Posted by Jason on August 03, 2000 at 16:35:28:
In Reply to: Re: ???????????? posted by Jim Hoffmann on August 03, 2000 at 16:03:02:
Jim, this is a risk. I remember hearing it from some that
felt that diving in the Faralon Islands was too fucking
dangerous, and would hurt the sport overall due to bad
publicity.
I think it's a risk that we spend too much time worrying
about. We the public let our officials protect us far too
often. We now have mandatory helmet laws for motorcycles,
and the same jackass was talking about extended that to
equestrian riders.
People die climbing Mt Whitney every season, in part because
to climb it in a day requires that you travel light, and bet
that an afternoon storm won't arise. The consequence there
of the cost of rescues is that the person picking up the
permit may have to watch a video segment on the peak.
If the SD boats advertize this as a easy to penetrate
wreck,that might happen. If they properly describe it and
a few people die, so what? What was the reaction after
the Douglass deaths on the Moody? It should be enough to
have a secondary waiver describing the risks of wreck
penetration. (This would be similar to the one i signed for
the Farallones)
The biggest threat to us in California is bad drivers, and
yet we put up with that. It's only in these leisure pursuits,
in my mind the only point of living on the planet, that we
get these urges to be protected by legislation. We need
to unelect those that would seek to.
Requiring wreck training is inappropriate for a site
that many will happily swim around and not into. An
alternative may be to cut more hatches on the top edge
of the hull.