[NMCAVER] Cave divers and dry cavers

[dirtdoc at comcast.net]

Cave divers and dry cavers
 
I have received a fair amount of grief off-line (some rightly called flame) for my comments earlier this week.  First of all, I apologize for my gruff (and in some folks eyes, inappropriate or “flip”) on-line attitude.
 
HOWEVER, there is an important issue here.  I certainly heard a lot of negative comments and doom-saying about this convention in the months leading up to it.  They fell into two categories – perceived fear of having uncomfortable weather (heat, rain, storm, atmospheric disaster) and perceived impossible incompatibility between the cave divers and the dry cavers.  My comments on Monday were obviously intended to chide those folks that I consider (on these topics) to be sorta jerks.  I am glad that those individuals found justification to stay away from this convention.  
 
The individuals named in that inappropriate email were not the real offenders – they are friends that I was chiding in a much less serious way but it did not come across that way.  I should not have named them publically because they were not the culprits at all.  At least I hope that they are still friends!
 
I happen to be an open-water diver, and no way will I consider cave diving where I don’t have air above me just in case.  That is not in my comfort zone. Those of you who know me understand that I was a rock climber and mountaineer before I was a caver, and that in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s I was one of those who brought single-rope and modified rock climbing techniques into the caving community.
 
Some of you also know that at least some cave divers are extremely uncomfortable on rope.  Sheck Exley was one of those.
 
The point being that both technical rope work in caves and cave diving both require very special sets of skills, learned slowly and carefully practiced.  Both require specialized “stuff”.  You can die doing either.  I think everyone involved with either agrees that in general, cave diving requires more training, more “stuff”, and is the less unforgiving of the two.
 
I have enormous respect for the skills of cave divers, just as I have for those routinely traversing the vertical trade routes in the deep and wet shafts of the earth.  I have little tolerance for individuals that consider that one or the other are as crazed as the peach orchard boar.
 
It was nice to overhear useful communication between the two groups here in Florida.
 
No reply is encouraged.  Let’s keep any further discussion of this off-line.
 
DirtDoc
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