Posted by CalAbDiver on July 10, 2001 at 11:04:41:
In Reply to: Re: ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! posted by JohnB on July 09, 2001 at 23:23:32:
when i first moved to california, i learned to tolerate the use of cannibas use by others. i dont condemn it. heck, since it is a plant that grows naturally, then God must have a reason for creating it. but i guess that would hold true for tobacco also.
i dont smoke. i dont chew. and i dont go out with girls who do. i learned that in the boy scouts decades ago. the brainwashing back then worked, and i have never smoked anything and i never will, especially not now, since i have gotten back into scuba.
the girls that i do go out with are pretty wild, however, even though they dont smoke or chew either! sometimes they themselves in fact do interfere with my scuba diving plans. i have had to cancel a diving weekend or two due to having gotten little or no sleep because of that, and therefore being 'unfit to dive' at that point in time, according to PADI D/M standards.
I took a look at PADI's tech program and at NAUI's tech program, and I opted for TDI. I have also been lucky in that I have found one of the best if not the very best TDI instructor around.
Bret Gilliam ad hominem. well i am no expert on that topic so i am not prepared to debate it.
My jury is still out on GUE. But so far, I have some very favorable impressions of them. and Andy Voss is a very nice guy, and highly respected up here in Northern California [read: on the Central California Coast].
I am not a cave diver, so I am not diving into DIR. Cave diving has been held in very high respect since before I can remember. I can remember my very first OW1 class over 25 years ago, where they "made mention" of cave diving:
"In cave diving, you have two of everything. You have total redundancy of equipment. That way, in case anything fails, you have another one of whatever it is to rely upon. In cave diving, you dont get a second chance. You either 'do it right' the first time, or you die. Dont dive in caves unless you first take a special course in it. And then you will find out too that cave divers are different. They are a different kind of people."
I respect cave divers. Even compared to me, cave divers are really crazy. I dont ever want to or plan to go into a cave.
Tunnel of love, yes. Cave, no.
[no pun intended.]