To add to your requirement for patience as a sailor. I would add the discussion of multiple failures. This is a lesson I learned in all the years I was cave diving. Like sailing, cave diving is not a sport for anyone in a rush either. It is a sport for the humble and those very much in touch with their capabilities and what can go wrong. Cave diving is not a sport where if you overextend your limits you have a scar to show off or wear a cast for a month. In cave diving, you just die. In reading through all of the very unfortunate accident reports and thus, deaths, in cave diving, one looks at the few incidents involving divers with very advanced training with bewilderment. Yes, people with just open scuba certification, believing they can get away with a short cave exploration die. Wrong gear, no training, no understanding of the environment. Very tragic, very horrible and very avoidable. However, what happened to those who were obviously well in command of their training and understanding of the sport? In short, what happened to these people? That could be me!
Preparing for a moderate dive with a dive partner. Note there are no less than 8 scuba tanks in this photo. Cave diving, like other exploration, requires over preparation to make a journey an amazing experience, not a tragedy.
Circa 2001 at Jackson Blue in Marianna, Florida. A well trained cave diver has a very different set of equipment to an open water diver in order to deal with the environment. Here I have double 95 (white) tanks behind me and one aluminum 80(blue, typical size scuba tank) on each of my sides. Note the dry suit and two dive computers on my left wrist. The yellow hose is my primary regulator the backup is around my neck. A humble approach to exploration and redundant gear for self rescue is the cave diver's survival mantra. So it should be with sailors.
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