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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.
It was a once in a lifetime experience. Which means I'll never do it again.
(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. I have always been here. ---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. I have always been here. ---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. I have always been here. ---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.