NOVA on Cave Diving

[vshearer]

My 7 year old daughter wants to know why daddy wants to go down in holes with bones and dead people.

 

[TSandM]

PBS ought to make a DVD of the original footage . . . It'd sell like hotcakes among us cave-diving-obsessed nutcakes

My understanding is that Jill's statement about rebreather deaths pertained to one particular unit (and I don't know which one) and was edited out of context. I suspect that, since she dives and teaches on rebreathers, and her screen name is RebreatherPro, she probably isn't real happy about what Nova did there.

 

[RAD Diver]

PBS ought to make a DVD of the original footage . . . It'd sell like hotcakes among us cave-diving-obsessed nutcakes

My understanding is that Jill's statement about rebreather deaths pertained to one particular unit (and I don't know which one) and was edited out of context. I suspect that, since she dives and teaches on rebreathers, and her screen name is RebreatherPro, she probably isn't real happy about what Nova did there.

I agree there & would buy 1, I don't cave dive or dive a rebreather, but I love raw video footage, the camera picks up so much more than the eye. I always get my video buddy "Drewski" to give me his raw video on a disc, plus I'm normally in it somewhere & don't always make it into the final cut.

 

[gbray]

Don't know how I missed this one but I did. Does anyone know how I can see or find it now? I saw one recently my wife rented from netflix called IMAX , Amazing Caves. It was awesome.

 

[SelkieDVM]

Don't know how I missed this one but I did. Does anyone know how I can see or find it now? I saw one recently my wife rented from netflix called IMAX , Amazing Caves. It was awesome.

I think it's available online starting today. Try the PBS/NOVA sites. They'll also be rebroadcasting it a couple times but I'm not sure when exactly.

 

[RAD Diver]

Extreme Cave Diving | NOVA | PBS Video

 

[Brian Sharpe]

PBS ought to make a DVD of the original footage . . . It'd sell like hotcakes among us cave-diving-obsessed nutcakes
.......

I'd be ordering a copy for sure.

I really enjoyed the program but found, like many other dive related programs, teh narration rich in hyperbole and over-simplified explanations of the effects of pressure/nitrogen etc.

Sorry I won't be buying the DVD from Nova at $25 but when an eBay vendor has it it for $15 it will join my collection of other Nova programs. Definitely worth watching.

 

[DennisS]

I thought it was a good show, enjoyed the cave diving footage and the geology lesson. The animation explanations were first rate.

 

[kanonfodr]

Wow...not only is it a pretty exciting show (from a scientific interest standpoint), some of that cave footage is unreal. I am starting to understand why folks cave dive. So pretty...

Peace,
Greg

 

[Herk_Man]

Greetings fellow divers I watched the NOVA program and found it to be well done.
It has to be impossible task to edit 15 days of expedition into about 45 min. of finished run time. I agree with some of the comments that it was presented in a broad way to appeal to everyone divers or just your average person.
To respond to the dangerous hype drama, that is how untrained people respond to most extreme "risky" activity. I think it was meant to be part of the allure to catch viewers.
Those trained divers understand the risks and how to manage them. To the untrained it is like watching a space walk.
I would love to see the raw diving footage because I love what Wes and Jill do with a camera. It would be awesome.
The content of the expedition was very interesting and I really wish it had been a two hour special to get into the search and recovery of the fossils as well as follow the scientific process. Dating and identifying is awesome science to observe.
Over all I stick with it being well done. It is tough to cover so much information in such a short time. The hour was a teaser for me, I now am seeking out the rest of the footage!
CamG Keep diving....keep training....keep learning!

I agree with that assessment as well. When you do something that is viewed by many as a "dangerous profession" it can sometimes irritate you when they verbalize that impression. But we forget that making the dangerous into something safe takes years of training and mountains of discipline. Combined, they can make what we do fairly mundane, to us.

I fly commercial and military aircraft. After flying a night vision landing to a blacked out runway in Iraq while under fire, we pulled into parking to offload and upload. I stretched and turned to the flight engineer to ask what kind of box lunches we had. A fighter pilot who was along with us was sitting on the flight deck and said, "Holy crap dude, you just went through that and you want to know what's for dinner? I'm still pulling the seat cushion out of my keester!" He was used to being able to see, fly fast, maneuver, and shoot back. We could do none of those but our training and tactics took care of those shortcomings. And we'd done it enough to be comfortable.

I've had similar responses (usually in the form of, "Thank you young man for saving our lives.") from passengers deplaning after a tricky approach in bad weather. Wasn't even thinking about what we'd just done until it was mentioned but then again, I had a license to fly aircraft before I had one to drive a car.

Just another day in the office, which for some here is a cave underwater, for others is the most terrifying experience imaginable. :shocked2: