How often do you run a line?

[phillip1]

Maybe I can help you understand one scenario where I do not run a line, and my reasoning for having a lazy/stupid/complacent mindset.

Following the gold line to a jump that is a U shaped tunnel that is 200ft long and reconnects with the main tunnel five feet from the gold line.

Install a jump line from the gold line to the white line in the tunnel. Swim the tunnel. Return to gold line without running a jump/gap reel.

Pull first jump reel on exit.

My reasoning:

There are numerous times when diving the gold line in caves when divers are more than 5 feet from it. Nobody is screaming that we do not have a reel tied off.

In one of the most popular caves in FL, Ginnie Springs Devils system, the majority of swimming divers enter the system and choose a path that is high and to the left. The gold line is on the right, sometimes more than 20 ft away. Nobody wants to write a rule to protect these lazy/stupid/complacent divers.

Have you ever been more than a couple of feet off the line you were following? If so, did you deploy a reel first?

Maybe I am being extremely dangerous. I am very opened minded to arguments against my reasoning in this situation. Maybe my mind could be changed.

Absolutes, rarely are.

For some reason I can't picture excately what you are describing but I can say this, yes many times on the mainline in caves here or in Mex I am off the line a bit, but I am following a line and paying attention to the line, if at any point something goes wrong I am never far off to the point that I could not immediately swim back and reconnect to the line. The big difference is that if you do not run a continuous line to OW you are at some point disconnected from the exit, now say some sort of emergency happens be it small or big you need to be able to get out and follow the line without even having to guess which way is out and not add stress and risk to an already potentially bad situation.
To each his own I guess the people who don't run jumps will continue to do so and think it's ok.
I dive fairly extreme conditions here as we are doing mainly exploration and almost every exit is zero viz, deep inside an unexplored cave in zero viz the meaning your life hangs by a thread takes on a whole new meaning, that line sliding through your hand feels real good.
But when I dive known caves and do some "recreational" cave diving in systems that don't silt out etc.. I always run a reel no matter what, even on reach gaps that are only a foot apart, I respect each cave as much as an unexplored one.
I think it is more dangerous to dive a nice cave you think you know real well that has been dove thousands of times, "recreational" cave diving it appears has people loose respect for the cave environment and they start becoming complacent.
When you are in a unexplored cave you have your guard up 100% and I think it should be like that in every cave on every dive.
I think that you guys who don't always run a line should take cave diving way more seriously, it is a potentially deadly activity that has many risks involved as it is, why unnecessarily increase the risks?
Many deaths have occurred either directly or indirectly from not having a continuous line to OW, should you not learn from that and always run a line?
So it will take a few precious minutes more to run a line, or maybe require a second incredibly painstaking dive to retrieve a jump a reel, so what? do you not consider you and your buddy's increased safety worth it?
Why not stop doing bubble checks and S drills too while we're at it, oh yeah and don't rinse your regs anymore and leave all the sand and silt in them too, there is such a small chance anything will happen to them and anyway you always have two so why bother...

[Ken Hill]

Flying vfr outside of certain airspace classifications does not require a controller. ............ General aviation flyng can be considered dangerous...at least you get fairly good data:

http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/08nall.pdf

You're right I got caught up thinking about the east coast being as congested as it is. The CEO of MacAfee virus software has an ultra light school in several areas of SW NM and SE AZ. You can go there cold and in a week get a ticket to fly UL's from one site to another. Some are several hundred miles apart and there are four degrees of difficulty. An "A" ticket gets you rights to fly over the desert. "B" gets you permission to go 500AGL over populated areas and C and D are mountain and canyon routes.

Throughout this thread not one mention that Ginnie, Devils and Peacock being primarily training caves. Some instructors require plenty of reel work, others long swims and yet others a mix of these skills. Since they are training sites seasoned divers need to behave like seasoned divers and follow the rules. The basins and entrances are well travelled and crowed and often covered in reels, but so what. Setting a good example is a good thing.

What is apparent is that there are many goal oriented people wanting to go to new places in the cave and some do so by leaving the rules of the sport behind in order to meet whatever goal they set. The line is there to get you out of the cave and in an emergency you need to be on it like glue, Those that did not make it out of a cave have no voice in this discussion so right or wrong I've elected to say something. I do know that everyone person who has exited with a problem says they were glad the line was there. /Ken

[DA Aquamaster]

There are some competing arguments about lines.

In places like Ginnie, so many divers are complacent in terms of not running a line from OW that the line has to be run as far out as it is. If you moved it back to the lips, or even half way through the gallery, most of the divers who think they could get out in a silt out would discover they can't if the real deal
ever occurred and peristed for any significant period of time.

On the other hand, with the diver traffic in P1, having the line 350 ft back would make for some interesting spagetti. Little River on a busy day can get interesting, especially when one or two teams get real inconsiderate about running their lines properly, keeping them out of the way, not running over the top of earlier lines, etc.

Personally, I enjoy the challenge of running a primary line cleanly in places like Little River or Orange Grove and I get a bit irritated with poorly run lines as they create a hazard for all involved. But on the other hand, if you apply it to Ginnie on a holiday weekend, it could get interesting if every team ran their own line. It would require a great deal of skill and consideration to make it all work and I am probably just grateful that not everone runs a line so that I can run mine.

