Too many primaries at Devil's eye.

[Serota]

Do any of you experienced divers ever gently talk to the folks who are using poor strategies running their line, and give them pointers on how to do it better?

Although people tend to bluster a lot online, almost any experienced diver you talk to at Ginnie or any other dive site will be happy to give advice regarding running lines or anything else - Try to keep the line tight, run it low and to the side where possible, use enough wraps or rock placements to keep it tight and keep it out of the middle of the water column. Thats about it.

[FW]

Could someone please define "Safe Exit".

"Safe Exit" is a tieoff that will get you safely out in the worst possible conditions for that particular site. It might mean on the surface, if the water is tannic, and there are trees in the entrance. It might be well out into open water if the bottom is silty, and could be stirred up by OW divers. It could be just inside the entrance, if you could always get out, even if you had used a bad defog, that left you temporarilly blind

Be sure and read my signature line!

[Line Squirrel]

"Safe Exit" is a tieoff that will get you safely out in the worst possible conditions for that particular site.

Where the gold line ends currently in The Gallery, near The Ear, under the conditions shown in the photo below, would certainly not be considered a safe exit point...IMO

The curtain was up between the Eye & Ear. Cold, tannic river water had pushed almost all the way down to the floor from the Ear, you could not see daylight and there was almost zero flow. April 2005 btw.

I figured it was time this thread needed some pictures

[sskasser]

You know, these discussions are really distressing. Because of them, when my husband and I head back to Ginnie at the end of the month, we've hired an instructor to work with us. Despite passing our Intro class with pretty much flying colors, we really just didn't GET much information about how to route line to keep it out of people's way.

Do any of you experienced divers ever gently talk to the folks who are using poor strategies running their line, and give them pointers on how to do it better? I'm almost too paranoid to try to dive in Florida without somebody else with us, for fear our line running will offend somebody. How do you learn how to do it better, if you don't know you made a mistake in the first place, and nobody says anything to you?

Please don't let these discussions intimidate you or keep you from diving. The fact that you're questioning your skills at all is a good sign, IMHO, and means that you are actively trying to improve. By all means, pick up extra time with an instructor when you can. However, don't let fear of not being "perfect" keep you from pursuing your cave diving goals. Just take your time, and don't hesitate to pull and re-run the reel if you don't like what you see when you look back at your handiwork (and DO look back often). Nothing beats experience.

Safe, and fun, diving!
Shirley

[Daedalus]

Although people tend to bluster a lot online, almost any experienced diver you talk to at Ginnie or any other dive site will be happy to give advice regarding running lines or anything else - Try to keep the line tight, run it low and to the side where possible, use enough wraps or rock placements to keep it tight and keep it out of the middle of the water column. Thats about it.

Yes, what you want to do is have your line follow the contours of the cave,if it is more than 3' away from solid rock at any point it is probably not doing that. In addition to that, try to pick a side and stick with it, when someone goes from one side of the cavern to the other it forces others to go under your line, sometimes multiple times. If you are the first person in the cave,try to tie in 10' or so down the line so people coming in after you have plenty of room to tie in behind you. You want to avoid forcing people to cross your line. Another consideration is that since the line is run high on the right wall you need to bring your reel up to it, try to make this last bit as close to going straight up to the mainline as possible. When you have 3 or 4 primaries running up to this line at 45 degree angles the lower half of that area turns into a net.

I did a quick doodle of the Devil's Ear cavern, green are what I would consider well run primary lines, red is what I would consider poorly run.

[FW]

Where the gold line ends currently in The Gallery, near The Ear, under the conditions shown in the photo below, would certainly not be considered a safe exit point...IMO

The curtain was up between the Eye & Ear. Cold, tannic river water had pushed almost all the way down to the floor from the Ear, you could not see daylight and there was almost zero flow. April 2005 btw.

I figured it was time this thread needed some pictures

The whole point of a "Safe Exit" is to look at conditions, and place the primary tieoff accordingly. I might have considered tying off to the dock that day

Actually, what I did do that day was stay in Georgia...

[chimie007]

Do any of you experienced divers ever gently talk to the folks who are using poor strategies running their line, and give them pointers on how to do it better? I'm almost too paranoid to try to dive in Florida without somebody else with us, for fear our line running will offend somebody. How do you learn how to do it better, if you don't know you made a mistake in the first place, and nobody says anything to you?

Cudos for seeking info. I wouldn't worry too much about "offending" someone.

My 2 cents. Often, we let the less experience diver go first so they get the practice running the reel, call the dive when they feel like it, blablabla.. I think it is sometimes a better choice to let the most experienced diver go first so that the least experienced diver can watch and learn from them. Larry Green did that to us a few times during my FC. He told us "Follow me and do as I do". It was a great learning experience to watch and learn as opposed to being told what to do pre-dive or what should have been done post-dive.

I would suggest you try to dive with some folks that have more experiences than you and let them show you how they do it. We are always learning. I did a dive with Corey last fall in my new SM gear. He ran the reel from the eye as this was my first SM dive and I wanted to focus on the gear. I learned a lot from seeing his line placement.

I have learned more (per dive) by doing a few dives with different buddies (like Daedalus) than 50+ dives with my regular SoFlo buddies. When I dive with them, things stay pretty much the same since we learned the same techniques from the same instructors.

[Line Squirrel]

The whole point of a "Safe Exit" is to look at conditions, and place the primary tieoff accordingly. I might have considered tying off to the dock that day

Actually, what I did do that day was stay in Georgia...

LOL

I may be just getting too wrapped up in semantics here...I'm going diving!

[willardj]

You know, these discussions are really distressing. Because of them, when my husband and I head back to Ginnie at the end of the month, we've hired an instructor to work with us. Despite passing our Intro class with pretty much flying colors, we really just didn't GET much information about how to route line to keep it out of people's way.

Do any of you experienced divers ever gently talk to the folks who are using poor strategies running their line, and give them pointers on how to do it better? I'm almost too paranoid to try to dive in Florida without somebody else with us, for fear our line running will offend somebody. How do you learn how to do it better, if you don't know you made a mistake in the first place, and nobody says anything to you?

It not just you most everyone has problems the first couple of time they run line in a high flow cave system. I did my Basic 2 weeks ago and it almost killed me( not really but it was hard). It takes a lot of practice, but keep trying and you will get it. If there is lines in place you can go down look at there placement and other tieoffs in the same area then come out and run your line in if you can't find someone to show you. High flow line running is an art and it takes lots of work. After a boatload of dives over 3 days I made it through.

Now I cant wait to get back there to do it again. I like the challange of the flow. My last dive I ran a good line in made it through the lips through the Keyhole(300' mk) where we hit 1/6's turned the dive then the fun started. Lost buddy, then loss of main light, then OOG, finnally complete no light exit. It was great! Reminded me of work. Haha!

Don't give up. Be careful and Most of all have fun!

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Now I cant wait to get back there to do it again.

Lets go