I think the divergence of opinions in here ... and the relevance of cave training ... is that cave training differs significantly from recreational training in how it looks at risk management. Also, there's this issue of access ... recreationally trained divers want the "experience" of overhead diving, whether to find out if it's something they want to pursue and invest in or simply as a checklist experience, while trained cavers see accidents such as this one as a threat to their access to the caves they've invested a lot of money and effort into diving. So it goes beyond the safety issues and into the realm of a difference in self-interest. And then there's the difference between those who look at cenote diving in terms of how it is vs those who look at it as how it should be. These are all common root issues that lead to the sort of back-and-forth discussion we've seen these past 100 or so responses in this conversation. And they won't get resolved here, if in fact there will ever be a resolution. We each decide for ourselves, after all, what constitutes "acceptable risk", and it's always based on our perception of how we dive and our own specific personal goals while experiencing the activity.
Those of you who responded to my reference to Wes Skiles (and I'm assuming the deleted post was a rather interesting response, wish I could've seen it before it got deleted) missed my point in bringing it up. Wes had cave training. And no, he didn't die in a cave ... he died on a rather simple reef dive. But that's really not the point. The point is he knew well the first of those five rules some of you are fond of bringing up ... don't dive beyond your training. And as Pete so helpfully pointed out, he wasn't trained on that unit. He was a highly skilled, highly experienced, and highly trained diver ... and yet he cut his margins thin, and in the process violated more than one of the tenets of his training ... and, to use a term one of the cavers in here used earlier, it kack'ed him. So for those of you who are calling for people to get training before entering an overhead I'll say yeah ... I agree with you at a fundamental level that people shouldn't be diving in overheads without the training. But on a more pragmatic level, it's unlikely that the lack of training is what caused the fatality we've been discussing in here. No matter how the man ended up in the cave zone, he made a conscious decision to put himself in a position for that to happen ... and that gets more to a willingness to take risks he had to, at some level, know he was taking. We are, after all, taught about the dangers of "trust me" dives at all levels of training. Every agency's entry-level program tells you not to dive in overhead environments without proper training. And yet people do it. Why? When you get right down to it, because they want to ... and so they're willing to accept the sales pitch when someone sells them on the fact that doing so is perfectly safe.
So what do we do about it? That's the only question that really matters. Those who say "take the training first" would restrict cenote diving to only those who have gone through at least a cavern class first. Perhaps that's the best answer, but it would kill an entire industry in the Yucatan area of Mexico ... and so it's unlikely to happen. Yes, people know it involves risk ... but isn't taking that risk their choice to make?
Yeah, ideally they should take a cavern class ... and they should know the risks and dangers of what they're choosing to do. But that ain't going to happen, no matter how much we argue about it here on ScubaBoard, or how many assumptions we make about the motives or lack of knowledge of those who bring diverging opinions into the conversation. As my dad used to say "it ain't gonna happen ... deal with it". So wouldn't it be more productive to talk about how we can accommodate these people in a manner that reduces the risks?
In an ideal world no one would go on guided cenote dives without overhead training. In an ideal world drugs, cigarettes, and fast food restaurants wouldn't exist ... they kill way more people every year than cenote diving after all. But we don't live in an ideal world. Seems to me a more productive conversation would begin with that reality in mind ... then maybe we could get away from all the ridiculous assumptions and accusations I've been reading in this thread these past few days, and get back to discussing some ideas about how we can prevent deaths like this one from happening.
"Just say no" ain't gonna do it ... no more than it ever worked in any other activity where it was attempted as a solution to the problem ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
