How about this, there’s people that do this underwater. They take the tank off their back, push it out ahead of them. If they get stuck, they don’t have 27 hours to try and figure their shit out, they have a couple hours at best
Normal spelunking, minimal vertical work, the occasional belly crawl no smaller than a manhole. That’s actually a pretty good time. You get wet, dirty, have a few laughs with your friends, and then shake it off with some beers back at the campsite. No need to go aggressive with ridiculously tight crawls and/or 100’s of feet of vertical work, etc.
Cave diving? Let’s take an activity where it’s very easy to loose track of time, and add SCUBA which requires time management down to the minute for your health and survival. Nevermind getting lost, disoriented, or wedged underwater somewhere. I get that this is very intrepid stuff, and the very distant corners of cave systems are being explored this way. But it’s a big no for me; the risk does not justify the reward, IMO.
SCUBA is even worse because any movement kicks up sediment, so that visibility quickly turns to nil. Cave diving has a very, very high mortality rate; BASE jumping is safer.
How about this, there’s people that do this underwater. They take the tank off their back, push it out ahead of them. If they get stuck, they don’t have 27 hours to try and figure their shit out, they have a couple hours at best
That’s where I draw the line.
Normal spelunking, minimal vertical work, the occasional belly crawl no smaller than a manhole. That’s actually a pretty good time. You get wet, dirty, have a few laughs with your friends, and then shake it off with some beers back at the campsite. No need to go aggressive with ridiculously tight crawls and/or 100’s of feet of vertical work, etc.
Cave diving? Let’s take an activity where it’s very easy to loose track of time, and add SCUBA which requires time management down to the minute for your health and survival. Nevermind getting lost, disoriented, or wedged underwater somewhere. I get that this is very intrepid stuff, and the very distant corners of cave systems are being explored this way. But it’s a big no for me; the risk does not justify the reward, IMO.
SCUBA is even worse because any movement kicks up sediment, so that visibility quickly turns to nil. Cave diving has a very, very high mortality rate; BASE jumping is safer.
at least in a water cave you die with a predictable speed.
Not to mention unexpected currents that can either smack you against nearby rocks or sweep you further downward in an uncontrolled manner.