Ginnie Cave DPV

[nakatomi]

Beth's job is enforcing all the rules of cave diving in Ginnie. She told me late last year that all the rules will be enforced and there will be no grandfather exceptions.
Cave DPV, Overhead SM, CCR Cave Certification, etc.
It is a private corporation so they can do whatever they want.
If you have an annual pass you always had to show your certifications and they would put it on your annual pass.
As we all know , it is their business.

In my opinion it is your job as the CDS bod to represent the interest of the community.
I do not feel this is happening, certainly not if you OK the absolute stupidity of Ginnie requiring a SM card for a cave where 99% of the SM divers never even go into a sidemount passage.
Never mind CCR cave which in my opinion is on rank #2 of the most useless certs ever.

What's next, do you need an overhead photography class to bring your gopro? Do we need to do the cave survey class to be allowed to survey a piece of line?
Those rules are BS and I would expect the NSS-CDS to support the community, not this madness.

Having said that, I would prefer Ginnie requires first time visitors to do a check-dive to assess their in-water skills and make sure they can even frog kick.

P.S: Funny that Ginnie has the rules all under perfect control yet cannot even keep people from guiding OW divers in Devil's...

[bamafan]

These are now required too.

[Germie]

You can do your full cave in SM configuration. The SM cave card is an 'advanced cave' card.

[kensuf]

In my opinion it is your job as the CDS bod to represent the interest of the community.
I do not feel this is happening, certainly not if you OK the absolute stupidity of Ginnie requiring a SM card for a cave where 99% of the SM divers never even go into a sidemount passage.
Never mind CCR cave which in my opinion is on rank #2 of the most useless certs ever.

What's next, do you need an overhead photography class to bring your gopro? Do we need to do the cave survey class to be allowed to survey a piece of line?
Those rules are BS and I would expect the NSS-CDS to support the community, not this madness.

Having said that, I would prefer Ginnie requires first time visitors to do a check-dive to assess their in-water skills and make sure they can even frog kick.

P.S: Funny that Ginnie has the rules all under perfect control yet cannot even keep people from guiding OW divers in Devil's...

I am only speaking for myself and not in an official capacity as an NSS-CDS board member, and I am sure I am going to have an unpopular position on this.

Land access to the Devil's Ear/Eye cave system goes through the Ginnie Springs Outdoors park, which is on private property. Ginnie Springs does a huge amount of business with the tubing/swimming/camping crowd and I would not be surprised to find out that they earn more in one summer weekend from tubers/campers than they do in any six month period from cave divers.

The landowners of Ginnie Springs Outdoors carry liability insurance which has hefty premiums, and they are completely within their right to request/require any certification that they see fit in order to access the system through their property that satisfies their underwriters.

Personally, I am grateful they still allow cave diving on their property. If you're unhappy with the rules, go someplace else.

[kensuf]

Let me also add that I do not think you fully appreciate that members of the NSSCDS and GUE have worked hard to maintain a positive relationship with the management of Ginnie Springs Outdoors in order to help keep cave diving an activity that is allowed on their property.

[MORGAN]

Personally, I am grateful they still allow cave diving on their property. If you're unhappy with the rules, go someplace else.

I agree. Their property, their insurance, their rules.

It would be good if GSO would publish their rules on their website so that divers would know what the deal is before going there, rather than being told while checking in that changes have been made.

And it might be beneficial to both GSO and the cave diving community if the NSS-CDS offered to assist GSO management in coming up with a set of rules that make sense. Maybe this is already the case.

Mike

[cavediver256]

And yet they cannot do a thing if I decide to do a sidemount rebreather, scooter dive with my Gopro, or maybe even a single tank dive up Hill 400 using a chemlight as my only source of illumination ..... as long as I do it from the river and don't step foot on their property.

So with all that you have said Ken, riddle me this, if the cave diving and cave divers are such a pain in the arse for GSO, their insurance underwriters, and staff, with little to no return for their efforts, why wouldn't they have stopped allowing this cave diving nonsense from their property years ago ??????

[Scuba Al]

I would think drunk masses hanging out the back of a pickup would be more of a liability then the relativity small number of cave divers.
Also once a dive enters the water are they not leaving GSO property?
Al

[rddvet]

I would think drunk masses hanging out the back of a pickup would be more of a liability then the relativity small number of cave divers.
Also once a dive enters the water are they not leaving GSO property?
Al

Wheres's your car located


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MarkR]

You can do your full cave in SM configuration. The SM cave card is an 'advanced cave' card.

What agency does this? Sorry, but that does not sound right.