It is much less easy to excuse not marking a jump as having 2-3 teams with lines on a particular jump is not that difficult.

I am not a real believer in the "T everything" solution either. As stated previously it will encourge more blind circuits. And if divers are not wanting to leave a reel, they probably also won't leave a cookie to mark the exit side either and sooner or later, a diver is going to come back for some reason and under stress, make a wrong turn with potentially fatal results.

[Marc Bryan]

For some reason I can't picture excately what you are describing

I have included a diagram.

but I can say this, yes many times on the mainline in caves here or in Mex I am off the line a bit, but I am followinga line and paying attention to the line, if at any point something goes wrong I am never far off to the point that I could not immediately swim back and reconnect to the line.

Me either. Never more than five feet.

The big difference is that if you do not run a continuous line to OW you are at some point disconnected from the exit

, How? I am never more than five feet from a direct Line to OW.

now say some sort of emergency happens be it small or big you need to be able to get out and follow the line without even having to guess which way is out and not add stress and risk to an already potentially bad situation.
To each his own I guess the people who don't run jumps will continue to do so and think it's ok.
I dive fairly extreme conditions here as we are doing mainly exploration and almost every exit is zero viz, deep inside an unexplored cave in zero viz the meaning your life hangs by a thread takes on a whole new meaning, that line sliding through your hand feels real good.
But when I dive known caves and do some "recreational" cave diving in systems that don't silt out etc.. I always run a reel no matter what, even on reach gaps that are only a foot apart, I respect each cave as much as an unexplored one.
I think it is more dangerous to dive a nice cave you think you know real well that has been dove thousands of times, "recreational" cave diving it appears has people loose respect for the cave environment and they start becoming complacent.
When you are in a unexplored cave you have your guard up 100% and I think it should be like that in every cave on every dive.

I agree.

I think that you guys who don't always run a line should take cave diving way more seriously, it is a potentially deadly activity that has many risks involved as it is, why unnecessarily increase the risks?

I take it very seriously. My responses are not just some flippant remarks. I am interested in a discussion that leads to me learning something/anything. Not just banter of its super dangerous, so stop thinking for yourself. I am genuinely interested in your view of how this scenario increases the risk at all, much less unnecessarily. How does my dive plan do that?

Many deaths have occurred either directly or indirectly from not having a continuous line to OW, should you not learn from that and always run a line?
So it will take a few precious minutes more to run a line, or maybe require a second incredibly painstaking dive to retrieve a jump a reel, so what? do you not consider you and your buddy's increased safety worth it?

It is not about saving any time, or a second dive, it is that I am closer to a continuous line to the surface on this dive, than you are when you are more than 5' from the gold line, but somehow I am unnecessarily endangering me and my whole dive team.

Why not stop doing bubble checks and S drills too while we're at it, oh yeah and don't rinse your regs anymore and leave all the sand and silt in them too, there is such a small chance anything will happen to them and anyway you always have two so why bother..

This is not conducive to a productive discussion. Other than that, thanks for your input thus far.

[Meister481]

The only problem I've had with running a line was at Little River with a large team of OW roto-tillers. They grabbed the top of the rod after 3 other teams were on it, didn't use a single tie off til they got to the gold. They crossed 3 lines repeatedly and one guy pulled my line placement off while wallowing in the sand.

There's nothing like taking a little pride in your line work. I love to see others do the same, it's just another challenge that attracts me to the sport. If I swim in Little River as Team 6 and there are 6 lines run perfectly, I smile the whole time I'm running mine and take a bit more time to check out the placements others used.

[phillip1]

[/HTML]

Ok I see the diagram and I understand what you mean, but I would not do the visual back to the gold line, I would place a second jump reel and retrieve it on a second dive if by myself or have the last diver in the team reel it up, reconnect with the gold line and then exit.
more time consuming 2-3 minutes more to place and reel in but always connected out and safe.
What if in a 3-4 man team you do the visual jump, then a diver causes a silt out and the last buddy comes to the gap were there is no jump line? he does not see you or anyone else and you are now separated, you on the mainline him still on the side tunnel and a gap between you. In my opinion the lack of a second jump reel has just created a potentially dangerous situation for nothing else but not running a reel.
I am by no means a cave diving safety expert but what I have learned so far is that it is ALWAYS better to be more conservative all the time, and in my view always having a line to OW should be a routine safety practice.
Obviously if the mainline ends in OW then I can see not placing a line, but that is not what we are talking about here.

[aainslie]

Ok I see the diagram and I understand what you mean, but I would not do the visual back to the gold line, I would place a second jump reel and retrieve it on a second dive if by myself or have the last diver in the team reel it up, reconnect with the gold line and then exit.
more time consuming 2-3 minutes more to place and reel in but always connected out and safe.
What if in a 3-4 man team you do the visual jump, then a diver causes a silt out and the last buddy comes to the gap were there is no jump line? he does not see you or anyone else and you are now separated, you on the mainline him still on the side tunnel and a gap between you. In my opinion the lack of a second jump reel has just created a potentially dangerous situation for nothing else but not running a reel.
I am by no means a cave diving safety expert but what I have learned so far is that it is ALWAYS better to be more conservative all the time, and in my view always having a line to OW should be a routine safety practice.
Obviously if the mainline ends in OW then I can see not placing a line, but that is not what we are talking about here.

