Swim throughs - what could possibly go wrong?

[Foxfish]

One of the reasons for starting the thread was to challenge the thinking that says that doing a cave diving course will somehow magically reduce the risks associated with the kind of diving described in the OP and now by FBK. In our area, those risks can be mitigated by good local knowledge and some simple commonsense guidelines like:

- Avoid diving in confined areas where there is strong surge or current.
- Ensure you always adequate room to give easy access to your buddy and your octopus.
- Don't dive in caverns where silting can obscure and prevent exiting the cave.
- Dive in caverns with open access to and from all parts of the cave.
- Dive in caverns where there is no chance of getting lost without easy access from the cave.
- Avoid caverns or overhangs that appear fragile.

To use an extreme example, suppose a diver with cave diving training and experience decided to buy a boat and dive our local caverns. Diving with little knowledge of the weather and ocean conditions and their effect on diving conditions would be risky. I'm challenging the idea that somehow this is okay, but it is not okay for the diver with good local knowledge of the weather and ocean conditions, who has extensive experience diving these caverns and who follows the simple guidelines I mentioned above yet who doesn't have overhead certification.

I'm not trying to belittle diver training here. The dive courses, especially the specialty courses are tailored for a limited set of circumstances. Sometimes those circumstances are a good match for the way we dive, sometimes they are not. Where there is little overlap, the diver needs to consider the risks involved and work out ways to mitigate the risks. I think more could be done in diver training to highlight the limitations of what is taught and foster this kind of thinking.

 

[tursiops]

One of the reasons for starting the thread was to challenge the thinking that says that doing a cave diving course will somehow magically reduce the risks associated with the kind of diving described in the OP and now by FBK. In our area, those risks can be mitigated by good local knowledge and some simple commonsense guidelines like:

- Avoid diving in confined areas where there is strong surge or current.
- Ensure you always adequate room to give easy access to your buddy and your octopus.
- Don't dive in caverns where silting can obscure and prevent exiting the cave.
- Dive in caverns with open access to and from all parts of the cave.
- Dive in caverns where there is no chance of getting lost without easy access from the cave.
- Avoid caverns or overhangs that appear fragile.

To use an extreme example, suppose a diver with cave diving training and experience decided to buy a boat and dive our local caverns. Diving with little knowledge of the weather and ocean conditions and their effect on diving conditions would be risky. I'm challenging the idea that somehow this is okay, but it is not okay for the diver with good local knowledge of the weather and ocean conditions, who has extensive experience diving these caverns and who follows the simple guidelines I mentioned above yet who doesn't have overhead certification.

I'm not trying to belittle diver training here. The dive courses, especially the specialty courses are tailored for a limited set of circumstances. Sometimes those circumstances are a good match for the way we dive, sometimes they are not. Where there is little overlap, the diver needs to consider the risks involved and work out ways to mitigate the risks. I think more could be done in diver training to highlight the limitations of what is taught and foster this kind of thinking.

You have 6 bullets. Cave training does not usually address the first one, I agree. But it explicitly addresses the 2nd through 5th....such that you either know what to avoid or how to handle it. The last bullet is, as you say, common sense.

So, I'm not sure of your point. You seem to be trying to say that your local environments are rather special. They don't sound that way, except for their being sea caves. And those who are trained in sea caves won't find them special, either.

 

[RTee]

Did I do swim-throughs before I had overhead training? Yes, I did. Did I consider each situation carefully, knowing that overhead environments are in general inadvisable? Yes, I did. Did I get in any trouble? No. Do I think the likelihood of trouble was high? No. The problem with taking those examples and running with them, though, is the slippery slope concept. If it's okay to swim the Cathedrals, is it okay to swim the cavern at Hole in the Wall in Florida? A family of three almost lost one of their members by answering that question in the affirmative.

I think overheads, even simple ones, up the ante on the risk of the dive. They are appropriate for experienced divers who have some familiarity with their reaction to stress or malfunction. They should be chosen carefully to meet the criteria listed in the original post. And they should not lie at depths where narcosis is a major factor.

