CCR Explorer

Open Water Divers in Caves

2011-08-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

This spent this last week cave diving in Cave Country, Florida. I saw something at Ginnie Springs that was truly amazing! I am coming out of The Devil's Eye, when I notice that there are two open water divers down past the sign. To make maters even more amazing, they only had one light between the two of them, and to top it off, one of them was towing a float with a flag on it, attached to a long yellow nylon rope inside the cave! Wonders never cease to amaze me.

I escorted both of them out of the cave, took them to the surface and tried to explain to them just how dangerous their actions were. Their response to me was "It's OK, we're local!" Like this is some kind of excuse for dangerous behavior!

Dive Addicts in Cozumel

2011-07-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

Just returned from a great week of diving in Cozumel with 28 divers from Dive Addicts, www.diveaddicts.com

Even though this was just a recreational open water dive trip, we had a great time! We stayed at the Fiesta American, and all-inclusive resort located on the South end of town. The in-house dive operation, Dive House, did a great job, and we were very satisfied with the service and the level of the dive operation. The boats were large, spacious and comfortable with a covered roof for those of us that wanted a little protection from the sun.

The rooms were nice at the resort and the facilities were more than adequate. The large swimming pool was great for after diving relaxation, and the meals were pretty good as well.

The only complaint I really had during the week was the stinking mosquitoes! They were out in mass, and I came home with 53 mosquito bites that were just driving me crazy!

The diving was typical Cozumel drift style, with all dives being led by very competent dive masters. Of course, the beautiful walls and swim-throughs are always spectacular, and the underwater life was as good as I have ever seen it in Cozumel. I’m assuming that due to the currents, the fish and crustaceans grow to bigger than normal size. It seemed like almost every species we saw was enormous!

On our last dive of the trip, we had the opportunity to spend a couple of minutes with a giant Loggerhead turtle, which was the largest turtle I have ever seen underwater! It’s head was at least 12 inches across if not larger and its shell was at least 5 feet long or longer. It must have been very old, as its back was encrusted with barnacles and marine growth. The turtle must have been near blind as it kept swimming and bumping into us!

Great trip. Cozumel as usual was pretty decent diving! Easy to get to, and the price tag for the week was less than a thousand dollars including lodging, food and diving. Not bad!

Interesting Deep Saturation Diving Project in New York City

2011-06-16T16:36:00.001-07:00

Thought you might enjoy this article in the New York Times about work on the New York City water system:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/nyregion/23tunnel.html?pagewanted=all

(Thanks to Eric Dasque for the link! www.thinkingdiver.com)

U-534 German WWII U-boat

2011-06-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

Fascinating story about the U-534 a WWII German U-boat sunk by the Australian Air Force.

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/classicvids/8231644/classic-from-the-deep

Enjoy!

Diving in Palau May 8, 2011

2011-05-22T22:45:00.001-07:00

Ripping currents, loads of fish including manta rays, turtles, sharks, Napoleon wrasse, tuna, barracudas, jacks and other large fish, provided continuous entertainment on most of the 25 dives that we did that week, aboard the Palau Aggressor. The topside islands, true to their reputation, are one of the most beautiful sites on earth. They look like someone dropped dark green dumplings in a perfectly clear and still blue ocean. We saw literally hundreds of small-uninhabited picture perfect islands that pock mark the Philippine Sea.

Gwen and I spent the week of May 8^th doing up to 5 dives per day, on a very well run live-a-board. The Palau Aggressor is a catamaran that is very stable as well as spacious. The crew was top notch and ran the boat without any hitches. The chef was from NYC and did an excellent job in continuing to surprise us with amazing food at each meal.

The diving was very good, maybe not the very best that I have done, but very good nonetheless. The most exciting dives of the week were usually the channel dives where there was a ripping current that attracted the large pelagics. We would typically swim as a group to the staging area where we would hook into the reef with the supplied reef hooks and wait for the action to start. A few times we got skunked, but more often than not, we had a great show! Due to the ever changing currents and the fact that we were typically drift diving, the entire boat usually dived as one large group or two smaller groups. If I had any one complaint, it would be that diving as a large 16-person group can get a little tedious, however the advantage of diving from a live-a-board far outweighs the problems with a crowd. Although most of the sites would have been easily accessible from one of the numerous day boats that ply their trade in the area, the advantage of the live-a-board is that you don’t spend long trips on small boats all day long.

Blue Corner, Big Drop Off, Peleliu Corner, and German Channel were some of the best sites of the week, with the most action!

We also did a 3-hour land tour in Peleliu, which was fascinating! We saw lots of WWII relics including a Japanese and American tank, as well as Japanese gun placements. We saw Orange Beach where 3000 US servicemen lost their lives trying to make their way to shore. The Japanese were entrenched in over 600 caves on the island, and what was supposed to be a quick 3-day process to secure the island, ended up taking 78 days and was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. A very sobering site and one that I will not forget soon!

Gwen and I shared the boat with 14 other divers who were all Russians from Moscow. This was an experience in and of itself! The Russian divers were a hardy bunch, but also in typical Russian fashion spent much of each night drinking vodka and Jack Daniels and smoking cigars! Probably not an ideal combination for diving, but they seemed to have amazing stamina!

Diving in Palau is something that everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime. Unique and beautiful scenery both above and below the water!

Advanced Trimix Training at Lake Mead

2011-03-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Josh and I were at Lake Mead, outside of Las Vegas training a group of divers in an Advanced Trimix class and another group finishing up their Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures. We had a great time, with the exception that I managed to get all the way down there and forgot my dry suit! I had to have it flown down on Delta! What a pain the rear!

Water temp was 54 degrees at the surface and 52 at depth. Nice brisk dive! We were very lucky with the weather. We had very windy evenings and were afraid that we were going to get blown out a couple of times, which wouldn't have been the first time at Lake Mead!

We had a great time with the group which consisted of Richard Lamb, Amy Smith, Jack Weimer and Jeannie Weimer who all completed their Advanced Trimix and Todd DuLaney and Ray Kovuisa who completed their Adv. Nitrox and Deco Procedures.

This is a picture of Ray's special super hero Finish Rubber Man Suit! All one piece, it made underwater communications take on a whole new meaning with his rubber mittens! You can see Jack standing next to Ray is concerned about something!

Cave Country right after Christmas

2011-02-05T17:52:00.000-08:00

Josh, Michael and I spent 8 days in Cave Country at our house in Ft. White, Florida www.cavecountrylodging.com starting the day after Christmas this year. We were working on a CCR Cave Instructor course with Phil Short from the UK.

I had an absolutely wonderful time! Diving anytime with my boys is a great experience, but also being challenged both physically and mentally, made for memorable experiences! I saw parts of Ginnie Springs that I had never been in previously, including a beautiful little syphon that was absolutely gorgeous! We did the Grand Traverse from Orange Grove to Peacock 1, several long traverses in Ginnie, and had a good long swim in Little River. Over all, we spent about 20 hours underwater that week, and really had a great time!

As usual, Phil puts on a very demanding course and I went to bed each night dead dog tired! Of course, I always enjoy diving with my boys and we had some very memorable experiences. 8 straight days of fairly aggressive cave diving, and I was about ready for a day or so rest! At least I was pretty much able to keep up with them. The old man hasn't completely lost it just yet!

By the way, did I mention that it was stinking cold? It was only 18 degrees the first night we arrived!

I'm looking forward to getting back down there again in April for some more cave diving!

Papua New Guinea with Dive Addicts

2010-11-21T21:39:00.001-08:00

Papua New Guinea November 3^rd-17^th, 2010

Traveling from Draper, Utah to Papua New Guinea is one of the more horrendous travel experiences I have personally had. 2 ½ days of full on travel with overnights in Brisbane, Australia and Port Moresby, PNG (the murder capital of the world!), somewhat lively discussions with Air Nuigini personnel over weight restrictions, very tired travelers, and stiff muscles, but all was forgotten about by the time we finally rolled into Walindi Resort in Kimbe PNG. With friends and loved ones asking us if we needed our head examined, we were determined to make it to one of the premier dive destinations on the planet! We actually were returning to the site of a pervious Dive Addicts trip aboard the Star Dancer, a luxury liveaboard that calls Kimbe PNG home. Our trip in 2007 was an amazing experience, and this trip lived up to our expectations!

