Whats wrong with DIR

[MikeFerrara]

Aquamaniac once bubbled...


Possibly Mike, but what I was getting at, right or wrong, for better or worse, The final say is not made by the WKPP. Like 'em or hate 'em, they got access to places that others couldnt, and the elected officials gave them those rights. If your pissed at the situation, take it up with the officials, not the WKPP.
If the exploration is a mask for personal agendas, good luck to them, at least they put the work in so that they COULD hold onto the end of the line. They did the legwork, filled in the forms, lobbied the right people, and got the rights. Am I pissed I cant dive Wakulla...Hell yes. Who do I blame? Certainly wont be WKPP, if anything, perhaps I should be pissed at NSS/CDS for not getting me access as a paying member!.

I'm not pissed at them. I do want them to stay out of Missouri though.

As far as the NSS getting access, with the recent change in ownership that just might happen. One can hope anyway.

 

[Aquamaniac]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


I'm not pissed at them. I do want them to stay out of Missouri though.

As far as the NSS getting access, with the recent change in ownership that just might happen. One can hope anyway.

Now that would be dandy!

 

[Spectre]

OneBrightGator once bubbled...
Give me a break... as if thier agendas only differ in the areas they are interested in... if the WKPP was the NKPP a lot of us wouldn't be cave divers.

Ben.... take a look at it this way. If a group found and arrested a treasure ship, and was granted that arrest under the conditions of archeological research on the wreck, while also getting salvage rights once the archeological research was done; Would you be pissed because they took that wreck from you?

It wasn't diveable before they came in... it's not diveable now. BFD. If you want access so bad, do the work it takes to get access, but don't look at those that did the work as the bad guys because they didn't do it for you... who doesn't want to actually do any of the things that they were granted access _for_.

 

[MHK]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


After thinking about it I decided to comment on this. Lots of us do cave dives that require advance set up. Sometimes on the way into the cave and sometimes on a previous dive. If some one tampered with out equipment the result would be the same for us as it would be for the WKPP.

Also, we don't plan things such that our live depend on any single bottle so a bunch of stuff would need to be tampered with to do more than make us real mad.

We have had shallow bottled left in the basin messd with by free divers and OW divers but I've never had anything touched by a cave diver.

Mike,

I've selectively left up three salient issues that you posted which I believe speak to the core concern of the WKPP diver's, and I also believe that they speak to perhaps an under appreciation of what is involved in Wakulla.

As you suggest, during many cave dives a misplaced bottle would make you real mad, however a misplaced bottle after a 19,000' penetration with an average depth of 300' would do a whole lot more then make George or JJ mad, it could very well mean their life. You see, some of the big pushes that they do, there are 3 or 4 set up teams that leave bottles at very precise drop points, there are other set up teams that may leave a scooter at a precise drop off point, meaning that if George or JJ have some type of problem with the scooter, RB or tank(s) they are using in those extreme pushes there ONLY contingency is a strategically placed back up..

This isn't a case of a "regular" cave diver running 1/3rds and someone moving his stage bottle off the line. The differences are day and night in terms of what goes on at Wakulla, and frankly even as much as I had heard about the project, it didn't sink in until I actually showed up my first time at Wakulla and you see first hand the military precision required to pull off these type of dives..

I also note in another post you made, you suggested that "some" of the work could be done by non-WKPP divers and that perhaps many wouldn't be willing to commit a 20 hour deco.. I think you have to expand that line of reasoning, because it's putting the cart before the horse. In other words, I'm quite sure that many would love to dive the basin and do support, I'm confident that just about every cave diver in the world would jump at the chance, but the point isn't whether or not someone would want to be support, the real point is that would JJ and/or George trust such an ad hoc collection of support divers??? Part of the reason for such a widely successful safety record under George's leadership was that you either accept EVERYTHING that is done, or you aren't on the team.. Anything less then that is simply unacceptable, and there is ABSOLUTELY NO room for personal preferances, there is no room for error or miscommunication, different mixes or anything else that may compromise the team goal..

