Cave diving in Hawaii

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Canuk

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A friend of mine went for his first cave dive in Hawaii. He was part of a charter of 4 and they visited an underwater volcano and swam though maze of lava tubes into a large room. I asked him if they strung or followed lines etc, he said no because one of charter guys "knew the way". I'm pretty much a newbie diver -but this struck me as pretty unsafe thing to do..follow someone in..what if you lost the only diver who knew the way out?

Even if you know the way...I can't see this being a wise thing to do...comments?

Canuk
 
Welcome to ScubaBoard - lines would be a good idea, but there are commercial operations that do 'that' kind of stuff anyway.
 
Cavern diving utilizes many specific techniques to avoid losing anyone.

1. You follow single file (your "buddy" is the one in front of you)

2. You utilize finning techniques that won't aggitate the bottom so the silt won't impair vision of those behind you.

3. You follow the person in front of you within 5 ft.

4. You use light signals for communication (much like night diving).

In practice particularly in a winding cavern say with 4 divers and a guide,you'll often loose site of the first diver and the guide.since many are three dimentional they may have gone left ,right,up or down.This is why the person in front of you is so important,they are following the person in front of him who has site of the person in front of him,who can see the guide,the pace is a snails crawl,no James Bond diving in caverns.

"Stay close and don't silt up the floor" is the main mantra.

I've only done about 12 cavern dives in cenotes,they are all different and wonderful, they are safe with good bouyancy,a proper breifing and a CAVE CERTIFIED guide.

My 10th dive anywhere was in a cenote,hope this helps.
 
I have never dont the lava tubes in Hawaii, but I am a full cave diver and have heard that the lava tubes are pretty dark and dangerous.

In cavern diving your primary light is always the sun, and in the event that there is a sudden loss of visibility due to silting, you should be able to feel your way out using the guide line.

This usually requires training, some of the most common causes of accidents and incidents in caves and caverns is lack of training and no line.
 
Mark Pretty much cleared it all up. Lava tubes are dangerous, and no line kills many untrained divers. It sounds real dangerous to me.

Matt
 
Canuk:
A friend of mine went for his first cave dive in Hawaii. He was part of a charter of 4 and they visited an underwater volcano and swam though maze of lava tubes into a large room. I asked him if they strung or followed lines etc, he said no because one of charter guys "knew the way". I'm pretty much a newbie diver -but this struck me as pretty unsafe thing to do..follow someone in..what if you lost the only diver who knew the way out?

Even if you know the way...I can't see this being a wise thing to do...comments?

Canuk

I agree with you, it is NOT a wise thing to do.

I just finished my full cave certification last week and through the training I was exposed to the risks and instructed in ways to mitigate those risks to what are generally acceptable levels.

Think about it, if YOU were in this lava tube and YOU became separated from the other divers in what you have described as a "maze" would you be able to absolutely guarantee that you could get out before you run out of air? If there is no line run and you loose your light, could you get out? What if that was the moment that your mask was kicked off by the diver in front of you and you could not find it, do you have a spare? Was the passage restricted to prevent side by side diving? If it was, could you share air with another diver who through poor planning or bad luck was unfortunate enough to run out of air at just the wrong time? These scenarios may seem remote, and thankfully are not that common. If they happen on a regular open water dive they will inconvienience you, and will probably cut short your dive. They might even scare you a little in the process. If these things happen to you in a cave or cavern you could quite easily end up dead.

I may get slammed for my reply here, many people consider "little" or "managed" exposures to caverns or caves as OK. Some people have the opinion that if you are with a guide you will be OK. I am not familiar with the specific lava tubes you are talking about, it is possible that these are no more complex systems than a couple of 10' swim thrus. I do not know. If they are simple little swim thrus then my message most likely does not apply. If however they are real overhead caverns or caves that have considerable horizontal penetrations and possibly currents that push you into the cave making a swim out a difficult workout, then my message here is worth considering. Remember, THERE IS NOTHING IN THAT CAVE WORTH DIEING FOR! This may sound harsh, but pause and think about it.

Your reaction is correct, it does not seem like a good idea to enter the lava tube with that group. But if I were you I would not enter it even if a line was run. A line is only one of the things needed to safely exit a cavern or cave, there is a lot more to it than just the line.

Mark Vlahos
 
Corigan:
Mark Pretty much cleared it all up. Lava tubes are dangerous, and no line kills many untrained divers. It sounds real dangerous to me.

Matt

Caves are not dangerous, untrained divers are!
So get certified, at least to the cavern level.
That way you will know what you are doing, and what to avoid.

mart :death2:
 
mart1:
Caves are not dangerous, untrained divers are!
So get certified, at least to the cavern level.
That way you will know what you are doing, and what to avoid.

mart :death2:
I know I'm working on it, my cavern course is 6/11-6/12.. :)

Matt
 
Most, not all, lava tubes here are primarily tubes with a single entrance and exit with few if any side rooms, few are longer than say 30' or so. Many of the tubes have skylights (where the tube ceilings have collapsed over time) and are failrly well lit. On the Big Island, we really only have one tube which is a multi-room affair (3 room cavern) and once you've been through it, it's not that confusing - sort of like walking through the house to get to the back door, the first time you do it you may not know the way so you just follow the guy who knows the way, but once you've been through you certainly don't need ropes to find the way. I don't know of any of the lava tube dives on the other islands so I can't speak with authority, but if it's anything like here, it's probably not as dangerous/confusing as it sounds. It'd be curious if you could find out the name of the dive site and others who've done it might be able to shed some light on whether there was actually any need for ropes and traditional cave diving safety protocol.

Aloha,

Steve


Canuk:
A friend of mine went for his first cave dive in Hawaii. He was part of a charter of 4 and they visited an underwater volcano and swam though maze of lava tubes into a large room. I asked him if they strung or followed lines etc, he said no because one of charter guys "knew the way". I'm pretty much a newbie diver -but this struck me as pretty unsafe thing to do..follow someone in..what if you lost the only diver who knew the way out?

Even if you know the way...I can't see this being a wise thing to do...comments?

Canuk
 
my friend from camp did a similar thing in belieze, he was a new ow diver and he did what sounded like an significant horizantal cave dive with a charter sounds very unsafe
 
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