Not strange at all, Jimmy..

Yes, cave diving is one of the most dangerous activities somebody can engage in.. mostly unknown environment, quite often uncharted areas, and that pesky issue of needing to breath and only having a limited air supply..

But seriously, it takes a MORON to die in a cave dive.. For a certified cave diver, cave diving is no more dangerous than skydiving out of a plane.. Your only REAL issue, if you know what you're doing and respect the rules of the sport, is equipment failure.. A good friend of mines brother was a skydiving teacher.. He knew everything there was to know about how to skydive safely and STILL, his primary didn't open, and he fought with his backup chute which began to open right before he was killed hitting the ground..

So, accidents happen.. Accidents happen in cave diving due to equipment failure.. but you always stack the odds in your favor.. you take a backup tank of air with you, you take Spare Air tanks (little handheld tank) with you, you tie a string at the mouth and reel it out through the cave and put directional markers on the line to show the fastest way out.. and you NEVER cave dive alone.. You do what you can to remain safe, but, still, accidents happen and I can live with that.. Accidents happen in your own home.. sh*t happens, so to speak..

But, it IRRITATES me to no end when a brand new diver jumps into a cave with no training and no guide or proper equipment and then dies out of pure stupidity.. they don't stick to the pre-laid string paths, they go down other passages that have signs saying DON'T GO DOWN THIS PATH UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE.. and they do it anyway.. and they die. and the cave gets shut down as being unsafe..

When we go cave diving, we always discuss the deaths in the caves since our last cave dives.. in every case it was diver error.. somebody doing something they shouldn't have done.. I follow the rules.. being there alone is enough excitement for me.. as a result, I relax more on cave dives than anywhere else on Earth.. its so peaceful, so quiet, so mesermizingly beautiful..

The caves can be absolutely stunning.. and they can be absolutely creepy.. they can be a source of inspiration and they can be a source of death.. Following the proper guides and safety rules, I'd have no issues taking you through some of the caves.. Some of them are easy and barely underground with lots of openings to the surface.. You would be amazed.. I wouldn't let the stupidity of some other people keep you from experiencing that.. I'll try to edit some vid this weekend of the easy dives and the more difficult dives..

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Friendship is like peeing your pants.. Everybody can see it, but only you can feel the warmth..