A little confused about overhead environment

[Bobby Demosthenis]

The best rule, know your limits. If there is a dive that your not sure, dive it first with a dive professional who knows the site. They can then give you advice on the dive, tell you what to expect and things to look out for. I always prefer to dive with a guide or a buddy who knows a site rather than going in and exploring yourself.

Bobby

 

[piikki]

I kind of agree on a lot of stuff you say. Kind of. I like to think people are smart and make smart choices. I would like to think new divers especially would quickly become able to use the guidance (here on SB too) to make choices that they and the (scuba) community at large do not need to regret. But let's face it "smart-ness" is a dwindling natural recourse, and a lot around works against it. Rules too, sure.

I am not just worried about what happens to OW divers that get told whether or not they are OK to go dive Ginnie. I am sure most of them come out Ginnie alive. Some maybe a little spooked, some absolutely enthused and ready to sign onto a cavern course. I am worried about the maybe few that continue the pattern. They did not need training for Ginnie and managed it OK. Why would they need to do anything more for the next step? Where will they go next and with whom? After all, overhead diving was a hoot and pretty easy.

I fear places like Ginnie can easily function as gateway drug, and while I trust most people to make the right choice, it's those few that mess it up and go get killed or hurt that can end the fun for everybody else. I am sure the real nutters will find a way without Ballroom. However, a place like Ginnie really puts it out there for everyone by explicitly stating that the cavern is safe for OW divers. And, personally, I don't in my right mind see how anybody can justify taking large OW classes into the Ballroom. It's smells of stupid and/or money to me


(P.S. Does it bother anyone else that there are divers here who call themselves experienced at 25 dives, or only relatively new at 13??? I thought I was boasting when I stopped calling myself new diver at 200!!)

I agree with bfw that if you are not careful you can get a little too rule bound. Rules are not the be all and end all of safety and as pointed out above they often involve many factors other than diver safety. snipsnipsnipsnip Getting out of bed in the morning involves risk - life would be really boring if we eliminated all risk and diving is no exception.

 

[Kern]

So Sam, have you been enlightened or are you still confused? It's definitely one of those questions in diving that I'v found to be quite strange too. The agencies definitely say not to enter overheads without the proper training. However if the dive operators bread & butter comes from taking open water divers to a prepared wreck or a 300 foot long cave/cavern/swim through they don't hesitate to do so.

I wonder if the instructors at these sites ever mention the stricture on diving overheads.

I don't think that there have been any deaths, or even major problems at Fish Rock Cave. I haven't been able to find any references anyway. But look at the mud map, if anything did go wrong in there it could go very wrong. Especially when you consider there are 2 operators who, on a good day will run 5 boats out at the same time. Each boat full of divers, the vast majority of whom have no training or experience with overheads.

I know you haven't suggested that you would like to run down to Ginnie & dive it right now. You sound like a new diver that has noticed an anomaly & decided to ask a question about it. I think you put the question in the right place. Unfortunately it's a hot button topic & people went off in various other directions demanding that someone with your experience shouldn't do it, it should be in another forum as it's not a basic question. That A knows more about Ginnie than B, & C is obviously talking through their hat & hasn't really been there.

As to "What is the distinction that makes something an 'overhead environment' that I now need to be extra careful in or avoid?". Well that will always be up to you to decide. To make an informed decision will require training & experience. But from your original post, I can see that you already know that.

Enjoy the journey.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

it should be in another forum as it's not a basic question.

To be precise, what I was trying to say is that asking the question belongs here, as does answering that it is not basic diving. However, I feel that the exact specifics as to how to do a cavern dive or who should do a cavern dive or whether agency X's basic OW course prepares you for cavern diving belongs elsewhere.

I just wanted to disentangle the question "Am I ready for an advanced dive?" from "Let's talk about advanced diving as if it's basic diving."

I guess, upon reflection, that I am too conservative by SB standards. I will try to avoid being the wet blanket next time around.

 

[Bobby Demosthenis]

To be precise, what I was trying to say is that asking the question belongs here, as does answering that it is not basic diving. However, I feel that the exact specifics as to how to do a cavern dive or who should do a cavern dive or whether agency X's basic OW course prepares you for cavern diving belongs elsewhere.

I just wanted to disentangle the question "Am I ready for an advanced dive?" from "Let's talk about advanced diving as if it's basic diving."

I guess, upon reflection, that I am too conservative by SB standards. I will try to avoid being the wet blanket next time around.

