common sense.

For all of you people that were at sharks cove today that elected to call your dive due to the conditions, I applaud your decision, for those of you who elected to go out there anyway, I can only hope you made it back and can take something positive from the experience.

well, a friend of mine says "wisdom comes from experience, experience comes from a lack of wisdom" Hope nobody got hurt

I was planning on going, since it was a club dive, but I ended up on a boat instead, and a good thing, apparently.
I dove fire house for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I had never dived there but I did it because I had people to guide me. The surf picked up during the dive and the exit was not pretty. I ended up helping one of our group escape being pinned against the rocks by the surf. I was so glad I wore gloves that day. That was my first North Shore dive. I thought I was already conservative about evaluating conditions on Oahu but now I'll be even more so.
"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment." -Will Rogers