My Cavern Diving escapades in Luraville Florida

[willanz]

:mean:

Jeff,

You busted me.

Some diver's use rebreathers to extend their gas....I use my buddy's tanks : ) Then I call them airhogs back at the surface.

 

[WgOaLnFg]

Thanks for the original story!

I'm in my cavern class now, and I do my first dives this weekend.

I'm very nervous - the only overhead enviroment that I've been in was Blue Grotto in FL.

I've got a good instructor though, and a buddy of mine has been doing it for a long time (but not trained).

All and all, i'm excitied but freakin out at the same time. Once I get in the water though, I know i'll be fine.

Dive safe everyone!

 

[Jarhead]

WgOaLnFg once bubbled...
...All and all, i'm excitied but freakin out at the same time. Once I get in the water though, I know i'll be fine.

Best of Luck! And let us know how it goes!

Jarhead

 

[willanz]

So....You tell me....Where did we mess up? (I'll post later our
Analysis)

Here it is:


Wendy and Anthony discovered the True Root of the problem. I left them locked in the car while it was running when Joan and me went in for parts. I told them to figure out what the problem was....their final answer.

"Diving with William!"

I agree with them 100%.

I saw the preventable problems at the surface...but compromised.

Dive team selection:
We split up in 2 teams of 2 for the first dive....great.

Problem 1- Wendy and Anthony wanted to dive with us on our line. Knowing that Teams of 4 don't work out well.

Problem 2- William and Jeff allowed them to dive with us on our line. We compromised and took an extra 2 mins to review communications as a team of 4 and go over diving procedures for our planned dive.

Problem 3- The bottom of the cavern (near the floor) was silty from our previous dive and a team that went in plus all the movement at the surface while getting in/out and planning our dive. This system has a slight siphon any mess will get taken in.
Conditions were not ideal but the ceiling was clear because of the
spring up there. We swam past a small section of 10'-15' viz and then it went crystal clear at the top.

Problem 4- Tie offs and placements. Everyone on the team should have been double checking and triple checking them to make sure they were secure.

Problem 5- Either a placement came off and caught Anthony or Anthony swam into it. Either way it was not good.

Problem 6- When Anthony got entangled he should have stopped and signaled for help.

Problem 7- Wendy (she was the closest one to him) should have swam to him and told him to hold, then helped him out of the line

Problem 8- The entanglement caused the remaining tie offs and placements to come off except for the Primary tie off out in open water.

Problem 9- Anthony Assumed we were exiting because we were all facing him to make sure he was ok...so he turned and started to leave the team, without any signal

Problem 10- Wendy decided to leave the team to go after Anthony, without any signal.

Problem 11- William and Jeff were busy taking up the slack on the reel and did not notice Anthony leave...(I just remember seeing one set of fins but was not sure who it was.)

Problem 12- Anthony noticed Wendy behind him and continued out...lack of communication.

Problem 13- Wendy noticed Jeff and William coming out and continued out....lack of communication.

Problem 14- Locking and leaving the reel should have happened as soon as we did not see Anthony....that should have triggered a lost diver search. It would have also been high and out of the silt. The decision to leave the reel was late and we had exited the cavern half way. The branch we tied it to was not ideal...it held but could have been better.

Problem 15- Once we got to the surface...Anthony swam underwater all the way back to the entry point. Wendy surfaced about 30' from the entry point, Jeff and William surfaced right above the Primary Tie off.

Problem 16-The pointing fingers and yelling across the spring didn't help : ) We should have gotten out of the water taken off our gear given each other big hugs and thank the cave gods we survived...Than sat down and talk about what each other experienced.


It is my opinion that had we stopped at anyone of these key points for second and remembered Stop, Breathe, Think, Act it would have prevented the rest of them.