Controlling Access--How to do it

[JohnAd]

Access to the springs that lead to caves is controlled by a variety of owners by a variety of means. I remember the first time I dived in the Yucatan, the guide I had hired drove through some back streets in Tulum, trying to remember the exact location of a particular home. She went inside and returned with a torn out scrap of notebook paper with a few words scrawled in pencil. The next day we drove through a narrow, rough dirt road through the jungle until we came to a small spring at its end. A few minutes later a truck pulled up behind us and parked to block any exit we might have planned. Two people with somewhat threatening countenances stepped out. The guide smiled, said a few sentences in Spanish, and handed over that that scrap of notebook paper, after which everyone was happy and chatting like old friends. This past year we went to the same site, but this time access was controlled at a dive shop rather than an obscure house in Tulum. We presented our credentials, paid our fee, and walked out with an official-looking permit allowing us to dive that site. I thought that was a big improvement.

I am sure everyone reading this has accessed caves in different ways, including gate codes, wrist bands, C-cards on the dashboard--whatever. Each system has its benefits, and each one has its flaws. What works well at one site will not work at all at another.

In the aftermath of the Eagles Nest incident, I thought I would start a thread in which people could discuss ideas for improving the methods of access to some of the sites that, like Eagles Nest, are not currently well controlled. How can we best set things up to make access reasonably easy for qualified divers and reasonably difficult for unqualified divers? Ideas should be practical, including affordability.

[phillip1]

You will never be able to stop idiots of this magnitude from getting themselves killed. It is not an acess problem, some people are just irreversibly irresponsible and of such utter stupidity, if access to all caves in Florida would have been closed this guy would have taken his son on a 100 meter deep dive on the ocean or maybe wingsuit flying.

While on the subject of cave access what about all the full cave instructors "guiding" unsuspecting open water clients way past the cavern zone? This happens on a daily basis in Mexico and the DR with the full knowledge of the dive industry and the training agencies yet NOTHING IS EVER DONE ABOUT EVER, NO REAL SANCTIONS ARE EVER HANDED OUT.
Should we close all the caves?
All this talk about the father and son to me is just all BS, there is a way worse safety problem going on and the culprits are full cave instructors and instructor trainers!!!

Why no diving wide community outrage at this?

[deepdiver4]

This is not going to stop......

[DogDiver]

This could be a great thread... let's keep it to the subject at hand... I was talking to Wes Skyles a few years ago trying to get a scrap of info thrown at me in hopes of finding new dive sites. He told me about a special cave named "Posted". I asked him how it got that name. He stated because there was a sign there that said "Posted, no trespassing". Oh well...the good old days... Ken

[Benthic]

Eagle's Nest is controlled just fine as it is.
Don't fix the site. Fix the stupid.

Brian

[sskasser]

Eagle's Nest is controlled just fine as it is.
Don't fix the site. Fix the stupid.

Brian

I hope you can hear my standing ovation for this from over there!

What Brian said!

[shellmoundal]

Enough Said. You can't fix stupid. We who are trained to dive in these caves can question any diver that we may suspect does not have proper training. All we can do is try and educate a diver that may not be fully aware of what he or she is about to get into. If the diver has made up his or her mind to dive they will. At least you know in your own mind that you did all you could do to prevent that death. Be careful that we do not become regulated. That would be a terrible thing. All that you have been trained to do could be changed by a group of people that know nothing about the sport of cave diving.

You will never be able to stop idiots of this magnitude from getting themselves killed. It is not an acess problem, some people are just irreversibly irresponsible and of such utter stupidity, if access to all caves in Florida would have been closed this guy would have taken his son on a 100 meter deep dive on the ocean or maybe wingsuit flying.

While on the subject of cave access what about all the full cave instructors "guiding" unsuspecting open water clients way past the cavern zone? This happens on a daily basis in Mexico and the DR with the full knowledge of the dive industry and the training agencies yet NOTHING IS EVER DONE ABOUT EVER, NO REAL SANCTIONS ARE EVER HANDED OUT.
Should we close all the caves?
All this talk about the father and son to me is just all BS, there is a way worse safety problem going on and the culprits are full cave instructors and instructor trainers!!!

Why no diving wide community outrage at this?

[kwinter]

Back in the 70s, they experimented with a digital automobile ignition switch with a keypad and screen. The screen would flash a 5-digit number and you had a very limited time to repeat it on the keypad or else the car wouldn't start. It was a complicated and expensive proposed solution to drunk drivers. Those who think this was a good idea should put a fence around every dive site, with the gate electronically controlled by answering several questions from one of the cave diver certification tests.

As the saying goes, nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.


Please pardon any typos. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sludge]

It was a complicated and expensive proposed solution to drunk drivers. Those who think this was a good idea should put a fence around every dive site

I think it would be great if everyone ever convicted of drunk driving had to do this for the rest of their lives.

[Walter Pickel]

Eagle's Nest is controlled just fine as it is.
Don't fix the site. Fix the stupid.

Brian

AMEN!