Lynne, +1. Time, place, environment, comfort and ...company. I tend to dive, locally and on vacation, with very experienced divers and I have no problem doing swim throughs after careful examination. However, change any one of those variables and I will be the first one to reassess. Equipment & overhead training??? Time, place, environment, comfort and company will dictate but I do not believe you need to be equipped and trained as a cave diver to do some of the benign swim throughs I have seen and done in Cozumel for example. Others might be a completely different story.

 

[Foxfish]

You have 6 bullets. Cave training does not usually address the first one, I agree. But it explicitly addresses the 2nd through 5th....such that you either know what to avoid or how to handle it. The last bullet is, as you say, common sense.

So, I'm not sure of your point. You seem to be trying to say that your local environments are rather special. They don't sound that way, except for their being sea caves. And those who are trained in sea caves won't find them special, either.

Kind of like doing a degree in engineering when all you want to do is build a house.

Can you describe in practical terms what elements of the cave diver training you consider to be relevant to this kind of diving.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Foxfish, in the time you've spent thinking about this so far, you probably could have been halfway through a Cavern or Cave 1 course.

 

[Foxfish]

You might be right. What skills am I going to learn on a cave diving course that will help me with the kind of diving described in the OP.

 

[TSandM]

If all the conditions you list are and remain in force, cave training will have done nothing but make you more aware of gas planning and give you better buoyancy control, control of your positioning, and better communications skills. You are right to think that line running and putting down markers is not relevant to the kind of dive you are trying to set up . . . but it isn't always possible to know that you can't silt out the site. It isn't always possible to know, when you swim into an opening you haven't explored before, that it will remain well-lit and have multiple openings. Cave training would give you tools to deal with the unexpected.

I don't know about anybody else, but I like to take more gas with me than I need on a dive. I like to take more skills with me than I think I'm going to need, because the time to discover I don't have them isn't when that need suddenly arises.

Foxfish, your argument is kind of like asking, "What does bringing 130 cubic feet of gas on a dive I can do on 80 give me?" The answer is no, you don't need it, but it might make everything more comfortable.

 

[Storker]

As a photographer, I do regret that my principle of staying the heck out of everything overhead will prevent me from getting those cool shots of a blue cavern opening with light drizzling in from the open water. Except from that minor detail I really don't see much point in doing a swim-through "just to have it done".

Diff'rent folks, diff'rent strokes and all that, but if the overhead environment is so open and spacious as to pose an insignificant amount of added risk (which apparently is the scenario the OP is trying to paint), what's so special with having that roof over your head? Except for the "thing" of being in a cavern? Once on a vacation, our guide wanted to lead us under a stone arch - formally, a swimthrough even if it was only about 2m long - which apparently was a thing they did. Meh. I didn't see the point, the pretty fishes weren't there, and we have way cooler sponges and soft corals in my home waters.

---------- Post added February 5th, 2014 at 07:57 AM ----------

What skills am I going to learn on a cave diving course that will help me with the kind of diving described in the OP.

I really don't know since I don't have cavern or cave training, but I'd imagine it could give you the ability to properly evaluate whether:
- There is strong surge or current in the overhead environment
- There is adequate room to give easy access to your buddy and your octopus.
- Silting can obscure and prevent exiting the cave.
- There is open access to and from all parts of the cave.
- There is no chance of getting lost without easy access from the cave.
- The cavern or overhang appears fragile.
- Other factors exist that may make the overhead environment dangerous if dived with normal rec equipment and in the company of non-cave trained divers

 

[Foxfish]

I thought the wreck diver course would probably be more appropriate. I asked someone over here recently about it who had done the course and they considered it had would be of little use.

 

[Dhboner]

My only opportunity to do a "swim through" would be on a vacation. Since vacation diving almost always means diving with people I don't know and whose skill/training level is unknown to me I do not do swim throughs (at least not anymore). I had one unfortunate incident in Devil's Throat that woke me up to the fact that, despite my training/equipment and confidence, there were other people in front of me and behind me capable of doing something (or not doing something) that could get me killed. If a swim through is on the agenda I politely and assertively tell the dive leader that I will follow the group's bubble stream and meet them at the exit.