FACT: 90% of divers give up just before finding something really neat in an underwater cave
those that find it don’t come back because it’s just so neat
I’ve played Subnautica. You don’t need to warn me about cave diving.
Are you sure what you’re doing is worth it?
I dunno, the open water can be a bit worrisome too.
Theres a good podcasts by stuff you should know on this. A scary thought to me is about kicking up sediment, causing zero visibility and they cant even see their hand in front of their goggles
New fear unlocked
Caves are also not uniformly shaped, the way you go in could look a lot different on the way out.
I’ve done training dives in man made quarries under zero visibility conditions. There’s no way in hell I’d go into an actual cave under those conditions.
It was bad enough when you’d almost run into a purposefully placed sculpture or bathtub in that flooded quarry.
You had to do a scavenger hunt to find stuff to pass your training and it was super disorienting.
I don’t know if PADI still does that sort of thing or if it was unique to my training center conditions but it was wild.
I’ll stick to open water, thank you very much.
Here is a clip from Donald Cerrone on the Joe Rogan show where he tells a story like this. I really loathe Joe Rogan but this story is fantastic. Nightmare fuel.
https://youtu.be/or92IMcLoIc?si=0CemG6Qopl_-Bl8d
I dare you to watch this and not get absolutely freaked the fuck out, lol.
If this is the clip I think it is it’s been the joke of the cave diving community. Cerrone has almost reached meme status for this interview. Watch the Dive Talk video reacting to this clip if you’re curious.
Thanks for sharing, I’ll look that up and check it out, as I’m really curious about things like this that I’ve not experienced. Regardless of whether he’s an idiot or joke or whatever, I can totally see how a scenario like he describes could happen and how scary it could be. I definitely won’t be trying to learn how to cave dive anytime soon.
Edit - here’s the link to the dive talk video if anyone is curious like me
I’m curious about your thoughts now that you’ve watched it.
A couple takeaways for me after watching their breakdown -
- They seemed to generally agree with a lot of his points, although he clearly came across to them as an inexperienced amateur with how he described things and gaps in his story.
- Mofo should have NEVER let go of the line, or at minimum should have tied off on it when he went in to check on his buddy.
- It was never clear in his story why he lost the line and had to exit the way that he did. When he said he came out of the silt on the further inwards side of the cave, he should have been able to just grab the line and then follow it out. That’s the biggest WTF to me after watching.
- Regardless of this dude’s inexperience, and he’s not a person I follow or anything, my original comment of that being a nightmareish scenario is definitely still valid. Feeling/becoming lost (even if it was due to your own stupidity) and knowing you’re on a timer that’s accelerating due to your panic would absolutely freak me out, and is enough where I don’t think I’d ever want to cave dive. However, I’m usually a stickler for the rules, and I certainly wouldn’t have let go I don’t think. I’d want to ALWAYS be touching it or tied off against it. He was either a complete idiot or had an enormous amount of confidence in his abilities to free swim in an unfamiliar cave. Either way he was definitely showing his inexperience there.
- Fuck underwater caves! Although it’s super fascinating to me, lol.
Am I the only one for whom prefacing a statement with “FACT”, makes said statement less credible?
FACT: ArcaneGadget thinks this statement is less credible.
But what if there really is something valuable, wouldn’t they put a sign just like this to prevent people walzing in?
Okay, they almost had me convinced. But the second to last sentence is just crying out for a treasure.
What’s so dangerous that it was able to kill instructors? Sediment and visibility?
It’s dark so requires torches (more than one as a backup) and very easy to get disoriented. You can easily get lost and run out of air. Risk of being blinded by silt even with a torch, leading to more risk of disoriented and getting lost. If anything goes wrong such as equipment malfunction then you don’t have the option of going to the surface as you do in open water (albeit with the risk of a bend). It’s often cramped with places to get stuck, snag equipment, or get tangled in your guideline. There are sharp rocks you can hit your head on.
“There are older and fouler things than Orcs, in the deep places of the world…”
–Gandalf
Basically yes. Once you go inside a cave like this, it gets dark real fast. You can’t tell where “up” is and you can’t find your way back. So these people often drown or suffocate.
In cave dive training, you learn how not to do that.
There’s nothing in this cave worth dying for
That’s precisely what someone would say if there’s stuff worth dying for in there.
There’s nothing in this cave worth dying for
There’s nothing outside it to live for. Show me the damn cave
If those spelunkers could read, they’d be very upset.
The best part about underwater cave diving is that you don’t have to go!
Yeah but that’s for other people, not me.
I believe this is one of the caves at Ginnie Springs. If so, I know a guy who died in there. Cave diving is no joke.
You took it further than I would. I’d listen to the sign these days, but there was absolutely a time that, that sign would have just been a challenge.
Edit: for you grammar nerds. Do I need that comma? It seems like it should be there, but it also seems superfluous at the same time.
109 billion people have died outside of underwater caves. I’ll take my chances.