If you can't read a book you can look at the pictures

 The deterioration of cave diving, I’d describe it with a Gaussian curve. On the y-axis, the skill of the divers; on the x-axis the quality of the equipment. The curve starts from zero, from the very origins of the activity, and as the equipment quality grows, so does the diver’s capability — because better tools demand and enable better skills. Until it reaches its peak, which in historical terms we’ve already left behind.

Nowadays, no modern diver builds their own harness, buoyancy compensator, lights, and so on, from scratch. Everything is available in shops and, broadly speaking, for every budget. It’s not necessary anymore to be able to repair a torch at the water’s edge, simply because torches rarely break; just as it’s not necessary anymore to be able to untangle a guideline, because we’ve invented the reel, that doesn’t tangle. And so the Gaussian curve descends: even better equipment, and ever less versatile divers. It will never return to zero, of course — excellence will never entirely disappear.

Within the Gaussian curve there is also the diver’s ability to reconstruct the route taken during a dive. If you look at the standards of old certification agencies it is not uncommon to find “elements of survey” in the lessons of the final dives of a basic course. Divers were actually able to reconstruct their route using simple tools such as compass and timer, and to record notable features observed along the way. 

Recently, I witnessed a briefing given by an instructor to his divers: “We will follow the yellow line”. It is true that  the other line was a different color, but maybe, to avoid any issues due to colorblindness, it would’ve been more effective to say: “We will follow the line heading North-West,” given that the other one ran towards the East.

The processing of collected data with the aim of producing informative documents has also suffered deterioration. The activity of surveying was once only the first step towards obtaining a detailed map of the subterranean environment; throughout the years, however, it has become an end itself. The goal is no longer a map, but a mere stick diagram — a two-dimensional representation of a guideline. Divers call themselves “cartographers” for the simple fact of having printed raw, unprocessed data in graphic form.

Cave divers, over time, have unlearned to identify passageways that open up along a wall, and have grown accustomed to seeing only guidelines at whose starting point an arrow-shaped marker has been placed. Those same divers, when shown a detailed map of an underground system, are unable to plan a dive by foreseeing distances, directions, and gas consumption — and believe stick maps are simply easier and more immediate to use, with instructors that think they’re actually safer.

It’s deeply disheartening to read comments of some divers regarding the stick map a system for which a detailed cartography already exists: “The best existing map of that system”, “We want to buy it”, “You should print it and hang it at the entrance of the cenote”

An entire community of cave divers, now incapable of creating their own line maps, unable to read a detailed map, awaits the arrival of the various messiahs who, armed with cutting-edge electronic equipment, project onto a flat surface digital information collected automatically.