After a nice lunch at the Walindi Resort, we boarded the Star Dancer to find that she had undergone a retrofit since our last trip in 2007. New ownership and a new captain were a welcome relief and the crew commanded by Christopher Guglielmo a native Floridian by way of several years in the Turks and Caicos, assisted by Yuki Kawamura, a young Japanese girl who served as Trip Director and Dive Master, as well as several PNG locals, the boat was in tip top shape and ran extremely efficiently and comfortably. The food was top notch and plentiful. Captain Christopher is a world-class underwater photographer and was very helpful at assisting and giving helpful hints to guests when requested.

Our Dive Addicts group consisted of 10 people including Randy & Gwen Thornton, Doug & Carrie Larson, Alex Miller & Andrea Kelly, Doug & Amy Smith, and Mike & Nikki Robinson. Our itinerary included Kimbe Bay, Witu Islands and Fathers Islands. PNG offers a wide variety of animal encounters with the widest variety of bio-diversity found on earth. One of the most exciting adventures for new divers coming to PNG is the small critters found on the “muck dives”. Muck dives in PNG consist of diving in usually dark sand from the many local volcanoes. Found amongst the rumble, palm fronds, coconuts, and various and assorted trash on the bottom, you can find some of the coolest small unusual creatures found anywhere. Pipe Fish, Leafy Ghost Fish, Leafy Scorpion Fish, Mandarin Fish, Mantis Shrimp, Decorator Crabs, Twin Spotted Gobies, Blue Ring Octopus, Unidentified Ringed Octopus, Enormous Sea Cucumbers, numerous Nudibranchs of all types shapes, sizes and colors, Hermit Crabs, Upside Down Jelly Fish, Boxer Crabs, Moray Eels of several variety, Twin Spotted Lion Fish, Ornate Ghost Pipe Fish, Blue Ribbon Eel, Rock Moving Wrasse, Juvenile Spotted Sweet Lips, Flamed Colored Dart Fish, Bi-Colored Dart Fish,

Our diving on the bommies included lots of sitings of Bump Head Parrot, Napoleon Wrasse, Silver Tip Shark, White Tip Shark, Grey Reef Shark, Squid, Cuttle Fish, Spiny Devil Fish, Lion Fish, as well as all of the usual suspects.

We participated in a couple of different shark feeds and got up close and personal with a gaggle of White Tips and Grey Reef Sharks who were not shy about getting right up in your face.

Papua New Guinea is a photographer’s and videographer’s paradise. There is something virtually on every dive to grab your attention and challenge your skills! The water temperature during our 8 days was a balmy 87 degrees Fahrenheit! Many of the guests went without wetsuits or skins and simply dove with a rash guard. The water conditions ranged from raging current to virtually no current in bathtub type conditions. We dove on mostly bomies (sea pinnacles) in the mornings and in the afternoon and nights mostly in more protected sites. The dive masters were top-notch young PNG local boys who were able to pick out even the smallest creatures who us mere mortals were oblivious to!

While in the Walindi Islands, we had the chance to visit a local village. A guy named Dicki, who has lived on the island for 45 years running a Copra plantation, took us through the local village and introduced us to the folks there. Most of the adults were up the hill at their garden spot while the kids were home mowing the lawns with bush-whackers, a large machete type knife. The kids were unbelievably sweet and followed us around posing for pictures and smiling from ear to ear. They were thrilled to practice their English. Each island has its own unique language that is unintelligible to the people on the islands next door. In PNG there are over 867 unique languages with Pidgin the common language spoken throughout PNG as well as a fare amount of English. There are over 50 political parties and no one prime minister has lasted their entire 5-year term. Indigenous counting systems are more than 50. One counting system is based on the joints of the body and nose!

The people of PNG are generally quite pleasant and friendly, with the notable exception being the hoodlums who run around Port Moresby. Once out of Port Moresby, the people were always excited to see us. There are still quite a bit of territorial village/tribal protectionism. Apparently, the week before we arrived, a group of 6 men were hacked to death when their boat ran out of gas and they washed up on the shore of a non-friendly competing village. The villagers didn’t appreciate the intrusion and hacked them with bush-whackers!

On several of the dives, upon surfacing, we would find young kids in dugout canoes with outriggers, wanting to trade flowers, fruit and vegetables for soap, rice, or other staples. They would float for several hours behind the boat until the cook would come out and do a little “business” with them! They also love to get their pictures taken and grin from ear to ear!

While diving the pinnacles in Fathers Islands, we were hosted by a resident 5 foot long Great Barracuda by the name of George, who is very photogenic! In fact, so close that you get an up close and personal view of his nasty dental work!

One evening after completing a night dive, we were greeted at the hang bar by several large Silver Tip Sharks that were quite interested in checking us out. Made for a few anxious moments during the safety stop!

Interestingly enough, PNG has experienced a bit of an El Niño year, and so there has been a small amount of coral bleaching, but they seem to be recovering nicely. One cool photography opportunity of the warm water is that occasionally you will see an ultra white bleached sea anemone that makes for a striking photographic opportunity. According to Captain Christopher over 60% of all species of the world’s coral is found in PNG with an incredible amount of endemic fish.

The Star Dancer holds 16 guests, and Dive Addicts had 10 of the spots. This was our 2^nd time onboard for this itinerary, and this particular crew was a huge improvement over the previous experience! The diving, accommodations, food, service and sites were certainly worth the effort to get here and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for something a little off the beaten path! The travel home was a little tedious and included 3 flight cancelations and lots of sitting around in the Hoskins airport which certainly gives a whole new meaning to airport services! I now refer to the Hoskins airport as Hoskins Prisoner of War Camp! One small hint - don’t even think about opening the door to the restrooms! It was a near death experience! Air Niugini is not Delta by any means, but we made it safely and I would gladly return to PNG again!

Eurotek 2010

2010-10-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

October 16, 2010 -

Just finished attending the first day's sessions. The biggest problem was trying to decide which of the many sessions to attend. As they run 4 concurrent sessions each time slot, it made for some difficult choices!

So far, here are the presentations I attended:

Leigh Bishop gave a very interesting presentation about Carl Spencer's unfortunate death on the Britannic Expedition 2010.

Dr. Simon Mitchell gave a very informative presentation on decompression sickness including in-water decompression.

Antti Apunen & Janne Suhonen shared incredible photographs and spoke about The Molnar Janos Cave System beneath the city of Budapest.

Phil Short spoke about CCR safety and design parameters.

Jill Heinerth gave an amazing presentation on Blue Hole exploration in the Bahamas.

We have a formal dinner and awards show tonight.

The show has been a blast for me so far. I anxious to see and hear more tomorrow!

October 17, 2010

Another great day of presentations at Eurotek 2010!

Started off with a very interesting presentation by Barry McGill & Ian Lawler entitled “Misadventure, Minefields and U-boats – the deep wreck of Donegal.” I’m very jealous that they have some many incredible targets just off their backyards!

Carl Douglas gave a presentation called “Baltic Ghost Ships – Shipwreck Discoveries in the Baltic Sea”. This was absolutely one of the highlights of the weekend for me. Incredible photography and video of shipwrecks in the Baltic. Amazing viz, ships from the 1600s to modern, and some of the most spectacular images I have every seen. The wrecks are in pristine condition. I really want to visit this place!

Tomaz Stachura gave a cool` presentation on “Graf Zeppelin, Nazi Aircraft Carrier, expedition 2009” Another amazing dive in the Baltic Sea! Looks like I am going to have to book a trip there soon!

Watched a half hour film by Edoardo Pavia on a recent expedition to Truk Lagoon. Shot in Hi Def video, the videography was very impressive!

