Bad Planning.... could kill you.

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I've swam out twice because my buddy didn't realize my scooter died.
I've lost my rebreather once. My dive buddy couldn't do anything to help, because he couldn't find me in the zero vis.

In the two serious issues I had, my dive buddy was completely unaware and gone. Yes, I know, should find better buddies. :)
I truly believe you can't count on anyone but yourself for survival. I'm happy to have the help, but don't count on it.

When you have divers oblivious to the world to where they don't even notice a bright light missing, do you feel bad taking them into a cave? I'm going to make a guess that their conservation awareness likely isn't that great either, or maybe I'm wrong and they're hyper sensitive to conserving the cave and just don't care about buddies.

We always talk about self policing as a community, but never do it.
 
You guys have it so good right now with your rebreathers and fancy lights and scooters.

To go 10k in Manatee I used four stage bottles, a set of 104's, two 33ah Gavin scooters, an AUL spectrum 14 (50w halogen) and an Underwater Kinetics UK-800. We setup two stage bottles in the cave before hand, one at 2500' (on top of the debris mound that everyone drops their stages on), and one at 5000' right before the drop down the shaft. We went in on the AUL's and two stage bottles, dropped a bottle/picked up a bottle and switched to the UK800's at 2500' (didn't want to blow the bulb on the AUL by having it fully charged when we powered it back up), dropped a bottle/picked up a bottle and went back to the AUL's at 5000', dropped a scooter and a bottle at 6700', and used the last bottle out to 9k then went on doubles for a bit. Our lights died on the way out at the last bottle pickup (stupid 3 hour burntime).
 
so everyone wants a magic number or rule of thumb for dive planning. thirds, quarters, or plan for x failures etc. but when you're talking about a long penetration like this. (dont kid yourself. 10000' at manatee is still 10000') it all depends on the dive.
typically i'd plan for a catastrophic failure. but on a dive like this everyone also has to be towing a scooter. you cannot realistically tow out of that cave because of the nature of the profile, so you need more scooters that you may choose to omit on other dives.

i did this dive recently. i did it with a single stage driving the rebreather and untouched double 85s for bailout with two tow scooters for the team. i also brought a backup primary lighthead in my pocket because i've done this exit on a backup light before and it's no bueno

luckily manatee is really the only place you can scooter 10000' from the door and the depth and flow will keep most people out of trouble
 
luckily manatee is really the only place you can scooter 10000' from the door and the depth and flow will keep most people out of trouble

Luck. The new cave dive planning software from Ronco. Buy one, get one at no additional charge, be twice as lucky. :D
 
It can sometimes be hard to count the number of failures for which you are prepared, and sometimes the preparation for one overlaps with the preparation for others. Additionally, just following the safety rules of basic cave diving involves planning for multiple failures.

For example, when I was trained for cave scootering, I was hammered with the rule that I should always assume that the scooter will fail at the worst possible moment and therefore never take it anywhere I can't swim out. That brings gas planning into it--if it does fail at the worst possible moment, then I will be a swimmer at that point. I have to plan enough gas for that swim out, and I don''t mean exiting on my last molecule. Thus planning for one failure requires planning for another.

But what if my scooterless exit suddenly includes a lost light? No problem--I always have at least three lights. That's a standard procedure. So I am really planning for three failures, aren't I? In fact, the safety reel on my butt D-ring, the extra spools in my pockets, etc. are all routine plans for failures on every dive.

But I also agree that at some point you have to realize that you can't plan for everything and play the odds. We accept a certain level of risk every time we get out of bed, and if we stay in bed long enough, we are risking bed sores. In a recent thread about flying after diving, someone brought up the fact that on average, 40-50 airplanes lose cabin pressure every year. He was indicating that this was to him an unacceptable risk for flying after diving. I looked up the total number of flights each year and calculated that the likelihood that the plane you are on will have a depressurization incident was 0.00000114%. Call me crazy, but it is a risk I am willing to take. Other problems--loss of scooter power, light failure, siltouts, etc.--happen with enough frequency that I will prepare for them every time.
 
I probably dive with A LOT more people than you do. But, Either path is fine by me. I don't count on my buddies, and I have more of them. You do count on your buddies, and because your circle is much smaller, you can trust them more (I guess).

Either way probably works.

I do keep a small group of dive buddies (about 10 with any regularity), and I like it that way. But I have to ask, is buddy separation a common thing? In my group, its unheard of.
 
In the technical classes I teach, I say that each diver should be able to solve problems independently. Teammates should be there and ready to provide assistance, but they are really an added safety feature you should be able to do without in the unlikely (but very possible) event of team separation.

As happened in this case.
 
It can sometimes be hard to count the number of failures for which you are prepared, and sometimes the preparation for one overlaps with the preparation for others. Additionally, just following the safety rules of basic cave diving involves planning for multiple failures.

For example, when I was trained for cave scootering, I was hammered with the rule that I should always assume that the scooter will fail at the worst possible moment and therefore never take it anywhere I can't swim out. That brings gas planning into it--if it does fail at the worst possible moment, then I will be a swimmer at that point. I have to plan enough gas for that swim out, and I don''t mean exiting on my last molecule. Thus planning for one failure requires planning for another.

But what if my scooterless exit suddenly includes a lost light? No problem--I always have at least three lights. That's a standard procedure. So I am really planning for three failures, aren't I? In fact, the safety reel on my butt D-ring, the extra spools in my pockets, etc. are all routine plans for failures on every dive.

But I also agree that at some point you have to realize that you can't plan for everything and play the odds. We accept a certain level of risk every time we get out of bed, and if we stay in bed long enough, we are risking bed sores. In a recent thread about flying after diving, someone brought up the fact that on average, 40-50 airplanes lose cabin pressure every year. He was indicating that this was to him an unacceptable risk for flying after diving. I looked up the total number of flights each year and calculated that the likelihood that the plane you are on will have a depressurization incident was 0.00000114%. Call me crazy, but it is a risk I am willing to take. Other problems--loss of scooter power, light failure, siltouts, etc.--happen with enough frequency that I will prepare for them every time.

we're talking about catastrophic failures though. a light going out or a siltout doesn't qualify
also, swimming out isn't that practical for a lot of dives. did you bring three times the deco gas for your swim out from 10000 feet etc.?
even at manatee that equates to a LOT of extra deco gas
 
Team diving does not work well in all conditions. In some big wide open cave it is great. Dive a true sidemount cave and a buddy is a liability. I don't care who they are. It is twice the mess. A buddy is great as long as they can provide assistance. If they can't provide assistance then they are a liability and the dive is better done solo. Relying on a buddy is a recipe for disaster. It is nice if they can help but to believe they will always be there to assist is asinine. I don't know if it is true or not but I have heard stories of things getting nasty on a WKPP dive and when the divers turned the great Trey was gone. They surfaced to find him putting away his gear. You hear all kinds of rumors but depending on anyone else is not what I would do. I have also been told that Bill Renniker wanted it mandatory that a cave instructor had to be proficient and comfortable as a solo diver but this was not done. Personally I agree with him.
 
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