest place you have dived a system, then swim. Then you can add that to your farthest "swim" dive for the next scooter dive.

Caveat: I don't scooter in caves. I have gotten my butt kicked on OW scooter dives. Being left with dying batteries along a cliff a long way from an exit...(long story).

So with that in mind:
On the one hand this swim then scooter guideline makes sense. Know your limits and all that jazz.

On the other hand at some point its impossible to swim (out) anymore. You'll be towing backup scoots, diving only stages, dropping safeties, whatever. That point probably varies with flow and other day to day variables.

I am posing this as a question not trying to troll here...

If you choose the swim then scooter path, are you substituting experience for proper, training, pre-planning, towing, multiple bottles, and other skills? Maybe not bringing along redundancy when you should - cause one day in the past you were able to swim out of something?

E.g. Scooter back 3,000ft, clip it off, then swim another 500ft. Now you thumb it and return to a flooded scooter. Has this swim-before-scooter approach really prepared you for this circumstance? You might never have swam out from this point with this little gas before. If you had not done the swimming workup dives and had swimming in the back of your mind as a backup plan, would you have been more likely to bring a backup scooter?

I'm curious about where to balance these issues.
Richard

[Tegg]

I wonder how far the WKPP guys would have explored by now if they followed this "rule"?