Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Last week, the world was riveted by the successful rescue of a youth soccer team as they and their coach were pulled out of a flooded cave in Thailand. The team had been stranded on a narrow rock shelf in the dark for two weeks, the way out blocked by turbid stormwater. The rescue involved far more than a few divers putting on gear and heading into the cave—it required a tremendous amount of technical skill and posed extreme danger.
But why, exactly, was it so dangerous? And what would it feel like to dive in those kinds of conditions?
But to answer the second question, I decided to open my logbook and go back to a dive from many years ago—well before I was diving professionally. As a few select passages below highlight, this was a dive where things almost went fatally wrong.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 23 2018, @12:27PM (10 children)
Many people won't do it because they're afraid of the dark.
Or something like that.
The one time I ever went night diving I swam to what seemed look a good place to chill then switched off my flashlight. I wasn't prepared for what I saw:
It was like floating way out in outer space. This because here and there were individual particles of blue-green algae that looked like stars in the sky.
I was an Amateur Telescope Maker starting when I was 12, then at first majored in Astronomy at Caltech: I ain't no afraid of no darkness.
A while back I read that a survey found that the very greatest fear among the American people is that of walking alone at night.
That makes me very very sad, because for me, among my very greatest _joys_ is that of walking alone at night.
In fact I'll go do so right now! Starbucks is open, and Peets will open soon.
Ciao, Bella!
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Monday July 23 2018, @12:53PM (1 child)
Be 16 y/o me on vacation to mom's family in rural Illinois. Went to see a bunch of relatives and grandpa's grave. On a farm, middle of nowhere, nothing to do. That night sister and I decide to drive into town to see a movie. Movie over, it's raining. Plus, in that neck of the woods you don't have a single road with traffic moving both directions. No, you have a ribbon of asphalt going one way, and maybe a quarter mile away another ribbon of asphalt going the other way. Streetlights? hahaha. Whatever, we weren't sure how to get back to the farm (this was the 70s, no GPS or smartphone). We get to a cemetery, if this is where grandpa is buried I can get us back to the farm.
And that, boys and girls, is how 16 y/o me found hisself wandering around in a cemetery in the dead of night during a thunderstorm, waiting for the next lightning strike so I can read the tombstone.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 23 2018, @01:48PM
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Monday July 23 2018, @03:46PM (4 children)
One of the scariest things i've ever done is do my first dive after watching Jaws: going head first down through a deck hatch on a sunken ship, fully expecting to get my head taken off.
Must have emptied my tank a little faster than usual that day with all those fast, short breaths, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Monday July 23 2018, @07:31PM (3 children)
And if a random foot-long fish had greeted you by rushing out that hatch, you'd have emptied the lower ballast tank even quicker.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday July 23 2018, @09:24PM (2 children)
DAMN STRAIGHT, motha fecker!
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @05:26AM (1 child)
Like a squid. Shit out your ink, boy.
I always suspected you were a spineless sucker and this confirms it.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:22PM
Spineless sucker, says anonymous coward.
Come on, big boy, give me your name and address and we'll talk about this.
Yeah...didn't think so, pansy boy.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Funny) by shortscreen on Monday July 23 2018, @05:24PM (1 child)
That survey must have been missing the option for "trapped in a cave full of water."
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:19AM
I think both of your surveys are missing "Speaking in Public" which probably outranks them both.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday July 24 2018, @09:22AM
I wouldn't. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday July 23 2018, @12:30PM (6 children)
It's a nice story and quite believable. I knew a very experienced cave diver who drowned. The recovery team found nothing wrong with his gear, he was on the line, he simply ran out of air.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @01:15PM (5 children)
The one question to ask about any cave diver: are they a pedo guy/gal [newsweek.com]?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by rleigh on Monday July 23 2018, @04:02PM (4 children)
My respect for Musk plummeted after these remarks. Being a billionaire doesn't give you the right to libel people by making baseless accusations, particularly ones with potentially lethal consequences. I hope he gets sued successfully for his petulant tantrum.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @05:14PM (2 children)
He doesn't need to be respected. He just needs to deliver (on BFR), and stay quiet if his tongue or tweets are going to cause any irreversible harm.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @09:11PM
Papa John's SJW PR agency should go and entrap and eject Musk from his own company.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @05:29AM
The President disagrees.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:32AM
Typically people blame others for their hidden sins. Hereby I declare Musk a pedophile and commit to always refer to him as such: "Musk the pedophile".
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Gaaark on Monday July 23 2018, @03:48PM (3 children)
"Why did a coach take my kid into a cave", is what i'd be asking. Was it for a little "Show me your cave, i'll show you mine?"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Freeman on Monday July 23 2018, @04:28PM
Apparently it's a touristy kind of thing for them to do, like going to a state park. They just weren't keeping tabs on the weather and were forced to move farther in / up to escape rising waters. I was very curious about the whole "Why / how in the world did they get stuck there in the first place?" aspect of the story. It took quite a bit of digging, because no one was saying how/why they were stuck. At least not in most of the front page stuff I was seeing.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday July 23 2018, @08:07PM (1 child)
The cave is like a local park, the group had apparently intended on something like a picnic or a party in or near the cave, but have refused to discuss the specifics (the team and the thai gov't are very big on privacy). This is probably why the news doesn't bring it up much. Apparently this cave is often used for such things during the dry months of the year.
The cave is normally closed starting in July for the rainy season. They entered about week before the end of June; they apparently didn't check that this year's torrential rains were a week ahead of schedule. So they were trapped because they didn't plan well probably, or perhaps were merely unlucky.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @05:34AM
**climate change proponent detected - autoresponder initiated **
FAKES NEWS! What about guns eh? What about snow in WINTER!! International take-over. Socialsim. Etc.