unhappy endings

[tbrown]

DRE, that is a good point about Accident Analysis and the wreck diving community (and the reason I thought others might be interested in this link). I would think that as unpleasant as it maybe, examining what happened in the event of a fatality would be benificial, if only so those mistakes would not be repeated. I can only come up with 2 possible reasons why they (wreck community) don't do this, but not being a wreck diver myself may be way off base. Firstly, caves seem to be a more static environment, and there are fewer factors that cause fatalities. I say this because cave divers don't seem to be ran over by boats, get missed in the water and that sort of thing. Not in anyway am I diminishing the risks of caves, it just seems that with wrecks there are a lot more ways to get in trouble, and some are not entirely in your control. Secondly I don't think the wreck community has ever had a powerful spokesperson. Sheck was very influencial in the cave community, and I don't think that wreckdivers have a "point man" like him. Heck, like him or hate him, GI3 has a huge influence on how things are done, and some is even trickling into Rec, and until the wreck community
gets someone like this, I don't think it will fly. It seems with wrecks there are many voices, but no one that really stands out.

Fred, I read a trip report about a guy in Cayman that taught freediving as well as SCUBA. His main point was you should never go on compressed air where you cannot go freediving. Although I am not sure I wholely agree with that, (mostly because I would be able to go no deeper than 10' :-[), I do think you might be on to something. After all, there is absolutely no way that you can have too many skills or too much training to draw on, and freediving ability just might be the straw that saved the camel's back.