Posted on 10/18/2016 9:19:22 AM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Two divers have drowned while inside a deadly cave system described as the 'Mount Everest' for underwater explorers. Patrick Peacock and Chris Rittenmeyer were in the Eagle's Nest diver area in Weeki Wachee, Florida, with a friend, Justin Blakely, on Saturday. They were missing for about three hours before Blakely called police to report the incident.
The dive site is about 50 miles north of Tampa, and the trio was there for a three-day trip, according to WFLA. Divers have referred to the caves as the 'Mount Everest' or 'Grand Canyon' of dives. Peacock and Rittenmeyer were experienced divers, and they decided to tackle the incredibly dangerous caves - ignoring severe warning signs.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Northern Florida has a lot of those springs.
There are several near me including Morrison Springs and Vortex Springs. My middle name is Morrison and I assume that spring is named for someone in my family.
The last time I heard, Morrison Springs had claimed over 30 divers lives. I am not sure about Vortex but it too has claimed some. Some of these spring systems are huge and the outflow is also large.
You could not pay me enough to go into those caves even if I were an experienced diver. I do know one who says they are safe if you know what you are doing.
Yes my parents live right up the road from Weeki Wachee. My mom says there is a chamber big enough to park a jumbo jet, hidden right under the highway.
I love the park, love the water and the river. I imagine it’s quite magical under there. But the currents are so very strong, I don’t know how anyone can go in without some kind of safety tether to help them get back out.
Cave diving is probably the most dangerous sport in the world.
Diving with Great Whites without a cage is less dangerous.
I used to scuba dive (PADI certified). Have seen some incredible things under the water.
That said, you could not pay me enough to cave dive. Diving itself is dangerous enough even if you are trained. I have seen certified divers make mistakes that almost got them killed. Also once had an equipment (regulator) failure at 110 feet. Scary, but had a backup (octopus) and simply went to the surface while taking proper safety stops. You cannot do that if your are in a cave.
Cave diving is exponentially more dangerous. As the sign in the article says, there’s nothing worth seeing in a cave that’s worth dying for.
Yup.
After last week’s video, WITH A CAGE ain’t exactly safe either!...............
I took a SCUBA class in college, as a PE class. My instructor was going to lead a group to Cancun for diving that Spring and I was excited at the thought. I simply could’nt bring myself to allow the apparatus to breathe for me, so I had to drop out of the class. A week or so after that Spring break, I saw a former classmate who had gone on the dive. The instructor was lost.....they searched for hours after she didn’t turn up on schedule and went back to the area the next day to search some more. They could only conclude that she had developed nitrogen narcosis and just swam off. She was extremely overweight (so perhaps should have floated to the surface if she had been attacked by something), but was also extremely experienced. No sign of her ever again.
Ginnie springs is really cool and a relatively safe place to experience scuba diving in a fresh water spring.
http://ginniespringsoutdoors.com/dive.php#Ginnie Spring
The article said they found them in ~260 ft of water. Assuming they dove to that depth and weren’t carried down by currents, that’s quite deep for scuba equipment, isn’t it?
Yes, very.
VERY deep. You actually have to use a special air mixture to go much below 100 feet. (I went 110 feet with a “normal” tank, and even that was probably pushing it a little.) Other factors are involved, for example your weighting, buoyancy compensator, etc.
Deep dives over about 100 feet are dangerous enough. Deep cave dives are basically borderline suicide.
VERY deep. You actually have to use a special air mixture to go much below 100 feet. (I went 110 feet with a “normal” tank, and even that was probably pushing it a little.) Other factors are involved, for example your weighting, buoyancy compensator, etc.
Deep dives over about 100 feet are dangerous enough. Deep cave dives are basically borderline suicide.
Sorry for the double post.
You can do both shark diving and cave diving in the Blue Hole near Ambergris Caye in Belize. About 100' feet down in the Blue Hole is a cave network that has never been completely explored, and to add to the excitement you frequently have to swim through Hammerhead Sharks to get to the cave.
It was probably a screw-up or misunderstanding on the part of the reporter. Maybe they were 260 ft from the entrance. Hard to believe they dived to 260 ft deep - if they did, what the hell were they thinking? Nitrogen narcosis would be very likely if diving to that depth with normal compressed air, from what I understand.
A whole list of things can go wrong at that depth, oxygen poisoning and nitrogen narcosis being only two. And with normal air in a compressed tank at that depth? You’re basically dead.
Looking at the picture of the spring they dove, it does not look 260 feet wide. Hence, they probably were found at 260 feet down. That does not mean they died at 260 feet down. They may have sunk that far after dying.
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