NOVA on Cave Diving

[sablefish]

is finding dead, tangled divers a common experience for cave divers? I really liked this documentary; much more content than most dive documentaries.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

is finding dead, tangled divers a common experience for cave divers? I really liked this documentary; much more content than most dive documentaries.

No, finding dead divers in caves is not a common experience.

Fortunately, cave training is easily available, and unlike recreational diver training, the standards for diver performance pretty decently reflect the demands of the activity when not conducted at the extremes. By the time a diver passes cavern, intro to cave, apprentice cave diver and cave diver courses with agencies like PSAI, NSS-CDS, NACD, TDI, IANTD, or cave 1 and cave 2 programs with agencies like GUE, NAUI and PDIC, the student is usually pretty competent and tends to obey the Rules of Accident Analysis:

The Rules of Accident Analysis were first recommended by Sheck Exley circa 1977 to be:

1. Always run a continuous guideline to open water (or safe exit)
2. Always reserve at least 2/3 of your starting gas supply for exit
3. Do not dive deeper than 130 feet on air

By 1988, Wes Skiles, who filmed Extreme Cave Diving for Nova and who was in a large part responsible for making cave training more available to the diving public added two more rules to Exley's list:

4. Be properly trained to cave dive and don't exceed the limits of your training
5. Always carry at least 3 lights

PSAI, an agency for which I teach cave diving, has taken recommendations by Jeff Bozanic to include:

6. Always use appropriate gas mixtures and always analyze your gas prior to the dive
7. Be aware that new technology such as rebreathers requires careful maintenance, dedication, monitoring and adequate bailout
8. Be aware that an aging diving population is more at risk for medical problems
9. Be aware that equipment and skill maintenance is important to safe cave diving
10. Be aware that solo cave diving has contributed to fatalities. It is recommended to dive with a buddy or buddies with a maximum of 3 divers in a cave diving team.

When the above Rules of Accident Analysis are violated, a cave diver is at increased risk of death in a beautiful, but unforgiving environment. When this does happen, most of the time, a diver's body can successfully be removed from a cave. At extreme depths or distances, or in places in which the size of the passage may not allow a body to be removed, a diver's body may still be left in a cave. Also, there are times when a diver's body may not be located due to a complex tunnel system. It is possible for divers exploring at the extremes to encounter the remains of others or for divers who explore almost never traveled tunnels to come across the remains of a diver, but that is extremely rare. For example, a missing cave diver wasn't found in the Telford Spring cave system in Luraville, FL for some time because no one could locate the body. One day, a diver exploring a long-ignored tight tunnel located the remains.

I was part of a reconnaissance mission to locate ancient Lucayan remains on Grand Bahama Island for this same film crew. Cristina Zenato of UNEXSO and I dove in the rarely explored cave system that includes Ben's Cave and Burial Mound on a science permit for the Bahamas National Trust. We were successful in our search after making a traverse from Ben's Cave into Burial Mound. The funny part was that we had all of the drama they try to manufacture in documentaries in that search. Percolation from bubbles created a total silt-out, buddy separation and lost off the guideline while concentrating our focus on searching a million possible cracks rather than being fully aware of our environment. Our vis would diminish repeatedly and we became more cavalier about it until we each had an epic adventure on our way to finding the line and one another. After that, we decided to be more cautious. We literally found the remains we had been seeking, which had been first discovered and secreted away by diver Ben Rose decades before, right at the end of our usable gas supply. We had turned the dive and were in the process of one last "Hail Mary" check, pushing our gas reserves, when Cristina located the remains. She flashed me "Attention!" with her primary light and called me over and asked, "Question. This is it, yes?" Having encountered remains in shipwrecks, I was able to definitely identify the cranium of a human skull at a glance. I replied, "Yes!" I held position over the remains while Cristina swam to the guideline to tie in a spool and run it back to me and tie-off to a nearby rock. We decided to surface in Burial Mound and discuss her find. She was very moved by the experience of touching the skull and other bones and felt a sense of being a care-taker of the remains of the person we had rediscovered. She didn't know whether to tell the BBC crew, Brian Kakuk, Wes Skiles and all that we had, indeed, found Lucayan remains. She really loves working with them and really loves being involved in film projects, but as a testament to her respect for others and for all creatures living or dead, she felt conflicted. During our discussion, I pointed out that if it was my remains down there, I'd think it would be pretty cool to be on television as a skeleton and that person, if alive, might think it cool as well. Also, no one wants to be forgotten, and I pointed out that not only would make others aware of the Lucayan people, but if that person's death at at all been in vain, speaking to the world through one's remains of a lost and nearly forgotten people would add meaning and purpose the that person's life and death. Ben Rose showed up leading a tour of the Lucayan National Park and upon further discussion, Cristina decided to report our discovery to Brian Kakuk. The group came to the island and filmed for a couple days as part of another project.

Each day, cave divers are helping to add discoveries to human anthropology, history, natural and earth sciences, climate change, resource conservation, etc. It's really cool being a part of the adventure.

The night this first aired, we met up with Jill Heinerth, Rich Courtney, Corey Mearns, Wayne Kinard, and others at the Great Outdoors Restaurant in High Springs, FL. It was pretty crowded and I was hoping to use the documentary to help with the apprentice cave class I was teaching. My student and I returned to the hotel to find that we didn't have PBS on cable there. I had to watch it on my laptop computer later. I, too, thought it was one of the more content-loaded documentaries and well-filmed.

The caves of the Bahamas are my favorite for their beauty, intrigue, complexity, dangers and challenge.

 

[Doc Harry]

I doubt that if you had a TV crew following you around that absolutely everything you said would stand up to scrutiny. If the editor cherry picked all the stupid things you said in a day, you'd probably look pretty bad.

I'm smart enough to not let a TV crew follow me around for that very reason.

 

[wrybosome]

There was an interesting thread on the show over on TDS. Brian Kakuk has a few things to say about the drama, the body, etc.

The Deco Stop

 

[CamG]

Greetings fellow divers this past weekend I had the awesome opportunity to attend a seminar by Wes Skiles at Our World Underwater in Chicago.
It was what many of us were wishing for, it was incredible! The images and narration were breathtaking. Things that did not make the NOVA / PBS program. There were many more images and scientific finds.
National Geographic is in the process of putting a piece together for a upcoming issue.
The photography was second to none, and there were many more in Wes's Apple laptop. There was some really incredible discoveries and science that I am sure will generate much more information in the future.
If you have the opportunity to see Wes by all means go! There was an image of crystals in the cave that was beautiful beyond any words. Only in dreams do you get to see things like that! It blows my mind what is waiting for those willing to search for it!
Safe diving to all,
CamG Keep diving....keep training....keep learning!