How often do you run a line?

[aainslie]

We were the 4th team in at Little River this morning. First reel in! I guess the 1st team could have run one, but they did 2 dives so I figured I would have seen it. Very sad indeed. At least the intro group came over and asked if they could use our primary as an egress, and I just asked them to cookie it so we wouldn't pull it with them in the system.

Do me a favour. Next time you're at little river, when your deco obligation is over, swim to the end of the gold line. Go slightly negative (say a pound or so, so that when you breathe in deeply you go neutral to positive). Close your eyes and release everything. Report on what happens.

[RN]

Taking that approach to diving you would probably also (I hope I am wrong) do visual jumps at Chan-Hol and the Grand Cenote to name just two, as many of the gaps are reach jumps and are only a foot apart in super clear water, and each clearly marked with an exit arrow.
A great way to increase the chances of getting lost.

To each his own, may the force be with you...

I've only been in Chan Hol and Gran Cenote a few times. My approach is only in caves I am very familiar with.

[RN]

Sounds very dangerous, I never dove in FL less Ginnie, really I fail to understand the logic of this kind of behavior, no matter how well you think you know a cave.
To me it seems (god forbid) that this kind of behavior is an accident waiting to happen.

Ahhhh...now your posts make sense. Florida caves are very different than Mexico. I have been diving in both. In Florida I will swim past Ts and not place my own marker because I know the marker there is a permanent one and that no one is going to come in behind me and remove or change it. In my limited experience diving Mexico caves I have already experienced a change in the lines of a system while I was diving that system!

[Jay]

That's not the question. it's subtler than that.

Given that everyone agrees with you, the question becomes what's the tipping point? Everyone becomes TOO complacent because they see everyone else not laying line... then one day they go TOO far.

That's the problem with not discussng this. Each person is inventing their own safety standard. This is really dangerous.

The tipping point is a good choice of words.
That is what I was hoping to discuss in the complacency thread.

[crawford]

Do me a favour. Next time you're at little river, when your deco obligation is over, swim to the end of the gold line. Go slightly negative (say a pound or so, so that when you breathe in deeply you go neutral to positive). Close your eyes and release everything. Report on what happens.

Don't forget to record the date as well. Some days Little River is pumping ferociously, some days there is very little flow, so much so that you can easily hover motionless in the cavern. Some days it is reversing, just ask the carcass that is in there now.

[sskasser]

Don't forget to record the date as well. Some days Little River is pumping ferociously, some days there is very little flow, so much so that you can easily hover motionless in the cavern. Some days it is reversing, just ask the carcass that is in there now.

And I'll never forget the "dive" I made in there where you couldn't see sunlight from the bottom in the basin. Yes, I aborted when I saw the viz wasn't going to clear up once inside, but it was a good lesson. Being able to see the exit isn't just affected by siltability.

[aainslie]

Don't forget to record the date as well. Some days Little River is pumping ferociously, some days there is very little flow, so much so that you can easily hover motionless in the cavern. Some days it is reversing, just ask the carcass that is in there now.

And I'll never forget the "dive" I made in there where you couldn't see sunlight from the bottom in the basin. Yes, I aborted when I saw the viz wasn't going to clear up once inside, but it was a good lesson. Being able to see the exit isn't just affected by siltability.

Agreed guys (and gals!). And those would be good days to run a line. That's exactly what a lot of divers do - there are sensible days to run and sensible ones NOT to.

What worries me is this type of scenario - a new diver sees a few teams not putting lines in on a pumping day. So they say "Oh - no one puts lines in here. Cool!". Next trip, 3 months later, it's reversed and tannic. They don't put a line in, and try to follow the RH wall, and end up lost in Catfish Alley. That would suck. But since they ONLY learn quietly and with no guidance, they come to think it's ALWAYS cool to not run a line.

That's the problem. People are learning from otehr divers' actions but not from conversations with them. So they end up doing stupid stuff.

[ScubaBob-Squaretank]

How many certified cave divers have died between the begining of the main line, and open water while exiting a cave??
Bob Klauck

[FW]

How many certified cave divers have died between the begining of the main line, and open water while exiting a cave??
Bob Klauck

At least two, that I have heard about.

[crawford]

How many certified cave divers have died between the begining of the main line, and open water while exiting a cave??
Bob Klauck

Most likely they wouldn't die between the end of the line and the entrance, but deeper in the system trying to find the entrance. There are a couple of examples in "Blueprint for Survival" which are old and of course complicated by other issues, but Andrew's point is valid IMO that it's what you do with that bad habit later or somewhere else that gets you.

My point was really about making assumptions, and the fact that caves are dynamic. The more complicated our plans, the more susceptible they are to being undermined by bad assumptions. So you can exit Ginnie on x00 psi from the Hill 400 jump. On what day? Well Ginnie is Ginnie. But apply that assumption to last months dive at Little River where the flow varies greatly and BAM...or worst in TN or somewhere where conditions vary from day to day.

I see it all the time in managing engineers in my job. Very intelligent, bright folks. One has a phD from Stanford, another a masters from Rutgers, etc. And I regularly get looks of terror during the 11th hour of a project when a basic assumption proves to threaten months or years of work. We lose money or miss a product launch deadline, but in the business of cave diving, that assumption costs you your life.