Phil Short presented, “Cave Diving Adventures – one man’s worldwide cave diving exploits”. Once again, Phil convinced us that he is certifiable! Even though I have heard the story before, his tale about being trapped underwater in Swindon’s hole, is enough to raise your blood pressure!

Agnes Milowka regaled us with tales of “Cave Diving Down Under – a Look at Cave Diving in Australia” Amazing that such a skinny young girl has added so much new line in so many locations around the world! Very entertaining!

We had a formal dinner last night with black tie and the whole bit! Good food and an entertaining time. The Brits really know how to put on a good show. Well organized, and top notch presentations. Mostly Europeans, but there were also people from OZ, USA, South America, Russia, Eastern Europe, etc. etc. As I mentioned earlier, the biggest challenge was just trying to decide which presentations to attend, as they had multiple ones going at the same time!

Definitely worth the trip over!

When the team is in Sync!

2010-10-17T12:57:00.000-07:00

Doing technical dives, as a team can be one of the most rewarding experiences as a diver. This is especially true when the team members are in sync with each other and have the same goals, equipment configurations, and safety and communications protocols.

I have the fortunate advantage of being able to dive quite frequently as part of a 3-man team consisting of my two sons and myself. Josh, Michael and myself are experienced cave, wreck and CCR divers. All 3 of us are technical dive instructors or instructor trainers and have on “most days” very similar philosophies about diving in general. All of my kids, having grown up in a “diving household” were part of the nightly diving discussions (sometimes arguments) that took place around the dinner table, and from a very early age were keenly aware of team diving protocols! This made for some lively discussion and testing of dad’s opinions!

As soon as the boys were old enough to start actively taking part in technical diving, I was acutely aware of my wife’s determination that we as a team return from our crazy adventures with the same team members with which we left the house. If something were to happen to one of the boys, I might as well not come home!

Now as adults, Josh and Michael give me a serious run for my money! Long gone are the days when dad dictates to the young boys what profiles and procedures we will be following. Since these days we typically dive as a CCR team, our team activities include prepping and testing our rebreathers to make sure that they work as advertised! Some of the prep will include making sure that the units are set up identically with gas selections, decompression algorithms, gas fills, bail out options, fresh batteries, O2 cells that are working properly and especially making sure that all of our equipment is rigged similarly and is in 100% working order. Due to the fact that all 3 of us dive the same CCR rigs, we are more closely able to help monitor and keep an eye on each other during the dive. It’s kind of funny sometimes to look at underwater pictures of us, because its often difficult to tell who is who! (Although if you look closely, you can usually tell which one is me, because I have a little better form!:) )

Prior to any “big” dives, we spend a lot of time as a team discussing our safety protocols, rigging our equipment in the desired fashion and practicing our individual and team procedures in an environment as close as possible to the target environment. We practice these team procedures over and over again until we feel comfortable that we are as prepared as possible for both planned and unplanned events. We spend a lot of time talking about “what ifs” and practice our responses to such events. One of the interesting things about practicing all of these “what ifs” is that it seems to makes us more aware of potential problems and as a team we seem to do a reasonably good job of avoiding the problems to start with, simply because we become more aware of them!

Underwater communication because extremely critical when diving as a team. Due to the fact that we have been diving as a unit for many years, we clearly have a substantial advantage. Even though most of our signals are fairly standard cave diver and decompression diver signals, we still spend time before each dive reviewing our communication protocols. Our underwater team communication actually starts above water. Part of our pre-dive planning includes substantial discussion about the goals of the dive, the profiles and any unique procedures pertaining to that particular dive. Underwater, is not the time to be figuring out these types of things! We typically spend a lot more time discussing and planning our dives than we do actually executing the dives. That is all just part of the fun!

After each of our dives, we will hold a post dive debriefing, where each of the team members will take the opportunity to review how the dive went and offer suggestions on how to improve our team efforts.

Even though we are all high spirited and competitive individuals, when it comes time to operate as a CCR team, there is no messing around. We take our diving seriously, and even though we have a lot of fun, our goal is to pull each dive off with a precision that enhances our safety and effectiveness. Believe me when I say that if any one member of the team deviates from the plan, you definitely hear about it from the other two members! I have on a few occasions had to suffer through a tongue lashing from Josh and Michael when they felt I had not followed the plan with precise exactness!

Technical diving, especially team diving in overhead environments on CCR, requires a single mindedness of attitude and execution. It also makes for great stories to talk about around the dinner table! By the way, my daughter and wife, also technical divers in their own right, are equally capable of joining in the lively diving discussions at the dinner table!

We are all about fun, but at the end of the day, the greatest satisfaction comes from developing a plan, executing on the plan and then returning as a team to tell our big fish whopper stories that make our dives sound incredibly difficult, exciting and death defying!

Ricks Spring Cave - Logan Canyon, Utah

2010-09-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

This past Monday, Richard Lamb and I did a quick dive at Ricks Springs Cave. It had been almost a year since I was up there last, so I was anxious to get back in there and see how things were looking. Being a sidemount dive, I was diving steel 85s and Richard had steel 95s.

As usual, the water was VERY cold, about 39 degrees or so! The weather was great, just staring fall weather, but beautiful! We left the dive shop about 7:30 AM and arrived at the cave about 9:30. We had a bit of an audience when we got up there, with lots of people asking us questions like: "Is it dark in there, and is the water cold?".

We prepped our gear, and started the dive. The entry way was clear and the flow was not too bad. I was wearing a new dry suit, which I apparently cut the neck seal a little too much, and so I suffered a flooded suit. By the time we were about 30 mins. into the dive and back at the second air space, I was so cold that I had to call the dive! By the time we made it out of the cave, I was really chilled! The top of my head was so cold, I couldn't feel a thing! Completely numb! I was quite hypothermic and really struggled even getting my gear off. In fact, Richard had to help me remove my fins!

All in all, it was a beautiful dive, albeit cold! I had a great time, and about 2 1/2 hours later, by the time we made it back to Dive Addicts, I was actually almost warmed up! What we won't do for a little adventure!

A Legend has been lost

2010-08-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

This past week, we spent the entire week in Cave Country cave diving and having fun with the family. We took all 3 of our kids and their spouses, (well a fiance in one case) as well as our 2 grandkids. While we were there, we were able to attend the memorial service for Wes Skiles who died while on a fairly benign dive in 70 feet of clear blue sea water in Boynton Beach, Florida. He was on a video shoot for National Geographic, and apparently wasn't involved in anything too strenuous or challenging during the dive. He was diving a CCR unit, but little is known about what went wrong at this point.

The entire dive community was in shock, and there was an immediate outpouring of condolences from around the world. Additionally, tech divers everywhere were stunned that Wes Skiles, one of the original and best known cave divers of all time, could suffer such an unlikely accident.

For those of us who dive CCR units, this was a severe dose of reality. If it could happen to Wes, it could certainly happen to anyone! Unfortunately, as is the case with most of these types of accidents, it is unlikely that the entire story will be made known. Either due to lack of information, or reluctance to speak publicly about well known figures, the information surrounding the cause of death is rarely made public. The one thing that does happen however, is that hopefully many of us to stop and consider our own diving practices, and hopefully recommit ourselves to ensuring that we are safeguarding our own fragile lives.

When we dive, especially technical dives, we are placing ourselves in a harsh unforgiving environment. Hopefully, Wes' unfortunate death will serve as a reminder to all of the rest of the technical diving community, that none of us are above having things go wrong. I know that I will approach my personal diving with a renewed commitment to ensuring that I prepare and execute every single dive as though it is the most important one I will ever make.

Wes Skiles was an incredible underwater explorer, diver, cave diver, underwater photographer, underwater videographer and environmental advocate for the planet. It is a huge loss for the diving community that he has left us this early, but his presence will long be felt and experienced through those in the diving community that he has touched. The close to a 1000 people that showed up to Wes Skiles' memorial service is a small testament to how many people he influenced with this photos, videos and infectious enthusiasm for life.

