Bonne Terre Mine Diving

[gcarter]

But WHY no lights?

 

[Scubachris743]

My reasoning for it is safetey surprisingly. Everyone wears a green glow stick on their tank and the staff wears blue. So everyone knows who is who now. And when the lead staff is leading with his/her light, it's a guarantee that's a safe direction. Now I could be way off but that's what I came up with. Now should you have one in your BC pocket, in my opinion, yes. Emergencies happen and like every experienced diver knows, you are responsible for your own safety.

 

[gcarter]

I personally would not do this dive, however cool, without my own light(s). If there is an electrical interruption affecting the tunnel lights and anything happens to the lead's light, I want to be able to find my own way out to the surface.

This strikes me as unsafe and irresponsible. I am not sure what explanation would convince me otherwise.

 

[Scubachris743]

In many cases through out the dive, you can surface(no over head). When people would get low on air, they would surface and snorkel along the topside. Like I said, a flashlight in the BC is highly recommended to me. They just don't want 15 flashlights going off in every direction. Now as the trails go up in number, the level of difficulty does go up. More overhead environment etc. I know my group and I felt as safe as one could be.

 

[gcarter]

I can see from the videos that you can surface above the water. You are still underground. I would not enter a dry cave strung with lights without a backup flashlight. This is no different.

I am sure many divers go through there in the run of a year. The setup as described holds no attraction to me if this is typical of the rules imposed.