The Cave Politics, Rumor Monger and Gossip Guild is alive and well. Let's end it!

[BigTex1836]

As a non-Floridian and only be able to cave when I am in Florida I have found it hard to find people to dive with. I am facing this next month in that I will be in Florida for 3 weeks and struggling to find people to dive with. It seems as a newer person, and not a local and regular cave diver I am kind of "outcast" if you will.

I know exactly what you mean having been in a similar situation over the last year. Two things I've noticed, location posting for buddies and level of certification.

I've found is using Cave Diver Forum to find buddies at all levels to be pretty good. There is a section for posting buddy needs. I post a couple months out as I'm having to plan well in advance since I'm flying in to the area primarily for diving. I've had a couple people back out on me due to issues that arose with their schedule, which is perfectly fine, but I just repost and see if there is someone else interested. Also, stay in touch with those people you do dive with to see what they are planning and if they want to get together.

I will say I've found it much easier to find buddies after I completed my Full Cave and got a good number of full cave dives under my belt. When I was at Intro I struggled more to find buddies (so did other intro divers I spoke with), it seems a couple things were at play.....turning at 1/6s and no jumps made for undesirable dives for a FC diver and there also seemed to be an unease around the potential skills of a newbie. Being cert'd by a respected instructor seemed to ease this concern imo. After being asked "who was your instructor" I was literally was told "oh, if xxxx certified you, you must have your **** together" (heard that verbatim on more than a few occasions)

All that said, I'll be in FL for a few days in February and have a couple mid-week days available if you're interested. Drop me a PM.

 

[tbone1004]

call Cathy at Dive Outpost. She will be able to put you in touch with a few guys that have retired to the area and are more than happy to dive with intro level divers. What was said above about the locals having to work is a huge part of it, and those that travel in usually already have their trip planned out before they get there, so finding buddies can be rather difficult.

 

[lerpy]

Thanks for the input. I will move over to the Cave Forum and look into some buddies.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

I tell every student in every cave class that picking up a cave diving buddy in the parking lot is more dangerous than picking up a whore in a bar.

 

[oya]

I tell every student in every cave class that picking up a cave diving buddy in the parking lot is more dangerous than picking up a whore in a bar.

But WAY more exciting.

I mean, when you get some toothless crack whore you know you're going to get chlamydia and robbed.

When you pick up a buddy in the parking lot you have NO idea what's going to happen.

 

[fisheater]

 

[karstdvr]

I tell every student in every cave class that picking up a cave diving buddy in the parking lot is more dangerous than picking up a whore in a bar.

Jim makes a good comment, and caveat emptor applies to buddies on the forum. Things that come to mind when you have an unknown entity is doing a real good,complete S-drill, a very conservative gas plan,and gold line type dive that allows for easy ability to read the person. It boggles my mind when I see someone on the forums looking for a bubby to go to the XXX room,which requires two stages and a scooter.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

What you're describing, Pete, sounds to me a lot like church ... no matter which one you go to there's always going to be some folks who have to prove how pious they are by pointing out what's wrong with other people. And if diving was religion, north Florida is the freak'n Vatican.

That said, I've made a lot of friends down there ... and I don't hardly ever even get down there anymore. I have met ... and like ... every person you named in your original post (even George, although he's not the same in real life as he used to be on the internet). Like church, there's way more friendly folks to associate with than unfriendly ones ... that's what makes the latter stand out so much. I find they're easy to ignore ... even if they do tend to stink the place up from time to time with their rumor mongering.

Oh, and FWIW - what you're describing ain't restricted to cave country ... up here in the PNW there's a whole segment of folks who refuse to frequent ScubaBoard because they claim it's an unfriendly place. Some even refer to it as "StupidBoard" ... and they often display the same behavior on our local forum that they claim they don't like about this place. I think it's just part of human nature to only see the bad in the things you decide ain't your cup of tea ... even when you're drinking basically the same tea from a different cup ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Kristi@CCDS]

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I'm sure you realize that that bumper sticker is associated with Amigos, and that many people believe, know, propogate (whatever you want to believe/say) that there is bad blood between those shops, and therefore even your post could be misconstrued as a dig against Wayne's.

I'm in no way saying that's what you're doing. I'm just pointing out that people are going to think what they want and read what they want, and therefore your post could feed the gossip beast if people want it to.

Point is, it's not going anywhere. Any small community that has an inflated sense of self has this type of thing happen. It's great to want it to go away and to try to take steps to make it, but it's really futile. Personally I like very few cave divers. Too many mamsy-pamsy self-involved whiners that only care about their ego. Don't they know I'm the most important?

My solution, I bought a fill station, avoid most shops, and avoid most people when I go dive other than the people that have proven not to be full of **** most of the time. I'd love to say people are great, and everything's fine, but I deal with the public daily and know how this crap works. I'd love it to go away too, but I doubt it's happening.

I am sorry if people feel this way, our shop doesn't feed into this 'rivalry'. There is none. We focus on our business and do our best to ensure our customers have a fun time and enjoy their dives and time in the area.


That being said, Peter I'm sorry this happened at our shop. Sometimes it's best to let the gossip go in one ear and out the other. I know I feel better for it when I do. Safe diving everyone.

 

[Beiji]

Btw, I just happened to have the DP/PL sticker I got from Wayne a few weeks ago when in FL, below. The other may have been plagiarized or maybe he added it over time. Dunno. Then again, it is kinda small even on the big sticker so it could be easily overlooked.
View attachment 222666

That's the newest version, but even the older one had the name of the shop on it, just not in domain name form. If other people are copying it, they shouldn't because it is trademarked.