> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee Bell
> Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 9:13 PM
>
> > I would be interested in hearing what else I might have taken
> > into consideration if I had more experience or if
> I'd been cave
> > trained.
>
> 1. If you were certain that you could avoid getting
> stuck, including getting
> equipment hooked on something sufficient to require
> assistance, you had a
> good start.  Did you think about entanglement?  If so,
> you had a better
> start.

What I thought most possible was getting some of my equipment
hung-up on a coral outcrop.  I decided that even were this to
happen, it would not take long to get free, particularly as other
divers were standing by and could assist in this particular
situation.

> 2. You suggest that you were comfortable that there
> was no risk of siltout
> because there was a gravel bottom.  A gravel bottom,
> by itself is no
> guarantee against a silt out from the bottom, but
> accepting that the bottom
> was not a silt risk, the question becomes did you also
> check out the top and
> sides?  The bottom is not the only place silt
> collects.  Siltouts can and
> have been triggered by a diver's bubbles alone.

OK, this is just the kind of thing I was fishing for in sharing
my experience.  I had not been aware of this.  I probably would
have considered it unlikely, though, as this was a popular
swim-through (i.e. frequently disturbed), and situated such that
current would sweep through daily (i.e. silt would be swept
away).

> 3. Another thing you may not have considered is what
> would happen if you had
> an equipment failure, i.e. suddenly had no gas to
> breathe.

Yes, I did consider this.  The DM was positioned at the other end
of the swim-through, watching me.  He would have been able to see
and recognize the standard signals.  (He took the picture of me
at the web page I posted earlier).

> 4. The final thing I can come up with is, if you
> considered the possibility
> that you might have a need to share air, did you
> consider whether sharing
> air would be possible everywhere in the passage?

I also considered this, and judged that it would be possible from
the front at any point along the 4 m. passage.

> This is an excellent example of why you have to be the
> one responsible for
> determining whether or not you are qualified.  The DM knew your
> certification and knew you were not certified for the
> dive, i.e. that you
> had not met the qualifications, the standards included
> in Strike's
> definition of qualification.  His agency would not
> have agreed with his
> decision.  He was, in fact, willing to take you on a
> dive that, by the
> standards of his certifying agency, he should not have
> taken you to in the
> first place.  Even though he did indicate you could
> chose after seeing the
> swimthrough, he compounded his error, at least by his
> agency's standards,
> when he told you "this didn't count."

The dive operation seemed to be of the type that was concerned
about safety issues, but not necessarily guided by the certifying
agencies in what they considered important.  Briefings were
thorough, and a DM did mildly scold my buddy and I when we
surfaced early without him or a sausage.  We were at about 50 bar
at 90 ft, and the DM was with another DM and the other divers
heading deeper, and we judged it safer to surface than to go
chasing after them.  The DM warned us back on the surface of the
currents and the possibility of being swept away from the boat.

> Please take this in the spirit in which it is offered.
>  The more things you
> know to think about, the better job you can do in
> planning to dive safely,
> in staying within what you are qualified to do.  This
> is not a bad thing for
> any of us.

Lee, don't worry; when I posted my experience, I did so to elicit
precisely these kinds of observations.  Without sharing my
thoughts or experiences, I would not have learned as much as I
wanted to about the subject.  I suspected that there were other
important factors to consider, had I been more knowledgable, and
wanted to know what they might be.  Now I'm more knowledgable!

With a wife and four kids, I've already decided to be a bit more
conservative than many other divers I've seen.

Chris