More CCR pics

2010-06-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

Michael, Randy & Josh Thornton prepping for a Trimix dive on the wall in Grand Cayman May 2010.

Josh and Michael doing their pre-breath!

Plenty of CCR units headed for a deep dive!

Randy, Michael & Josh doing deco after a dive on the Carrie Lee in George Town Harbor

Eagles Nest - a Fairly Serious Dive in Cave Country!

2010-06-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

I'm just on my way home from a great week of cave diving in Cave Country (North Central Florida). I had the opportunity of doing a beautiful dive at Eagles Nest with my good friend Wayne Kinard. Wayne was diving OC while I was diving my Hammerhead.

I was diving a 10/60 mix at a set point of 1.2. Even though I choose to dive OC in some cave diving situations, Eagles Nest is in my opinion, a dive that is more conducive to CCR. It's a very deep, large wide open cave with variable conditions that are effected by the tides. (Even though you won't find salt water in the cave, the tidal exchange will completely affect the viz from day to day.) We did a nice long dive with a total run time of 3 hours and 10 mins.

Although Eagles Nest is also the perfect cave in which to use a scooter, we chose to swim this time around. We dove the Upstream section and swam to the 1000 feet mark, which even though it doesn't sound like much, when you are swimming at 270 feet, a 1000 feet in and a 1000 feet back out is a pretty good work out! It took us 41 mins. to hit the 1000 feet mark where we turned the dive. at about 43 mins., I started to notice that I was getting a fair amount of water in the loop. I emptied it several times over the next few mins., but I kept getting more and more water! Thankfully, the Hammerhead is extremely flood resistant and tolerrent, and I knew that I could deal with a fair amount of water. Over the shoulder counter lungs and the radial scrubber that sits on top of a sizable spacer, combine to make for a substantial safety margin when it comes to water trapping.

When you are 40 mins. back in a cave at 270 deep, about the last thing in the world you really want to do is to test out your bailout planning efficiency! I was pretty confident that I was packing sufficient bailout, but not real excited about testing out my theory! Consequently, I was determined to complete the dive on the loop if at all possible. Because my buddy was on OC, I really wasn't too excited about having to share air with him if it turned out that my bailout was not sufficient, so I had even more motivation to stay on the loop as long as possible!

My work of breathing became a little more difficult as a portion of my scrubber became wet, but again due to the scrubber design, it was still functional. I just had to slow down a little bit so as not to over breath the scrubber at that point. A slight adjustment to my normal cave diving trim also helped keep the water out of the scrubber.

3 hours and 10 mins. later, I completed my deco and with a HUGE smile on my face surfaced still on the loop! When I later cleaned my unit, I found a couple of liters of water in both counter lungs, and in the canister. Never once did I even taste a hint of caustic cocktail. I was actually quite surprised at the volume of water!

So the big question that is now going through my mind is "Did I really have enough bailout? Given that I was diving with an OC buddy that really wouldn't have been in a position to do "team bailout", should I have staged more bailout then what I did?" I think the answer is that even though I theoretically had plenty of bailout, in this particular buddy team situation, one CCR and one OC, I will error on the side of extreme caution in the future. When I'm cave diving with my two sons on CCR, we dive as a team and carry loads of bailout between the team. When diving with an OC buddy, this type of dive does not lend itself to team bailout practices.

The conclusion I have come to is that I will be staging more bailout than my planning requires when doing a deep cave dive with an OC buddy. Although the Hammerhead is extremely flood tolerant, I will be hedging my bets in the future! A flooded CCR in a deep cave is a CCR divers worst nightmare! When in Cave Country I will occasionally see CCR divers way back in caves with nothing more than a couple of aluminum 40s. I wonder what would happen if they had a CO2 hit, or a flood and actually had to make it back out on these little tanks in what would surely be a very stressful situation? A little scary in my mind!

By the way, once I realized that I was taking on water, neither me or my buddy could figure out where it was coming from. After the dive, I noticed that it was coming from a slit in my mouthpiece. A simple problem that caused my a bit of concern during the dive!

Dive safe everyone!

Just finished up InnerSpace 2010

2010-05-22T16:59:00.000-07:00

I'm in the Atlanta airport on my way home from InnerSpace 2010. We had a great time, and I had a fantastic time diving with my two sons. We had spent a significant amount of time preparing for the week, working and drilling on our team diving procedures, and it paid off! The week went smoothly with no problems and we finished off the week with a dive to 352 feet at Texas Hole. Photos courtesy of Doug Ebersole.

It is amazingly peaceful to do a deep dive on the Cayman walls, especially when you and the rest of the team are in synch! After nine days in a row of deep dives together, we really were working well together. Our equipment configurations were working well and it was awesome exploring the incredibly beautiful vertical walls.

Thursday we dove the Carrie Lee, a wreck that sits in the sand on the edge of the wall in George Town with the bow sitting in about 280 feet. We dove down to about 330 feet and then came back up the wall underneath the bow. It was a very cool dive! Very pretty looking up the wall and seeing the bow hanging over the edge.

On Wednesday, we had a really funny thing happen during one of the dives. We were coming up the wall from quite deep and when we saw another diver on an Inspiration hunched over and very still on the wall at about 280 feet. I watched him for a few seconds and when he wasn't moving, I became concerned and swam over to him to see what was going on. I floated over the top of him and it appeared that the skin on the top of his head was loose and flowing back and forth in the slight current. Obviously, this was quite concerning, and I couldn't figure out what on earth was going on. I wiggled his arm to get his attention, and he looked up and he had a Halloween mask pulled over his head! I certainly didn't see that coming! Even on serious Trimix dives, divers are stilling having fun!

If you haven't been to InnerSpace before, it is definitely worth a try! It's just plain fun hanging out with other CCR divers with similar interests all week!

One more day of InnerSpace 2010!

2010-05-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

This week has been an incredible experience. 9 days of deep technical CCR dives and interesting seminars every night. Sitting around between dives chewing the fat with some of the who's who in the industry has really been just a blast. And to make it even more fun, I've been able to dive with both of my sons on each dive.

We have spent quite a bit of time this winter discussing and practicing our team diving skills and procedures, and I think the time has paid off. Josh and Michael are already excellent divers and diving with them as a 3 man team has been a great experience.

The weather has been on again and off again raining then sunny, but we have not had any dive called due to weather. Most of the dives have been between 300-330 feet, and we have really had a great chance to put the Hammerheads through the paces. Haven't had a single problem with them.

Cayman is a great place with for this kind of stuff, and everyone in attendance has been very friendly and open for discussions about CCRs and tech diving in general. It's been great to rub shoulders with some very experienced guys and listen to their thoughts on various things. Dive Tech has done an amazing job of keeping up with 64 CCR divers! The logistics much just be overwhelming!

We dove today at a place called Hepp's wall and a dive site called "Funky Town". We entered a tunner/cave/swim through at 180 and exited on the reef at 290 feet and kept going down the reef till 312. Incredibly quite and beautiful and relaxing!

InnerSpace in Grand Cayman

2010-05-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

InnerSpace at Dive Tech and Cobalt Coast Resort started officially last night in Grand Cayman. Joshua, Michael and I all arrived on Thursday afternoon after an all night red eye. We weren't complaining however when we got off the plane and were greeted by warm breezes about 80 degrees and beautiful blue oceans!

We were picked up at the airport by the resort and about a half hour later were unloading at Cobalt Coast. Dive Tech really does a wonderful job of putting on this event. 64 CCR divers plus staff this year. All sorts of units here - Inspiration, Evolutions, Sentinels, Hammerheads, Titans, rEvos, Megs, Kiss, and Optimas. They range from the newbies/freshly minted CCR divers to crusty old hands that have been around since the beginning of CCR diving! They divide up the boats so that we have a recreational boat, a normoxic trimix boat and a deep trimix boat. Of course the boys and I opted for the deep boat!