A triumph of dogma over thought...

[wingman]

You're right I got caught up thinking about the east coast being as congested as it is. The CEO of MacAfee virus software has an ultra light school in several areas of SW NM and SE AZ. You can go there cold and in a week get a ticket to fly UL's from one site to another. Some are several hundred miles apart and there are four degrees of difficulty. An "A" ticket gets you rights to fly over the desert. "B" gets you permission to go 500AGL over populated areas and C and D are mountain and canyon routes.

Throughout this thread not one mention that Ginnie, Devils and Peacock being primarily training caves. Some instructors require plenty of reel work, others long swims and yet others a mix of these skills. Since they are training sites seasoned divers need to behave like seasoned divers and follow the rules. The basins and entrances are well travelled and crowed and often covered in reels, but so what. Setting a good example is a good thing.

What is apparent is that there are many goal oriented people wanting to go to new places in the cave and some do so by leaving the rules of the sport behind in order to meet whatever goal they set. The line is there to get you out of the cave and in an emergency you need to be on it like glue, Those that did not make it out of a cave have no voice in this discussion so right or wrong I've elected to say something. I do know that everyone person who has exited with a problem says they were glad the line was there. /Ken

Ken, I think that they are just applying standard risk management practices and not flaunting rules. I am not really sure where the word "rule" came into play but they seem to be interpretted as commandments. Even the word rule is a bit fuzzy. These are not laws or regulations maybe they are rules of thumb? Exley's book used the term "blueprint" which implies a plan. In the forward Exley refers to them as procedures not rules. And on the last page he presents the "Ten Recommendations for Safe Cave Diving." The only place where a "rule" is mentioned is with regard to the third rule. Why is the first recommendation: "Always use a single, continuous guideline from the entrance of the cave throughout the dive."? The words continuous and single seem to imply no jumps period which supports FW's suggestion for Ts not jumps. I also note that the third recommendation is with regard to deep diving. In the text it seems deep is defined as 150 feet but he finally says: "The maximum safe depth for cave diving is 130 ft." He also suggests that the "foolhardy" who insist on diving deeper should contact experienced cave divers for guidance. Recommendation 6 is "Always carry the safest possible scuba." Are OC, OCR, and CCR equally safe?

The "rules" are for training but once trained then it is decision making and risk management that comes into play. When scootering on exit from ginnie and i hit the maple leaf I run through some risk management thoughts:

http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/a...sprocdscrp.pdf

and will do a visual jump onto the big room/bone room line knowing that that line terminates at the park bench in the junction room where i do not have a jump reel attached. I know conditions where i am, what they were when i went by and what i have observed there on hundreds of other dives, I know where the line ends on the curved bench of limestone and i know where the goldline is on that same curved bench. Running through the risk management scenario I feel that's in the green/blue area of the matrix so i decide to do the 2 jumps without a line. As Exley often suggests...contact an experienced cave diver. The problem is that here on the cdf we have a large variance in training and experience. With some experience data I think you could easily explain what is being observed in Andrew's poll. When i was working on my glider pilot rating and flying the schwietzer i envied the high performance gliders and hoped to do the kind of cross countries that they were doing and reaching the altitudes they were getting to. On my first 30 or so solos did i venture far away from the strip? No. Nor did I get above about 5,000 feet. I built my experience and judgement and this after thousands of hours of powered flight. I would highly recommend the FAA publications (2 pdfs) here:

http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory...3?OpenDocument

Bill

[phillip1]

A triumph of dogma over thought...

Is that unsafe or stupid to do it that way as opposed to do the visual as the diagram shows?
I may be wrong but I don't think so.

[chimie007]

Is that unsafe or stupid to do it that way as opposed to do the visual as the diagram shows?
I may be wrong but I don't think so.

In the diagram shown, the diver goes from a continuous line to exit to another continuous line to exit.... At all time, the diver has a line that he can follow blindly to the exit. IMHO This is not a "visual" jump. (I'm assuming both lines can be seen from the same spot at the same time. We are not talking about having to go through a small silty hole to jump on the other line... we are talking a passage where you can easily see both lines.).

IMHO A "visual jump" is when you jump visually on a line that does not lead to an exit. The issue is when you come back the visibility might not be good enough to see the other line.

The above diagram is very typical of many dives at Ginnie where you can jump (properly with a reel) on a side passage early in the cave (Bone Room, Lip/keyhole bypass, Hill 400, Rollercoaster) and then visual jump back on the main line further in the cave. In that case, you can jump visually on the main line and exit that way. It implies a circuit so gas requirement needs to be considered and need to dive both sides first, etc. These circuits do not require a setup/clean up dive since you can pick up your spool in your way out. In FL, most main line is not white line so you know you are on the main line for sure.