what would you do in a situation like this

[scubicious]

i have just read this article the cave conundrum, ( read all 3 examples)
it makes me think about how i would try to get out alive, except obviously avoid leaving markers and jump lines, as well as trusting the people who gave you the line info wrong altogether

it kind of makes you wonder how it is possible to strictly follow the rules and still get lost, wich could easily turn into a fatal situation

SO, my question to you pros is how would you fix that situation, from the step that they make their return, ie DONT say you wouldnt have left the markers or jump lines,

give it a thought, will ya'

[battles2a5]

Well I am by no means a pro (intro diver), but I would do the following:

For the cave conundrum and multiple T cases, there is a sequence of marked vs. ummarked T's. In the first one, it was ummarked then marked. In the second it was marked, unmarked, then marked. If they got caught in the loop, they will know there is problem as soon as they hit a cookie 2 T's in a row. If that isn't enough, I would say to number your cookies and lay them in numerical order. You would know that there is an issue when you hit cookie "2" twice in a row.

For the jump lines, I suppose you can do the same. Either number your arrows or your spools to identify the issue earlier. In this case, you would have made it all the back to jump "1" before you ran into jump "4" at which point the team should realize that they set up one big circuit.

I'm sure the more experienced guys will have some better ideas, but that's what I would do.

[Daedalus]

I don't know what constitutes a "professional" cave diver, is this some new training level?

The correct answer is to not set up a traverse involving multiple navigational decisions as your first and second dives in a system.

In addition, the dive team should have left a personal marker at the first T, then when they came to it after completing the loop they would realize what happened.

[scubicious]

All the things you said are ok, but suppose you had to do an emergency no vis exit,
please just start from the point where you start your exit, and suspect something is wrong.
By pros I meant people who would do traverses with navigational desitions, but all pov and opinions are valid

[OneBrightGator]

Dive was f-ed before the divers ever hit the water.

I hope I would think for a minute and follow the arrow, since the marker configuration makes no sense and obviously I've been here before.

Once I made it out and realized my stupidity of letting my desire to cram as much into a week long vacation as possible is what got me into that mess I'd spend the rest of the time on the beach with some Dos Equis.

[Daedalus]

All the things you said are ok, but suppose you had to do an emergency no vis exit,
please just start from the point where you start your exit, and suspect something is wrong.
By pros I meant people who would do traverses with navigational desitions, but all pov and opinions are valid

Ok I have a scenario for you, a dive team enters the water and does a stage scooter dive. Their dive plan is to totally drain their stage bottles on entrance and then exit on their backgas. When their stages are empty 3000' in and they go to switch to their backgas they realize their doubles are full of argon. What would you do at this point?

[jimdiverman]

i have just read this article the cave conundrum, ( read all 3 examples)
it makes me think about how i would try to get out alive, except obviously avoid leaving markers and jump lines, as well as trusting the people who gave you the line info wrong altogether

it kind of makes you wonder how it is possible to strictly follow the rules and still get lost, wich could easily turn into a fatal situation

SO, my question to you pros is how would you fix that situation, from the step that they make their return, ie DONT say you wouldnt have left the markers or jump lines,

give it a thought, will ya'

There are other considerations like the flow in the cave. Wouldn't they have checked that out and had some AWARENESS of that? When they hit the double arrow and the flow changed, wouldn't that have told them something?, and that the double arrow was at a turn and not a straight section of the cave? What about setup dives from each cenote prior to the "traverse"? Wouldn't they have found out that the start/end point was the same place?

Maybe what you say is true that this could happen, but the awareness of these divers would need to be called into question if they couldn't figure it out, if not before the dive, then during it.

[scubicious]

So your answer would be to follow the arrow, but woulnt that bend the "personal markers take priority" rule?
Thx for all the replies in such quick time

[scubicious]

Obviously, I would swim the distance breathholding, and when, not if I exit alive: Chuck Norris style roundhouse kick to the face of whoever filled my tanks

[scubicious]

Jim:
Best answer so far, thanks
remember, I am not defending that dive just wondering what each of us would do