The first couple of days prior to the open of InnerSpace we did some shore dives as warm up. First dive was a 180 footer, later that afternoon we did a 150 footer. The next morning we did a 225 footer in the morning and a 60 footer in the afternoon. Here in Grand Cayman there is a mini wall and then the big wall. In between, depending on whether you are swimming from Cobalt or Light House, the distance swim between in 15-20 mins. each way, so you definitely get some exercise.

On the dive at Lighthouse reef yesterday we were cruising along at 225 feet when we saw a turtle come screaming up from the depth at 300 plus feet. As it got about even with us, it got tangled in a fishing line wrapped around its head and front fin. Fortunately, we were close enough to help cut it free and it was able to swim to the surface unscathed!

This morning the boats started up and we did a 250 foot dive this morning. The group on the boat are all quite experienced divers with several CCR Advanced Trimix instructors and divers. It was fun to not have to worry about anyone besides your individual team! Nice and relaxing with incredible viz and nice and warm! It is very quiet down there with just CCR divers on the wall. I didn't personally see it but other members of the group saw a large hammerhead swim overhead.

Having a great time. Hope to get the video camera out soon!

Regards,
Randy

Taking your time!

2010-04-05T21:50:00.000-07:00

The last few years I have become more and more convinced that when it comes to learning advanced technical diving theory, procedures and skills, that taking it nice and slow is better! I know that some guys are into the total immersion, zero to hero mentality, but my own experience as both a student and as an instructor has shown me time and time again, that a gradual, step by step approach usually makes for better internalization and more polished divers.

Sure, it's very possible to do the minimum requirements in the minimum amount of time all in one condensed period, but I do not believe that it makes for superior trained divers. IMHO, the most relaxed and proficient divers are ones that take each level of training one step at a time and have sufficient time in-between certifications and even individual class sessions to improve gradually and methodically. This stuff is not a race, and the first one to the finish line is not necessarily the more polished or skilled diver. Muscle memory and diving knowledge is not gained overnight. It has been my experience, that just like learning a musical instrument or learning a foreign language, consistent, focused, repetitive work on a daily basis leads to more polished skills and internalized theory that over time becomes second nature. There are no short cuts to this stuff, and those that think there are short cuts are usually not long timers in this sport.

I think this is especially apparent in CCR diving. CCR diving is very much a thinking man's activity. The CCR divers that become the most proficient, are usually the ones that have a very good understanding of the basic theory as well as have put in the hours over enough months and even years to really "be one with their units" and know enough to realize what they don't know! Cramming may help university students pass a final exam, but does not contribute to long-term retention. Careful, step by step progression, coupled with ongoing education and repetition makes for a much safer and more enjoyable diving experience. As they say, "practice makes perfect", but probably even more important is "Regular perfect practice, makes for perfect performance every time!"

Beneath the Sea 2010

2010-03-27T16:53:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to attend Beneath the Sea 2010 (BTS) this weekend for the first time. I was actually quite surprised at how big of event it was and the volume of attendees! Friday night was kind of sparsely attended but Saturday as the day wore on, it was absolutely packed.

It was fun catching up with some old friends and acquaintances - Tom Mount, Joe Radomski, Steve Lewis, Ted Greene, Mark Nix, Corey Mearns. I was fortunate to get a free pass from Dona at South Pacific Island Travel, so even better, it didn't cost me anything! Seeing all of the cool travel locations, I've got the itch to get out on a dive trip!

Didn't really see anything that was earth shattering new, but there was lots of cool stuff to check out. The new Silent Submersion Magnus scooter looks pretty cool! The speed controls on the handle are way cool!

The North Eastern diving community is certainly a hardy bunch. It was interesting to note that the average age of attendee appeared to be in the late 40s. There were very few young people there. I'm not exactly sure what that tells us - Does it mean that young people are not be attracted to diving or that they just can't afford it? I don't know the answer to this, but I intend to do a little more research into it!

It must be in the genes!

2010-02-28T14:44:00.000-08:00

My two year old granddaughter is hard at work studying for her upcoming cave course! Her father is in the middle of finishing up his Full Cave course, so I'm sure she comes by her fascination honestly!

Next up will be Intro to CCR diving!

Ice Diving with Dive Addicts at Deer Creek Reservoir

2010-02-16T19:52:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday, we spent the better part of the day ice diving at Deer Creek Reservoir in Utah. With air temperature of around 23 degrees fahrenheit and water temperature at approximately 36 degrees, this kind of diving is really only for the hardiest divers! In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn't actually dive, but was there to provide surface support and snap a few pictures! (too stikin' cold for me!)

The four divers were Josh Thornton, Michael Thornton, Mike Nygard and Rich Cherian. We left Dive Addicts about 8:15 AM and got up to Deer Creek about 9:00 AM. It took us about 45 mins. to cut the hole in the ice and then we had to struggle a little bit to get the triangular piece of ice pushed underneath one side so that we could get the divers in the water.

We split the divers into two teams so we always had 3 surface support while there were two divers in the water. One of the surface support was always geared up and ready to splash if there was a problem that required his help. Both divers were tethered together with a climbing rope that was anchored to 3 points of the triangular opening using ice climbing screws and carabineers.

The set up for the dive is the hard part. Hauling out all of the gear on sleds, marking the spot, drilling three holes in the ice with an ice auger, cutting the ice with a chain saw and then finishing off with a lumberjack hand saw with lead weights on the end that sticks in the water, moving the ice slab out of the way, anchoring the ropes, gearing up the divers, helping them into the water took approximately 3 1/2 hours before the first dive even started!

The dive profiles were approximately 110 feet deep for 29 mins. At an altitude of approximately 6500 feet, under the ice, this is a fairly serious dive!

Teaching an Advanced Trimix Class

2010-02-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

I just started teaching an Advanced Trimix Class this week to a group of 4 tech diving students. These 4 are all students who have taken previous classes from me so it is fun to watch them progress and develop as technical divers.

I really enjoy teaching Advanced Trimix because it is the highest level of open water training and as such the students must be prepared virtually on every level for extreme diving, including physically, mentally, and emotionally. These types of dives are very demanding and as such, the training is equally demanding.

We spent the first night in the classroom talking about what would be required in the class, and beginning our academic discussions. In this particular class, the academic sessions are typically more discussion than lecture, because the students usually have a firm grasp of the basic academics and now we spend more time discussing various alternative view points and procedures. The classes are usually quite stimulating.

Fortunately, these 4 students are local, so we can take some time spread over a few weeks to really dig into the academics as well as the practical - the diving. Our first dive will be a shallow dive at the Homestead Crater where we will do an assessment of their current skill level as well as string together some more involved complex multiple failure drills. It is usually a somewhat stressful time for the students due to the volume of skills and drills, but ends up being a lot of fun and makes for memorable discussions afterwards!

Trimming out my Hammerhead

2010-01-18T17:58:00.000-08:00

I spent a couple of hours in the pool today tweaking my Hammerhead CCR setup so that I was happier with my trim for cave diving. I have just recently started using the Golemgear sidemount bungee in conjunction with the GG buttplate. I have been using the buttplate for years, but have always used Dive Rite bungees. The GG bungees are a little different and cause the tanks to ride a little farther down my body.

I really like where the tanks ride now, but it causes my trim to be a little butt heavy, so thus the time I spent in the pool today. I think I have about got it where I need it now, but I won't know for sure until I try it with a wetsuit and then a drysuit.

I like the GG bungees because the tanks don't clutter up my chest like the ones I was previously using. I have to reach a little farther for the bailout regs, gauges and valve knobs, but it is way more comfortable! I really do like it. I'm sure once I get the trim dialed in, I will be completely happy! (that is until I find another new option! ) Seems like there is always something to tweak when it comes to diving CCR, but I think that is half of the fun - messing around with this stuff!

Fun Times at the Crater Yesterday

2010-01-10T17:30:00.000-08:00

Josh, Michael and I went up to the Crater yesterday to do some practicing on our CCR Trimix team procedures. We spent a couple of hours doing drills and working through various scenarios. Even though all of this stuff should be 2nd nature, it is always useful to practice it within the confines of the actual team that will be diving together.

