On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:34:26 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

I'll try fishing although I am a poor fisherman. Mostly, I like to
explore cool places. Suggestions?

If you want to explore cool places, take up caving. Caves are at the
annual average temperature, 55 F or so. Do not swim into flooded
caves. If you do, you will die in one sooner or later.

On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:21:26 GMT, (Richard
Casady) wrote:

If you want to explore cool places, take up caving. Caves are at the
annual average temperature, 55 F or so. Do not swim into flooded
caves. If you do, you will die in one sooner or later.

Like this one?

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/4503/cave.jpg

:-)

On Mar 18, 11:19 am, wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:21:26 GMT, (Richard

Casady) wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:34:26 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

I'll try fishing although I am a poor fisherman. Mostly, I like to
explore cool places. Suggestions?

If you want to explore cool places, take up caving. Caves are at the
annual average temperature, 55 F or so. Do not swim into flooded
caves. If you do, you will die in one sooner or later.

Froggy knows a lot more about caves than you do.

Richard:
Are you a caver? Do you go to the TAG party in October? If so, we
should meet there.
Am a long time caver. Now my kids are cavers and my 12 yr old
daughter pesters me every day about "When can we go caving again".
She looks over every bit of land we go near trying to decide if it is
"cavish". My 23 yr old daughter has been going to TAG and to local
caver meetings for a couple of years too.
My days of "hard core" caving are past but I still do easier trips.

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:19:38 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

On Mar 18, 11:19 am, wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:21:26 GMT, (Richard

Casady) wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:34:26 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

I'll try fishing although I am a poor fisherman. Mostly, I like to
explore cool places. Suggestions?

If you want to explore cool places, take up caving. Caves are at the
annual average temperature, 55 F or so. Do not swim into flooded
caves. If you do, you will die in one sooner or later.

Froggy knows a lot more about caves than you do.

Richard:
Are you a caver? Do you go to the TAG party in October? If so, we
should meet there.
Am a long time caver. Now my kids are cavers and my 12 yr old
daughter pesters me every day about "When can we go caving again".
She looks over every bit of land we go near trying to decide if it is
"cavish". My 23 yr old daughter has been going to TAG and to local
caver meetings for a couple of years too.
My days of "hard core" caving are past but I still do easier trips.

Not a caver, but I have been far enough into one, on a 100 degree day,
to really really enjoy the 55 F. This was before factory air in cars.
There was a limestone formation that was almost pure Crinoid stem
fragments. They sold sawn blocks of it for bookends.

I read about three brothers from Iowa in a magazine. I guess caves are
mostly flooded in Florida, but, in any case, the three of them swam
into a cave until they had used more than half their air. They had a
camera and were taking pictures after it was already too late to make
it to the entrance. Their first cave dive. Any fool can figure air is
like air combat fuel. 1/4 to get there, 1/4 to party, 1/4, to get
home. That leaves 1/4 for contingencies. Something like that.

I saw in the paper, I think it was, that some kid had found his very
own narrow place in a cave, and gotten wedged. They were using power
tools to get him out. The one thing the kid did right was to be in a
group.

There is a museum in Chicago that has a coal mine underneath. You just
take an elevator, same as any shaft mine. It isn't a cave, but there
is lots of rock over your head. Museum of Science and Industry. The
place with the Stuka and the U-boat.

Casady

Richard Casady wrote:
On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:19:38 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

On Mar 18, 11:19 am, wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:21:26 GMT, (Richard

Casady) wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:34:26 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:
I'll try fishing although I am a poor fisherman. Mostly, I like to
explore cool places. Suggestions?
If you want to explore cool places, take up caving. Caves are at the
annual average temperature, 55 F or so. Do not swim into flooded
caves. If you do, you will die in one sooner or later.
Froggy knows a lot more about caves than you do.
Richard:
Are you a caver? Do you go to the TAG party in October? If so, we
should meet there.
Am a long time caver. Now my kids are cavers and my 12 yr old
daughter pesters me every day about "When can we go caving again".
She looks over every bit of land we go near trying to decide if it is
"cavish". My 23 yr old daughter has been going to TAG and to local
caver meetings for a couple of years too.
My days of "hard core" caving are past but I still do easier trips.

Not a caver, but I have been far enough into one, on a 100 degree day,
to really really enjoy the 55 F. This was before factory air in cars.
There was a limestone formation that was almost pure Crinoid stem
fragments. They sold sawn blocks of it for bookends.

I read about three brothers from Iowa in a magazine. I guess caves are
mostly flooded in Florida, but, in any case, the three of them swam
into a cave until they had used more than half their air. They had a
camera and were taking pictures after it was already too late to make
it to the entrance. Their first cave dive. Any fool can figure air is
like air combat fuel. 1/4 to get there, 1/4 to party, 1/4, to get
home. That leaves 1/4 for contingencies. Something like that.

I saw in the paper, I think it was, that some kid had found his very
own narrow place in a cave, and gotten wedged. They were using power
tools to get him out. The one thing the kid did right was to be in a
group.

There is a museum in Chicago that has a coal mine underneath. You just
take an elevator, same as any shaft mine. It isn't a cave, but there
is lots of rock over your head. Museum of Science and Industry. The
place with the Stuka and the U-boat.

Casady



I went into a couple of coal mines when I worked for The AP. It was
damned scary being down under all that rock. I did not get the same
feelings of fear in the natural caves tourists like me visit near the
Shenandoah River.


