Safety Training for Overhead Environments

[cjborgert]

First, ditto to Scott's message - we had a great time and look forward to diving together again soon. This forum is bringing together freedivers who would probably never find out about one another otherwise. My son said it was the most fun he's had since he and I camped on Standing Indian Moutain (that's not a cavern, for the unfamiliar).

thin air - I agree with you and Snorkelbum about what a great emergency device spare air would be. I also agree that it is good for freedivers to be generally knowledgable about all kinds of diving-related safety issues, even if we're unlikely to be the victims.

Cave/cavern rules may be different other places, so you might not have a problem carrying a spare air bottle for emergency use elsewhere. However, here in north Florida, where scuba diving IS cave diving, the rules are taken pretty seriously. Dive sites get closed off if too many people die in them, so there is great attention given to allowing only those with adequate training to take scuba into a cavern or cave. I think that as freedivers, we do not want to be percieved as renegades trying to skirt the rules. But it does perturb me that we may be denied a life-saving emergency device because others feel they need to dictate our behavior. -Don't know how to go about getting this changed though.

[Erik]

Man, would I like to go diving with you guys some day.
Some day,
Erik Y.

[scott]

Erik,

When Chris and I were at Cow Springs, there was a group of cave divers (scuba) from Canada. They were trained in Florida and were returning for a 2 week trip - said Florida is the best cave diving site in the world (although I am sure that's debatable). You'll have to get one of your big sponsors to finance your trip down here and we'll photo you wearing their gear and then disseminate the photos all over the web. Think they'll buy it?

Scott

[snorklebum]

Whoa...just a minute. You "have to have a C card"???? What is that? Sez who, who enforces this stuff? Who confiscates gear??? Has PADI actually managed to make their rules have the force of LAW???? Does NAUI have their own hit teams? This blows my mind.

[cjborgert]

Nearly all private sites I've heard of insist that to dive in their cavern, you have to be "cavern diving" certified from the National Speliological Society-National Cave Diving Section (I think that's the name - you can check it out on some of the web sites I posted earlier in this thread) or NAUI or GUE (Global Underwater Explorers). If you go beyond the light zone, i.e., into the cave, you have to have full cave certification. I've not known anyone personally who has had gear confiscated or been banned, but know people who claim it has happened. The "rules" in these place certainly state that it can happen, though I don't know how they could actually take your gear - they are not police. They can certainly kick you out and forbid re-entrance.

All of the State Parks in Florida that have springs or sinks with caves have that rule - no cave certification, no diving, period. The enforcers are Park Rangers, and they have the authority of police.