Obviously, all of us know the procedures as well as the fundamentals and reasoning behind the procedures, but it is helpful to work on making the execution as smooth as possible within the actual team. Doing deep Trimix dives require excellent coordination between team members, and attention to detail. We have been practicing not only emergency procedures for when something goes wrong, but also simple things like communication skills, situational awareness, team planning and specific goal oriented tasks.

Of course as a father and sons team, we are obviously close and used to diving together frequently, but honing these types of drills, skills and procedures helps us all to be better divers and more specifically function much better as a team! When you are doing big dives, everyone has to be on the same exact page or unfortunate things can happen!

On the lighter side, after we got finished with our drills and practicing, we buzzed around on a Salvo scooter which was a lot of fun. Josh decided to give it a go while free diving and buzzed a PADI OW class that was going on much to the delight of the students and aggravation of their instructor!

Deep Air

2010-01-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

This is a reprint of a post I made on Deco Stop recently. The past few days there have been a couple of different arguments going on on the dive forums concerning how deep people should be diving before they squirt a little Helium in their mix.

I love these "Deep Air" discussions because they usually end up being quite entertaining!

My own experience with deep air requires me to look at each and every diving scenario and make a "hopefully educated" decision as to what is appropriate for the environment and mission in which I will find myself.

Obviously, warm, clear, calm, open water environments are much more forgiving than cold, limited viz, overhead environments. I would suggest that each diver needs to use his own judgement based on experience to gage what is appropriate for himself or the team. Until said diver has sufficient experience to make educated decisions about what is appropriate, dogmatic lines drawn in the sand (END limits) are necessary to keep young divers alive until they learn how to make appropriate decisions.

I really, really, really hate hard fast rules with this stuff, because I consider most of them to be impractical, but I do understand why some instructors approach this in such a dogmatic way with students. It helps keep them alive! What I don't understand is why any student would just accept a rule as the "gospel truth" without having a very good understanding of why it is the rule and then having verified it based upon personal experience. I'm not suggesting that we go out and do something stupid just to verify, but there are lot's of different philosophies out there and sometimes DIR or whatever doesn't necessarily trump DIL (Done it Longer!)

Learn why rules are being suggested and then through personal study and experience, gradually figure out what is appropriate for you and your team in various scenarios. Anything less, is just blindly following something that may or may not be appropriate.

Just my $.02

Regards,
Randy

Diving in Thailand

2009-12-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

Gwen and I are currently sitting in the Minneapolis airport, waiting for our connecting flight back to Salt Lake City. We left Phuket Thailand about 30 hours ago and we still have another 6 hours before we will be home! Wow, really a long trip!

We had a great time in Thailand. The trip was to celebrate our 30th anniversary and was not a dedicated dive trip, although we did dive a couple of days. I didn't take my CCR with me, because it was a long way to travel and since we were only diving for a couple of days, I thought we would keep it simple with our recreational OC gear.

We dove at a couple of locations. The first day was called Phi Phi (pronounced "Pee Pee") The diving was very easy going and quite good. We saw lots of Leopard sharks and some very cool large Jelly Fish. We also saw a Mandarin Shrimp that just sat out of its hole and let us inspect him as long as we would like. The biggest downside to the diving was that the dive operation was very into baby sitting the divers and we had a nervous Nelly dive master that was hovering around us the entire time. Additionally, it was a 14 hour day to get from the hotel, take a 3 hour boat ride each way, do the dives and then get back home. Not sure it would be worth doing day trips in Phuket area multiple days in a row.

The 2nd dive day was at the Similan Islands. The viz was much better, but the animal life was a little lacking compared to Phi Phi. Similan is supposed to be rated in the top 10 world wide by many people, but like most rankings, I was underwhelmed. The diving was alright, but not spectacular. Both dives were drift diving in a pretty ripping current. The top side scenery was spectacular and I'm glad that we made both trips. I does rub me the wrong way when the dive masters are constantly asking you what your remaining pressure is. I would hope by this stage in my diving career, I am capable of keeping track of my own gas consumption! Oh well, that's what you get when you dive with Thai Cattle Boats! We had a good time none the less!

Christmas came early at my house!

2009-12-06T22:27:00.000-08:00

My wife Gwen was very kind and bought me an amazing underwater video setup for Christmas this year. (Of course, I left some pretty specific hints as to what I was looking for!) And even better, she let me open it early!

It's a Gates Housing with external video monitor, Greenforce 250 Watt HID lights, wide angle dome port that will go from 2 millimeters to infinity, and a Canon XHA1S HD Video Camera.

I took it in the pool today for a trial swim with my CCR. No camera, just that housing. I wanted to make sure that everything was water tight before I dunked the camera. It was absolutely awesome. The housing is a little positively buoyant without the camera in it, so I'll do another pool session with the camera before I start slapping weights on it. It comes with quite a bit of lead, so I'm sure I'm going to have to put some on it.

I'm really excited to get started with this. I have done quite a bit of underwater still photography, but this is really my first serious attempt at video, so it should be a challenge! Once I get something that is halfway decent, I'll post something! (Might take awhile!)

OK, back to reading my owners manual!

Regards,
Randy

Steve Lewis' presentation at the NACD conference this past week

2009-12-02T22:16:00.000-08:00

This is a copy of the presentation given by Steve Lewis at the National Association of Cave Divers conference this past week. Steve gave me permission to post it here. I think his thoughts are right on the money and should be required reading by all technical divers Cave, Open Circuit and Closed Circuit Rebreathers. Thanks Steve!

Regards,

Randy

Forgive me for straying somewhat from the agenda, but it seems the diving community needs your help; needs help from us all.

As many of you know, there appears to be a general misunderstanding among the general diving public about standards, protocols, guidelines, rules. Call it what you will, but something is just not squared away with the tech diving community; and people are getting themselves killed because of it.

Every one of us knows that diving is dangerous. And we know that anyone telling us otherwise is either delusional, completely ignorant in the art of risk assessment; or they are lying.

Technical diving, what we are most interested in, is extremely dangerous; perhaps an order of magnitude more risky than common or garden sport diving. But we render the risks manageable by simply following some really basic rules. These boil down to staying within the limits of our training, our skills and our experience; making a dive plan that takes into account the lessons learned from accident analysis; PLUS we adapt our plan to account for the actual environmental conditions we find at the site on game day; and, of course, we stick to our plan.

Risk management is even better assured by resisting any temptation to push our comfort zone or that of our companions. And we are well armed against the wiles of Murphy if we are prepared to react creatively when the dynamic nature of diving presents us with “real-time” challenges without warning.

In any high-risk activity where we want to weigh the odds of a favorable outcome, the normal path is to follow what’s called Best Practices or Best Practice Behavior. It’s really just a label we stick on a process that leads us along the, statistically speaking, safest pathway through a series of conditions that present threat; either physical, societal, financial or psychological.

However, there are few guarantees and every year divers die.

In rare cases, divers die even though they have followed best practices. They do everything according to the book, but die regardless. The issues in very many of these incidents are truly accidental; often an underlying unknown health problem; and heart problems seem to top that list.

But in the great majority of cases, people die as a direct result of NOT following best practices.

In some cases, their mistakes or the mistakes of their buddy or instructor were errors of omission. What I mean by this is that they forgot to do something important or maybe were unaware that conditions, equipment, personal needs or a combination of all three were going to demand something they could not provide. These events are sad.

At the other end of the scale of culpability, and a factor in the majority of diver deaths, are mistakes that are errors of commission; which in this context I take to be deliberately refusing to follow what they knew at the onset of their dive was best practice. They knowingly did something negligent and these events are tragic in the truest sense of the word because they are avoidable; totally, 100 percent avoidable.

