I am not a cave diver. I prefer wrecks and teach Advanced Wreck with penetration and deco. I have been in the ballroom at Ginnie. That was not long after my OW and AOW certs. At the time I thought it was fine. However looking back it was a reckless act by the instructor taking a group of divers, some still only OW, in there. We did the dive at night so that the instructor could cut open a glow stick to make it look like stars.
At night you really could not see the entrance. I did get up against the roof. Not pinned but just to see it.
It is IMO still an overhead. Looking back I would not do that dive at that level if I had half of the knowledge I do now.
There is no air space should someone lose their weights or buoyancy control and get pinned to the ceiling. With the large group I was in it would have been very easy to not notice something like this happening and it gives me chills just thinking about it now.
Take a cavern course and do the dive right. A cavern class is the safest way to get an introduction to caves. Cavern/Intro are often done together with some instructors.
My own feeling is if I paid to do the class and then got in there and found out it wasn't for me, it's still money well spent.
Better than trying to figure it out on your own without the education and skills you'd gain with an instructor. The big thing is that on your own it is possible to get into trouble without realizing it. An instructor will make sure you know the ways it can kill you.
Overheads are venturing into the tech world. Unlike recreational training there is heavy emphasis on what can go wrong first to hopefully lessen the risk of it happening. You look at the ways you can get hurt or worse right off the bat. Then learn how to mitigate that risk.
The other reason it's done this way is to weed out those who are not ready or have no business in these environments.
At night you really could not see the entrance. I did get up against the roof. Not pinned but just to see it.
It is IMO still an overhead. Looking back I would not do that dive at that level if I had half of the knowledge I do now.
There is no air space should someone lose their weights or buoyancy control and get pinned to the ceiling. With the large group I was in it would have been very easy to not notice something like this happening and it gives me chills just thinking about it now.
Take a cavern course and do the dive right. A cavern class is the safest way to get an introduction to caves. Cavern/Intro are often done together with some instructors.
My own feeling is if I paid to do the class and then got in there and found out it wasn't for me, it's still money well spent.
Better than trying to figure it out on your own without the education and skills you'd gain with an instructor. The big thing is that on your own it is possible to get into trouble without realizing it. An instructor will make sure you know the ways it can kill you.
Overheads are venturing into the tech world. Unlike recreational training there is heavy emphasis on what can go wrong first to hopefully lessen the risk of it happening. You look at the ways you can get hurt or worse right off the bat. Then learn how to mitigate that risk.
The other reason it's done this way is to weed out those who are not ready or have no business in these environments.
