Was it supposed to be elsewhere?Originally Posted by Slüdge
Dive safe,
Celia
Welcome to the Cave Diver's Forum.
Was it supposed to be elsewhere?
Dive safe,
Celia
"Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others."
...Buddha
''Life's tough, pilgrim, and it’s even tougher if you're stupid.''
- John Wayne
Hello Alias,
Let me add that the safety factor of the line is three fold.
1. You are assured of a continued access to a free ascent in the event your visibility is impaired in any way. (i.e. silt, dark, injury, mask failure, thunderstorm, no known reported eclipses - but possible)
2. You have a trail that can be followed in the event of a problem like buddy separation. Rather than confusion you or a follow-up team attempting a rescue will be able to tell where you are rather that making critical and possibly wrong decisions when coming to a visual jump or in P1's case tunnel?
3. You are gaining great practice at using a reel! There is an inordinate number of boogered up safety reels found at recoveries. Practice makes perfect. Your reel skills need to be second nature.
I admire people that take the time to thread a reel in crowded cave openings. It tells me that they learned well and are looking forward to an enjoyable dive that has just about all the "what ifs" addressed in their dive plan.
There are line committees in just about every system. These people work hard, argue the pros and cons of the start of a gold line or the placement throughout the cave. While they don't always agree on some individual points they all agree that the lines are there to ensure a safe exit.
ITS NOT ABOUT GETTING INTO A SYSTEM ITS ABOUT GETTING OUT!
All the best. /Ken
Exactly! It was like this when I did my full cave in 2003.
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them" Albert Einstein
It hasn't always been there.The line at P1 begins in the open water zone. Where does your line begin and end?
Last edited by Diverlee; 09-23-2009 at 08:28 PM. Reason: trying to delete
roadkill
Clearly not there... err here...
Andrew Ainslie
Almost extinct cave diver
running a line at P1
Alias,
Two observations:
1) a search through the accident files will answer your question about did it happen or not. I do know that many years ago there was an open water diver fatality (memory tells me double fatality) at P1 - complete silt out, lost and running out of air in the cavern. This brings us to...
2) A complete silt out is very possible in the cavern zone. I mean a silt out with all of the viz of chocolate milk. In 1994 or 95 I was working on my instructor rating with Steve Berman as my sponsor. I was assisting him with an Intro class. There were three students. At P1 one one of them ran the primary from a log that sat just under the steps right at the cavern entrance. The main line in the main tunnel began behind the sign. The student team tied off there. They made it almost to the Pothole when two idiots on scooters (this was before DPV's were banned in the park) blew by us, prop wash down of course, and completely destroyed viz in seconds. Great fun for this class. All three got on the line and I took up the rear. Out we went - ok on the line - all of the way out. Viz in the cavern was 0! At the primary tie off I knew I was looking out at the surface but could not see anything. It was as black as in the cave. The lead student had the presence of mind to tie off a safety and unreel his way to the surface while the rest continued with an ok on that line. Once everyone was on the surface I went back to retrieve the primary reel. When I wound my way back to the primary tie at the entrance I still could not see a thing.
Although scooters cannot be used there anymore, lots of things could send silt and clay clouds into the water and flow at Peacock while you are in the cave. Some natural, some bad divers. I was recently exiting P1 with two students when an inbound cave class on CCR came at us like locomotives flying with hugh sweeping flutter kicks trashing the viz behind them and never thinking to yield to the exiting team. We had to get out of their way. The woman leading actually waved at us before blinding us with her light and their instructor merely shrugged at me and kept on going. While viz was not destroyed it was reduced and we got to exit in their mess. Things are not what they used to be in the caves and you should know a line leads ALL of the way out.
My point is that a complete unexpected loss of viz is easily possible at the P1 cavern. You should always run a line. If someone criticizes you for this just ignore them. They are not worth wasting your time, thought, or feelings on.
I have seen completely zero viz in cavern zones on a couple of occasions in the 17 years I have been cave diving. It can happen. If it does it should only be a slight nuisance, not an emergency. Run a line.
Cheers,
Chris
Peer pressure is not going to stop me from running a line. I do not want to come across like a whiner but you experienced divers should know that it can put a little extra pressure on us newbies to read some of the comments about ‘unnecessary reels’. In addition to P1 discussion, I have read things like: “Why would someone run a line in the Ear on busy weekend when there are already 6 reels in place, ridiculous".
Well, some of us run a line every time. I try to be courteous, and I might check both Ear and Eye but if both already have them 6 reels in, am I out of luck and have to waste my time waiting for someone to get out from their 5 hour deco dive? I came from far and paid a good fee to dive, and I am diving dammit! I am sure my not-yet-great reel skills will really shine when I jam in that 7th reel but in it goes! Roll your eyes on that, eh!
Chris,
Great advice and well said.
I think it was John Orlowski that did a multiple recovery where the exit was missed and the untrained team went in the direction of P2.
I seem to recall the incident with the scooters at P1 and even heard reports of badgers screwing up the cavern. /Ken
My only suggestion for a busy weekend is find someone that is already there, and share the reel if they are going to be there a while. Make sure all parties know the plan, but its a s simple as putting a cookie on the line on the way in, and taking the cookie off the line on the way out. We did this at little river a few weeks ago, and it worked out great.
The other argument I have heard about running the lines to OW is the possibility of being jumped on when you are doing your reel work. I have seen quite a few people just jump in at Peacock without even looking down. The other argument, and granted this was at Telford, was that there are swimmers there, and they can get tangled up in the line if ran all the way to OW. We was told its basically our choice to help our selves with the line, or think of the swimmers safety as well. We was also told there was an instance where a swimmer jumped in, got tangled in the line and drowned. Again, not sure if that was one of those stories people tell to try and make a point, or if there is truth to it.
Yes, I actually witnessed this myself. Some guys just gabbing and then plunging in without looking when two other divers where right under them, coming for exit that time. Sick. Buddy should always be ready to dash up and scream I guess. (On the other hand, I was also annoyed at another pair of divers who did nearly 15 minutes of extended stops with extremely slow ascent from 6 ft to surface in the OW part with no attention/space to other exiting teams behind them - nobody threatened to jump them...Like come on, it's a small space, some common sense BOTH ways)
IMHO best for that side would be a rail to block the giant stride, and entry only from the side because the limits of the OW part but who am I to say. I am glad there are stairs.
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