Now, all this is pretty obvious to you and me, but in the past couple of years, our community (the technical diving community at large) has suffered several shock looses and almost every one appears to have been a direct result of divers trying to pull off dives using the wrong gas, wrong kit, having inadequate skills, or inappropriate training. In at least one case — a young man diving air to 75 metres (about 230 feet), well beyond the most extreme limits for that gas in consideration of narcosis and oxygen toxicity — a strong influence would appear to have been pressure from an employer slash instructor; in other words, someone they looked up to.

When invited to come down here and talk to you folks today, I jumped at the chance because I like cave country, I like cave diving, and apart from a bias against Alabama in favor of the Gators, I feel comfortable among cave divers.

My intention was to give a light-hearted presentation pointing out some of the influences that North Florida cave divers have had on the wreck diving community and underline the way we wreck divers have evolved the basic cave diving kit and skill sets to fit a very different environment. We are still going to look at that but from a viewpoint influenced by several recent deaths. None of us knows much about any of these incidents, but there is a common theme in at least almost every case; Lack of Training. Specifically here in North Florida, divers who had no cave training, dying in caves; what a sordid cliché that is, and how sad it’s still happening.

Of course it begs the questions: what can be learned from the misfortune of others, and how can you and I help prevent, by example or influence, others from repeating the same mistakes?

Let’s start with a few declarative statements.

Number one: Wreck diving is very different to cave diving. They are cousins, siblings even, but certainly not identical twins.

Number two: If we accept number one, it follows that the skills required for diving wrecks and diving in caves are NOT interchangeable. The skills have the same names but their deployment is different because the environment is different.

As a result of these two issues, it is NOT possible to train cave divers in wrecks nor can one train wreck divers in caves. To attempt one or the other is wrong and it is dangerous. Since technical diving is risky to begin with, sending the wrong message to the people we train in either of these activities just throws a wrench into the whole risk assessment / risk management exercise.

OK, let me add one more statement to those two. Without simulating or demonstrating the specific risks associated with a special environment – such as a cave – those risks do not exist for the student. In other words, taking a student into any overhead environment OUTSIDE of a course specific to that environment, be it cave or wreck, sends the wrong message. As mentioned, the risks do not exist unless they are explained and outlined with the big black magic marker of demonstration, guidance, performance, feedback and repetition.

OK, let’s start with some history, because if we go back to the start, we may get a better idea where the confusion comes from; and why some people think wrecks, caves and deep open water are similar.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
A generation ago, when technical diving was coming out of the closet and before it became a convention, there really was only one place to go to get serious training. And that was Florida. Cave diving was and still is as far as I am concerned the original and purest form of technical diving. If you wanted to become a better wreck diver, and you wanted to learn techniques to make it so, you made your way to High Springs and signed up for a cavern/cave class, because organizations such as the NACD were the only ones offering an alternative to mainstream sport diver education.

Without doubt, because of this simple slice of history, almost everything that is the norm among technical divers around the world today, from Sydney Harbor to Seattle owes a serious debt to Florida Cavers. The classic back mounted rig; backplate, wing, doubles, long hose et al, had its genesis here in North Florida. Today, for some mystifying reason, this rig gets called DIR, Hogarthian, DW2, and god knows what else… but you and I both know that it is just standard North Florida Cave Diving Kit, and if it were not for the malleability of the road signs used by the Department of Highways, and Greg Flannigan‘s ingenuity, we’d all be diving poodle jackets.

The same is true of side-mount diving. Wreck divers are turning more and more to side-mount configuration for open-circuit wreck diving. In doing so, they are copying or borrowing from the kit configuration cave divers have been using for at least a couple of decades.

The connection is there. Cave divers and cave training agencies wrote the screenplay for wreck diving techniques and training. And so, if they are siblings, then cave diving is the older sister.

But over time things have evolved. Driven by a void or need within the wreck-diving community, technical instructors and training agencies have developed specialized technical wreck or advanced wreck programs. The starting point may have been the NACD cavern course but the program now has morphed into something more appropriate for the wreck environment and with attention being paid to skills that are not required in cave and cavern diving.

We do not have time to drill down into the nuts and bolts of each course and do a line item comparison, but we do have time to think about some major differences. So let’s look at them to justify our statement that the two types of diving are not the SAME.

Here is a partial listing of the skills tested during a TDI or NACD cavern and Intro to Cave courses.
• Gas Management
• Propulsion Techniques
• Deploy Guideline
• Lost Line
• Lost Buddy
• Air Share with Buddy in contact with line
• Air Share with Buddy blacked-out mask through restriction
• Light and Hand Signals
• Light Failure
• Problem Solving
Here is a partial listing of the skills for a TDI Advanced Wreck program.
• Gas Management
• Propulsion Techniques
• Deploy Guideline
• Lost Line
• Lost Buddy
• Air Share with Buddy in contact with line
• Air Share with Buddy blacked-out mask through restriction
• Light and Hand Signals
• Light Failure
• Problem Solving

They look the same don’t they; well, of course they are the same… But if we advocate and advise that caves and wrecks are different, how is that so? The answer is that it is in the application of the skills to the specific environment and not the skills themselves.

Gas Management: The Rule of Thirds is sacrosanct to cave divers and wreck divers but there are few wrecks offering several hundred metres of penetration; and so the rule’s application in wreck diving is far more like the Hub Plan used by CCR cave divers than the classic and simpler one third in, one third out used by OC cavers.

Propulsion Techniques: Wreck divers may have to employ a modified pull and glide to navigate narrow corridors inside a wreck where ANY fin movement is guaranteed to reduce visibility to zero in seconds. One other difference is that when a wreck diver kicks a wall by mistake is moves… it might even fall down. Anyhow, finning is NOT the default propulsion technique in “real” wrecks.

Guideline: Cave divers are warned about line traps. Cave divers can follow and usually do follow permanent lines for miles. Wrecks are one big line trap and a permanent line is the stuff of dreams. One might also consider that a continuous line to the surface covers a wreck diver’s need to be able to deploy a DSMB and decompress in blue water. In fact, that constitutes a required skill: hang off knotted line… keeping track of the knots to judge depth, with a blacked out mask, and counting breaths to track time.

Lost Line: Not a big issue when you carry the “permanent” line on a reel in your hand, but a required skill nevertheless for a wreck diver. However, more often than not, during their search for the lost line, students manage to get a manifold, spg, fin or something wrapped up in hanging cable… or their instructor’s simulation of hanging cable. Last time I audited a cave class, tying up the student was not part of the course work. It is in a wreck class. Another time for rodeo work is when students exit through a restriction with blacked out masks sharing air.

Communications, light failures and so on, are no different, but problem solving is. In a cave, the shortest route to fresh air is almost invariably back the way you came. In a wreck, the surface is closer but not necessarily easier to get to. And once there, getting out of the water may be a challenge.

Now if we stopped right now, some of you might leave here thinking, wow, wreck diving sure sounds tougher than cave diving. And in lots of ways, it is. But if things were that simple, how come we are not looking at a bunch of dead cave divers dying in wrecks instead of a bunch of wreck divers who are dying in caves. To be honest, I am able to turn up a constant and irreversible answer to that. But l have a theory…

Any of you who ski will have seen on the various ski runs leading from the top of the mountain back to the beer and nachos waiting at the bottom of the hill, a classification system indicating how difficult each trail is. A green run is the most straightforward; blue involves more slope and turns; a black diamond is technical and demands experience; a double black diamond is for experts and carries a real and present danger of injury or worse.

A skier can break his leg on a Bunny Hill (the simplest of green runs), but at least this classification system let’s punters like myself know which slopes to avoid on the morning of the first day of skiing after an eight month hiatus.

We avoid the black runs until we have our legs back under us.

There is no really well-established and universal “indication of risk” system in wreck diving or cave diving.

The powers that be do not post a series of Green, Blue or Black buoys above a wreck site for example. Perhaps one of the reasons for NOT posting colored indicators is that an errant fin kick, misplaced line wrap or simple quirk of fate can instantly turn a green dive into a black diamond. All experienced divers can all tell stories about a dive that started as a Green or a Blue but that went completely pear-shaped and immediately became a double black diamond.

