Cow Springs Access Restrictions for Conservation, Safety, Accessibility

[Greenwood_60]

I would at least say that an intro diver with or without 100 hours is not qualified, that's for sure.

No question.

[Bobby]

So a full cave diver with 100 hours in the cave is which? Not certified to dive cow or not qualified to dive cow? What is it about Cow that a makes it so difficult for a trained diver who gives a **** to not mess up? I still do think they should have someone familiar with the system in their group.

Jason,
Have you been upstream in Cow? I would hope not with your level of certification and experience. Cow is not difficult to dive, actually that is one of the problems. Now that the BM passage is known it is rather easy to dive. What is difficult is having the skills and experience to not damage the system. The last ten years have seen increasing damage to the system and that is not counting the vandalism. A simple fin tip hitting or grabbing a rock to pull and glide results in damage. This system needs above average buoyancy and trim control. It is obvious from the damage in the last 2-3 years that it is getting worse and that is the point of this thread.

Cave trained means that the a person has been taught a full set of cave diving skills. Once they meet the level of being cave trained they now start to accumulate experience as a cave diver. A cavern, intro, basic, or apprentice diver is accumulating experience to go on to the next level of training. That is why the awards only count dives past cave certification. I do agree that hours should be considered as well. I would prefer to see 100 dives and 100 hours to make it. Too many divers today are putting in short dives to make the mile stone. If we made it only hours then a CCR diver would reach it without the experience of many dives as well. Make it both hours and dives and then it will be an honest bench mark. Hopefully by that time the diver has learned to respect and appreciate the systems.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I would be all for 100 hours and 100 dives post Full Cave for the Abe.

[JamesK]

I would be all for 100 hours and 100 dives post Full Cave for the Abe.

Heck, I would be all for that as well. And this is from the guy who just started logging dives again after close to 8 years.


Time to call old friends and see if they have any of the dives logged that we have done together so I can get the info! LOL......

[Tegg]

In my honest opinion, there should be no requirement by the CDS of any "proof" of experience, Abe Davis or not.

First of all this opens the CDS up to future lawsuits.

Second of all it stops no one from being a total idiot and killing themselves in a cave and having their family sue. (Ala School Sink)

Third, it doesn't stop any type of cave damage. I have seen plenty of "damage/bad scars from technique" in caves where only "more experienced" divers should be diving.

Forth and final, it only limits those honest enough to follow rules and disallows those who would appreciate seeing the cave.

Then again, my opinion on a lot of things related to cave diving seems to be "on the fray" lately.... and I haven't been doing it all that long (10 years)... It's odd how cave diving politics and cave divers in general have "changed" in such a short time. Those who have been involved longer must really be "off the charts"...

[FW]

In my honest opinion, there should be no requirement by the CDS of any "proof" of experience, Abe Davis or not.

First of all this opens the CDS up to future lawsuits.

Second of all it stops no one from being a total idiot and killing themselves in a cave and having their family sue. (Ala School Sink)

Third, it doesn't stop any type of cave damage. I have seen plenty of "damage/bad scars from technique" in caves where only "more experienced" divers should be diving.

Forth and final, it only limits those honest enough to follow rules and disallows those who would appreciate seeing the cave.

Then again, my opinion on a lot of things related to cave diving seems to be "on the fray" lately.... and I haven't been doing it all that long (10 years)... It's odd how cave diving politics and cave divers in general have "changed" in such a short time. Those who have been involved longer must really be "off the charts"...

[Greenwood_60]

Have you been upstream in Cow? I would hope not with your level of certification and experience.

Nope, knew I had no business and stayed out. I did poke around in the basin long enough to find the entrance though. Made 3 dives downstream though. Not sure the total dive time for the day was an hour.

Cow is not difficult to dive, actually that is one of the problems.

I got that impression. I figured I would ask anyways.

Now that the BM passage is known it is rather easy to dive. What is difficult is having the skills and experience to not damage the system. The last ten years have seen increasing damage to the system and that is not counting the vandalism. A simple fin tip hitting or grabbing a rock to pull and glide results in damage. This system needs above average buoyancy and trim control. It is obvious from the damage in the last 2-3 years that it is getting worse and that is the point of this thread.

Got it.

Cave trained means that the a person has been taught a full set of cave diving skills. Once they meet the level of being cave trained they now start to accumulate experience as a cave diver. A cavern, intro, basic, or apprentice diver is accumulating experience to go on to the next level of training. That is why the awards only count dives past cave certification. I do agree that hours should be considered as well. I would prefer to see 100 dives and 100 hours to make it. Too many divers today are putting in short dives to make the mile stone. If we made it only hours then a CCR diver would reach it without the experience of many dives as well. Make it both hours and dives and then it will be an honest bench mark. Hopefully by that time the diver has learned to respect and appreciate the systems.

I understand, but you can't tell me the diver with 20 dives at apprentice and the diver with 50 dives at apprentice have the same experience going in to full.

100 dives + 100 hours would definitely raise the bar.

[DA Aquamaster]

100 hours and 100 dives probably would not make that much difference if the divers are doing real full cave level dives.

Technically divers could make 20 minute round trips up and down the peanut tunnel and qualify in terms of numbers of dives (and a minimum number of systems/entrances requirement would prevent that.)

That would however be really boring and I don't envision people doing that to knock out an Abe Davis award.

What does happen is probably more like this. Doing primarily 2 to 2.5 hour dives at the full cave level we noted the disparity that would occur between the NACD and NSS-CDS awards due to the use of minimum 100 hours or 100 dives versus 100 dives formats. In that regard we did start doing more traverses and thus logging two dives to keep the dives and hours in the same ballpark, but we still had more than 100 hours before we had 100 dives.

There is value in both, as the idea is in part to encourage logging as an indirect means to encourage better dive planning. Depending how the dive is done both a long dive and a long dive involving a traverse involve more complex dive planning.

In that regard, I'd like to see both awards use a minimum 100 hours AND 100 dives format, but for the majority of divers I don't think it would make any significant difference in when they qualify for the award.

[Bobby]

I understand, but you can't tell me the diver with 20 dives at apprentice and the diver with 50 dives at apprentice have the same experience going in to full.

No, they would not have the same experience. If they took close to their allowed year to do those dives the one with 50 would more than likely pass cave. The one with only 20 would possibly be in jeopardy of not passing cave and falling back to Intro or Basic, requiring them to take Apprentice again.

100 dives + 100 hours would definitely raise the bar.

As Larry has already said, it would most likely not change much for the average cave diver. What it would do it is close up some gaps and put more focus on well planned and executed dives.

[Greenwood_60]

As Larry has already said, it would most likely not change much for the average cave diver. What it would do it is close up some gaps and put more focus on well planned and executed dives.

I totally agree with you guys in that regard. My point is and has been that the worst divers that qualify would be better better divers. As a programmer, I have to build things that defeat the lowest idiot users attempts misuse it... and I write software for doctors!

BTW, I'm taking Apprentice in 20 days (the day after my game in Jax).