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
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.
Oh those sorts of training conditions absolutely still exist. I got my rescue diving certification in an old quarry much like what you said. Really helps make you appreciate the conditions when out in the Caribbean and you have >100 ft of visibility in every direction.
Oh, I totally agree with you. It’s literally like night and day. You just transported me from those murky depths to those absolutely crystal clear Caribbean waters… So many fun memories in every condition.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Oh those sorts of training conditions absolutely still exist. I got my rescue diving certification in an old quarry much like what you said. Really helps make you appreciate the conditions when out in the Caribbean and you have >100 ft of visibility in every direction.
Oh, I totally agree with you. It’s literally like night and day. You just transported me from those murky depths to those absolutely crystal clear Caribbean waters… So many fun memories in every condition.
New fear unlocked
Caves are also not uniformly shaped, the way you go in could look a lot different on the way out.
This feels like a metaphor for mistakes I’ve made
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 -