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Joined: 18 Jan 2007
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 Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 11:19 am Post subject: Training prepares cave divers |
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Training prepares cave divers for potential underwater problems.
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/story.php?id=1055347&source=tabbox
| News Times wrote: |
Before their first cave dive, Chuck Brady and his partner, News-Times photographer Chris Ware, talked with their dive instructor about failure.
What can go wrong underwater in a cave?
They didn't discuss the beauties of the cave. They didn't talk about the dark recesses beyond the reach of their powerful flashlights. They didn't talk about the stalagmites and the stalactites that formed in the caves before water filled them.
They didn't discuss the shimmering zone where the fresh water above mixes with the saltwater underneath. A diver below that zone looks up through shimmering water and might think there is air at the top of the cave. There isn't.
"When you're in an overhead environment, you have to deal with the problems under water," said Brady, 30, of Trumbull, who visited the caves in March for a training course in cave diving. The course, Cave 1, is offered by Global Underwater Explorers, a group dedicated to training divers, exploring and preserving the underwater world and exploring underwater.
The training involves using excellent, yet simple equipment that everyone carries in the same place for the same use. The equipment is simple so it won't fail. The fins, for example, do not have adjustable ankle straps, like many fins. They have a metal ankle strap that is fitted to the particular diver so it is unlikely to fail. No moving parts.
After discussing what might happen, they enter the underwater cave. Once they're deep inside, the instructor starts to mess with the divers.
He switches off a light.
That diver, now in the dark, reaches for a back-up light. He now uses a smaller, back-up light instead of the original powerful light. On the team, he is now the weaker diver, and then he moves in front of the stronger diver. The swimmer has
to react calmly and properly. Diving in caves is a team sport.
The instructor asks for a diver's mask to simulate a failure. The diver's instinct is to dive to the bottom of the cave for the mask.
Big mistake.
Disturb the silt at the bottom of a cave and the water may be too silted to see inside the cave for a few minutes, an hour or a couple of days.
A better option would
be reach into your thigh pocket and pull out your
spare mask.
"You can have a tank failure, a line failure, a light failure," Brady said. The diver has to know what to do in each case.
In the ocean, a diver in a panic can drop the weights and kick for the surface. If they're deep, they can overcome the bends by flying to the nearest hyperbaric chamber for decompression.
A cave diver can't do that. A cave has a ceiling. It may have too many openings, too many turns or galleries to memorize for a hasty exit. Divers follow a line in and the same line out. They memorize the features on the way in as an extra precaution to be sure they're heading the right way out.
Don't lose the line, don't panic and don't kick up silt from the cave bottom.
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