I accept that many may not like that rigid requirement in their everyday diving, but doing a 19,000' penetration at an average depth of 300' and up to 20 hours of deco isn't your average dive so the rules have to be different. Everyone on the team knows full well, it's done one way, you don't show up with whatever "best mix" you may think will work and you either accept all that George/Casey mandate or you aren't on the team. Moreover, there are MANY training sessions that one must attend before they can act as support diver, they all need to be on the same page, so the notion that some not on the team could come in and play support team is just inconsistent with safe diving protocols..

Hope that helps..

 

[MikeFerrara]

MHK once bubbled...


Mike,

I also note in another post you made, you suggested that "some" of the work could be done by non-WKPP divers and that perhaps many wouldn't be willing to commit a 20 hour deco.. I think you have to expand that line of reasoning, because it's putting the cart before the horse. In other words, I'm quite sure that many would love to dive the basin and do support, I'm confident that just about every cave diver in the world would jump at the chance, but the point isn't whether or not someone would want to be support, the real point is that would JJ and/or George trust such an ad hoc collection of support divers??? Part of the reason for such a widely successful safety record under George's leadership was that you either accept EVERYTHING that is done, or you aren't on the team.. Anything less then that is simply unacceptable, and there is ABSOLUTELY NO room for personal preferances, there is no room for error or miscommunication, different mixes or anything else that may compromise the team goal..

MHK,

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was responding to a poster who more or less said what the WKPP divers were doing was work as apposed to play. My intent was to explain that work such as surveying a cave or checking a flow meter is play to some of us. I wasn't in any way suggesting that divers who were unfamiliar WKPP procedures do support dives for the WKPP.

As to the other points, after dive in Cannonball if our decompression gas is gone we'll be just as dead. How dead you get isn't dependant on the penetration distance.

 

[mgri]

Hey Mike,

Maybe I should have called it play with purpose.

The thing I don't understand is if people are so upset with the WKPP because they are the only ones with access, why don't people petition the state for access. Hell, if one of the other cave diving groups did so they might be able to at least get limited access when the WKPP is not doing "research".


It doesn't make since to me that people are upset that WKPP was able to talk their way through the door.

Seems like a lot of sour grapes.

But, like I always say, what the hell do I know.

 

[MHK]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


MHK,

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was responding to a poster who more or less said what the WKPP divers were doing was work as apposed to play. My intent was to explain that work such as surveying a cave or checking a flow meter is play to some of us. I wasn't in any way suggesting that divers who were unfamiliar WKPP procedures do support dives for the WKPP.

As to the other points, after dive in Cannonball if our decompression gas is gone we'll be just as dead. How dead you get isn't dependant on the penetration distance.

Fair enough Mike, on re-reading your post I think you are right I had a different take on my initial read..

Thanks for clearing that up..

See you soon..

Later

 

[MikeFerrara]

mgri once bubbled...
Hey Mike,

Maybe I should have called it play with purpose.

The thing I don't understand is if people are so upset with the WKPP because they are the only ones with access, why don't people petition the state for access. Hell, if one of the other cave diving groups did so they might be able to at least get limited access when the WKPP is not doing "research".


It doesn't make since to me that people are upset that WKPP was able to talk their way through the door.

Seems like a lot of sour grapes.

But, like I always say, what the hell do I know.

There's more too it. Or maybe there isn't that much, I don't know. There's just a lot of politics and "in" fighting.

The state or who ever owns it all has it closed. It's been that way for a long time. Other places are closed also. I for one can live with that. And if they're only going to allow a certain amount of divning in order to do a certain amount of exploration, I can live with that too. At least for know, I have other places to dive.

But...and here's the BIG but everytime I hear and argument for why the WKPP wants to keep exclusive access (maybe they do and maybe they don't) my BS meter goes off big time. Usually they try to say that we would kill ourselves if they let us in there cuz it's so deep. Well there are deeper caves that are way colder that are close enough that we do em on the weekend. We don't die. Now we have the argument that some one would tamper with their stuff and kill em. It makes sense not to have a cave full of non-team divers during something big. Other than that though...

I can live with the state never letting me in. I just hope it's not because of a bunch of BS being fed to them by another cave diver.