--
The morality police - the bloviating gas bags of the religious right -
have fallen lower than the stock market. It has truly been an amazing
(and amusing) thing to watch these so-called "spokesmen of Christ"
defending their morally indefensible positions these days. Finally -
they're going away. It seems an answer to a prayer. Thank you, Lord.

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:02:26 -0400, HK wrote:

I went into a couple of coal mines when I worked for The AP. It was
damned scary being down under all that rock. I did not get the same
feelings of fear in the natural caves tourists like me visit near the
Shenandoah River.

A cave is stable, short term, and the rock usually won't move, short
of an earthquake. In a mine, the support has been removed, and
sometimes replaced with not enough costly timber shoring. Or in the
case of coal, they would leave too small and too widely spaced pillars
of coal that they would rather sell. Then they tease it with constant
blasting or digging. It can take a while for things to reach
equilibrium after a blast, and sometimes you can hear the timbers
groaning. The trifecta of dangerous trades: Farming, fishing, and
mining.

Casady

On Mar 23, 9:20 am, Richard Casady
wrote:
On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:02:26 -0400, HK wrote:
I went into a couple of coal mines when I worked for The AP. It was
damned scary being down under all that rock. I did not get the same
feelings of fear in the natural caves tourists like me visit near the
Shenandoah River.

A cave is stable, short term, and the rock usually won't move, short
of an earthquake. In a mine, the support has been removed, and
sometimes replaced with not enough costly timber shoring. Or in the
case of coal, they would leave too small and too widely spaced pillars
of coal that they would rather sell. Then they tease it with constant
blasting or digging. It can take a while for things to reach
equilibrium after a blast, and sometimes you can hear the timbers
groaning. The trifecta of dangerous trades: Farming, fishing, and
mining.

Casady

Casady:

Very true. Natural rockfalls in caves are very rare. Most of the
rocks that could fall already did so long ago. In all my years of
caving, I only saw one rock fall by itself. I know of only 1 fatality
due to rockfall. in N Alabama in War Eagle pit in 1983 when a bus
sized rock fell on 3 cavers.
Mines OTOH are supposed to be unstable so they can get ore out.
Look at the formations in caves, those things take centuries to form
and wouldnt be there if the place was unstable.
The greatest danger in caves is from falling.
Dont get me started talking about caving, i won't be able to stop.

On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:42:55 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

Very true. Natural rockfalls in caves are very rare. Most of the
rocks that could fall already did so long ago. In all my years of
caving, I only saw one rock fall by itself.

Some mountain climbing involves walls, that is more than 60 deg.
Water will seep into cracks in the rock and freeze at night, expanding
the crack. It stays in place for the time being, glued in place by the
ice. Next day, when the climbers are on it, the ice melts, and the
rocks loosened the night before come down in a steady shower.
The Eiger, in the Alps, is notorious in the literature, and a movie,
for deadly falling rock. Caves don't usually have freeze/thaw. And,
while you can get seriously wet in a cave, there is no wind.

Casady

On Mar 18, 11:19*am, wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:21:26 GMT, (Richard

Casady) wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:34:26 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

I'll try fishing although I am a poor fisherman. *Mostly, I like to
explore cool places. *Suggestions?

If you want to explore cool places, take up caving. Caves are at the
annual average temperature, 55 F or so. Do not swim into flooded
caves. If you do, you will die in one sooner or later.

Froggy knows a lot more about caves than you do.

Hey! I guess you're done watching American Idol re-runs for awhile, eh?

On Mar 20, 2:04 pm, wrote:
On Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:59:17 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
On Mar 18, 11:19 am, wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:21:26 GMT, (Richard

Casady) wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:34:26 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

I'll try fishing although I am a poor fisherman. Mostly, I like to
explore cool places. Suggestions?

If you want to explore cool places, take up caving. Caves are at the
annual average temperature, 55 F or so. Do not swim into flooded
caves. If you do, you will die in one sooner or later.

Froggy knows a lot more about caves than you do.

Hey! I guess you're done watching American Idol re-runs for awhile, eh?

???

I consider cave diving an elaborate form of suicide although I can
sure understand the desire to do it. Had a good friend who died cave
diving, he was 280' down breathing what was an experimental mix at
that time (1985) but is currently known as trinox. His suit inflated
carrying him very quickly to the top of a dome over 150' high. When
they got him back down, he was acting strangely and would not swim
through the serious constriction. They waited as long as they could
and then went for more air. When they got back, he was dead of
course. Autopsy later revealed brain embolism due to the rapid
ascent.
We actually do have dry caves in FL. There are large dry caves nearby
in South Georgia too.
Many people think thye are claustrophobic but I have never seen it in
a cave even in novices. Being a caver, I have no problem crawling
into my sailboat engine compartment and actually crawling under the
engine.
One thing caving has in common with sailing is the type of rope used.
Sailors want no stretch halyards and cavers want no stretch ropes.
When you are on the end of a 600' rope, stretchy bouncy rope will make
you sick. When I was really into vertical caving, climbing my halyard
was no biggie but I am now afraid of heights.
A few times I have been able to combine caving and boating by canoeing
into a cave entrance. A few caves here in Fl can only be reached from
canoe or kayak. My dream is to sail to that river in Guatemala that
has huge limestone cliffs where sailors use as a hurricane hole and
explore the caves in said cliffs.