Don't worry about it. But, just give it a go. Your Instructor will know if your ready. I don't even know what ginnie is, only that it appears to be a cavern dive. Cave diving has never held much interest to me, it doesn't excite me and actually scares me, if little swim throughs get me jittery, but I handle it and swim through, as the unknown does excite me, but cavern diving isn't my thing.

Ask your Instructor on weather or not you are ready. I actually recommend (and I wish I had done it) the Open water and advanced to be taken together. It gives you a whole range of new diving expertise, and lets you see things in a whole new one. Advanced shouldn't really be the word. And I can't think of the proper word, but its just an extra course that gives you invaluable insight into other areas of diving and lets you choose some a range of adventures dives that might interest you.

The Rescue Diver requries alot more experience. I should've of waited, but I didn't. But so far the rescue course has been my favourite. But, meh, give it time. Talk to dive professionals!

Bobby

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

Don't worry about it. But, just give it a go. Your Instructor will know if your ready.

Maybe I misunderstood the OP's question. Sam appeared to be asking Scubaboard whether he is ready, not asking a Cavern instructor whether he is ready. My advice to him was in fact to consider doing the dive escorted by a qualified guide or instructor. That is a very different matter to doing the dive with another person of similar inexperience.

I actually recommend (and I wish I had done it) the Open water and advanced to be taken together.

This may work for you, but I am happy I followed another course of action. I realize everybody progresses at a different rate, and also that everybody has a different set of choices for their AOW dives. In my case, I did my AOW in Brockville. Every dive was a drift dive, and by drift I mean river current with boating and shipping channels. Every dive was a wreck dive. And if you float off the wreck, you need to deploy an SMB. So when I did my deep dive, I was simultaneously handling depth, navigating around the wreck back to the mooring line, and the river current. Did I mention that learning to use a pony bottle was a requirement on that particular deep dive? And that while the water was warm by Ontario standards, I was wearing heavy layers of wet suit that required lots of compensation at depth?

All together, there was a lot going on for me in my AOW long week-end. YMMV, but I'm glad I followed the path of getting my OW, then my nitrox, then my AOW. Getting back to caverns, if I was going to dive a cavern I would sign up for a cavern course with an agency I trust. I had 40+ OW dives before I felt comfortable walking onto a charter and doing a wreck survey dive without a divemaster or instructor keeping an eye on me, and I would probably want a little guided experience before doing the same in a cavern.

Again, that's just me. getting back to the OP... If I was going to be down there I would absolutely want to try it. But touching back to my original advice and Bobby's advice, find a local dive shop or instructor and ask them if they can guide you in there.

If they refuse to take you, trust their judgment and come back when you have more experience. If they take you, trust that they can guide you through it safely, follow their instructions closely, and have a great time. if caverns interest you and your wife, go one step further and ask the instructor to do your cavern specialty. You can probably apply the dives to your AOW if you choose to follow that route.

 

[SparticleBrane]

Talk to dive professionals!

Sometimes this can be good, but more often than not it isn't. Just because someone is a "dive professional" doesn't mean they know how to dive.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

To be precise, what I was trying to say is that asking the question belongs here, as does answering that it is not basic diving. However, I feel that the exact specifics as to how to do a cavern dive or who should do a cavern dive or whether agency X's basic OW course prepares you for cavern diving belongs elsewhere.

I just wanted to disentangle the question "Am I ready for an advanced dive?" from "Let's talk about advanced diving as if it's basic diving."

I guess, upon reflection, that I am too conservative by SB standards. I will try to avoid being the wet blanket next time around.

Reg, I don't think you are too conservative, you are just more narrowly interpreting the role of the forum.

Yes, a part of it is to help the OP make a decision about diving Ginnie - and he did a couple pages ago. That horse is dead and buried.

A bigger part of it though is also to get the OP to buy into the decision. Just saying "no, you only got 10 dives and your buddy is not comfortable with it" may not cut it with many people.

I do evaluation of programs costing millions of bucks for a living and everyone one I review has people who think their program is great for reasons they think are valid even when the majority of them are total crap. But I can't wade in and say their program sucks and they are in need improvement. I have to lead them to that self discovery if I am going to have any hope of them buying into the results of the eval and committing to making improvement.

It works the same with many divers - they don't know what they don't know and just telling them that is not usually very effective. That is where the value of discussions like these comes in. The plus is also that everyone learns something in the process. I have at times found my self doing a 180 on an issue because of some of the other persepctives and points of view that have come up on these types of threads where a simple yes or no would have sufficed. Semper Gumby.