But the point here is that many wreck dives and all open water dives offer the potential of a green or blue level dive. And in many cases, the journey to the wreck site is undertaken in a charter boat which gives some opportunity to restrict access to the dedicated black diamond sites.

So let me pose a proposition, and this flavors the magnitude of the request for help that I made earlier: I don’t think ANY CAVE DIVE can be classified as a Green dive. ALL cave dives, even a simple bimble in a place like Peacock, start out as a Black Diamond.

In addition, many cave dives on the other hand are “drive ups,” leaving them more open to abuse.

Touching the hull plates of the Empress or Ireland, counts as a dive, but swimming around the basin at Orange Grove is not a cave dive. If an open water diver wants to “give it a try?” he is totally committed and once beyond the grim reaper sign is participating in a Black Diamond level dive.

In addition, sites like Wayne’s World, the DiePolder system, and Eagles Nest are beyond double black… triple black perhaps. Yet we have divers with zero training, zero experience, who have no business being in there, diving in these spots… and not making it out

Now; who is at fault and how do we change things?

The easy out is to blame the agencies for not “controlling” the situation. But this is a rather naive take on the whole affair. It’s “Tooth Fairy Philosophy;” we can talk about it all we want… it’s still a myth, and believing in it will not make it any more likely to happen.

The agencies have an important role in things; they write standards, they enforce them – under the ‘strong recommendations’ of their insurance underwriters – and they set up a QA infrastructure for the network of men and women who teach under their banner. But agencies can’t work in a vacuum, they need feedback, information.

That leaves us. You and me; and to be completely clear on this, I have no foolproof plan. No guidelines for intervention. No killer argument or presentation of logic that is going to win people over when you bump into them getting ready to take their “Try It” dive in a site where they stand a good chance of topping themselves.

All I can suggest is that we work to educate and lead by example, and become more involved.

And as with any massive change or revolution, it begins with you. Each of us should ask ourselves the question are we diving the plan? Are we diving within the parameters of our experience and training?

As I recently wrote in partial jest, but the sentiment is real… All of you are now deputies, so get out there and kick ass… but before you do so, make sure YOU are without sin before you cast the first stone.

Thank You.

Guy James Cave Diving Review

2009-12-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

This is a review of a cave dive in Guy James Cave by a friend named Skip Kendrick. I absolutely loved his description of the dive, so I have reprinted it here with his permission. I hope you enjoy it!

There we were in zero viz searching for the gold line. The cave ain't that big, but dang if I can find the stop sign! I thumb the dive 15 feet in; less than 3 minutes. That must be the record for short cave dives! I would call it a cavern dive, but there was no visible sunlight due to the lateness of the day and the total siltout. Up close in Crawford's face I stuck a big thumb with my light inches from it wondering if he would see it….he did and turned to leave, signaling Marbry to turn the dive too. After they both exited, I looked around (as if I could see anything - funny how you rely on sight even when sightless) and soon found the stop sign and the beginning of the gold line. I tied off and followed the line back out to signal Crawford and Marbry to come on down!

The viz was the usual blue-white haze requiring us to stay on the line, or within an easy reach, as we finned along that little golden highway. Why is it blue-white in the first few hundred feet? We know there's a side passage leading to a rock-filled sink that brings it in, but what is it: limestone run-off? I'm thinking of something dead. You know when you see a dead fish or crayfish on the floor of the cave how it is surrounded by blue-white, and then later it's covered in blue-white hairs? I've seen deer thrown in water-filled quarries and how a simple light touch will suddenly fill the water with bit of flesh and that same blue-white fog….

The cave clears a bit past the bone. It's a big black bone, like a cow femur. And there are hip bones, and pieces of broken bones all laying at the bottom of a break down rubble pile. I've been up and down the rubble pile; up to where tree roots hang down into the water and down to where the rubble thins and becomes rock/clay bottom. There's lots of bones in that breakdown pile and catfish too. They roam up and down the pile digging and pulling, so I'm thinking with lots of cows and lots of sink holes….well let's just say there's plenty of food in this cave!

And there's plenty of life too. Two species of fish, big wide-bodied big-eyed fish and solitary cigar shaped fish, that seem to come into the cave only in winter. Of course the usual sculpin, southern cavefish, crayfish, and salamanders, the year-round residents, are ever-present. White and black isopods crawl along the bottom and hide under rocks, while amphipods (some are really baby crayfish I think), fill the water if you just defocus your eyes like you do when staring at those dot-matrix three-dimensional posters (random-dot stererograms). When finally you get the focus right, the 3-D image unfolds and it's like you entered another dimension beyond ordinary sight. I can't help but think of these tiny little creatures, normally undetected by human sight, that spend their lives floating about eating microscopic bits of dead flesh and decomposing vegetable matter.

And of course I think of our human lives as no more than microscopic in the larger scheme of things, of how our planet is but dust-mote in the universe, less even than a speck of nothingness. But my life seems so large! I, my life, must surely have more meaning than the life of a brainless reflexive cave amphipod. Or maybe not.

My favorite is the southern cavefish. Blind, albino to the most of almost transparent, and if you get close enough you can see the pink heart beating. But getting that close is difficult. I wonder if a rebreather would calm them down, let me get up close and personal. I think of capturing them and taking them home to a basement aquarium where I can stare closely at them for as long as I want….

Whoa, where are we? As I've been lost in daydreams we've been swimming and the water is now as clear as a bell. I look back and Crawford and Marbry are back there, so I turn and swim back a short ways to where the milky-blue meets the nearly clear and play in the halocline. Like a white fog it hangs just so, in gentle hills and shallow valleys. You can put your head down into the milk, then raise it up and look out over the surface of the smoky fog. Cool.

Crawford and Marbry catch up and we continue on, up and over the camel humps where the water gets shallow and the cave walls get close. The bottom is coarse sand and pebbles and you can see the shapes left by currents from when the rains filled the passage with torrential outflow. Up high is a secondary shelf of beautiful chert formations; black rocks in the shapes of flat-topped mushrooms, rounded on one side and sharpened on the other, some up tall skinny stalks with big plate-sized heads and others small and squat, like little pancakes perched on short fat pedestals. Like a forest in some places and all spread out with room to breathe in other places, the chert formations are delicate testaments to the millenniums. This shelf was formed by a millions of years of rainfall, millions of years of water falling to the ground, of being absorbed by the ground, and millions of years of eroding away the softer rock from the harder, separating the two parts to reveal the artistry of Mother Nature.

We drop down and around the sharp corner, where I always fear the line will one day be cut by the razor-like edge, but today it's continuous and on we go. Deeper now, all of 35 feet, we follow the wide high channel. I stick close to the bottom where the small life flits and scatters, where they wiggle in great effort to move small distances and am reminded once again of our lives, how we too wiggle with great effort to move small distances. As if our lives depended on it, we struggle, we love, we hate, we engage and disengage and too often treat our lives as the most important thing on this earth. Then we settle down in a new spot, a new frame of mind, a place that is not there but here and stop wiggling long enough to catch our breathe and pray we are out of harm's way. I pass the little stick of black salamander, smaller than toothpick, no more than a short dark line in the bedding plane and understand that we are two of a kind. My wiggling and its wiggling differ only in magnitude, in quantity and duration. Long after his wiggling has stopped, mine will continue…or so I hope!

I wiggle a bit extra hard and come up on the triangle rock, the rock that was not there when I first dove this cave, and then one day was. I investigated the ceiling from which it fell and can see the exact placement where it once was, like a piece in a jig-saw puzzle and I always wonder what it must have been like to have been there when it fell. But mostly I think of other large chunks of ceiling falling - especially that one place where the ceiling and floor, both solid rock, are separated by no more than three feet, so that if the ceiling fell, you'd be squashed like a bug. It always makes me smile. Now that's a death! I can see my tombstone now: He was squashed like a bug. Here lies a bit of goo that was once you!
When I die I want my cremated ashes distributed in Guy James Cave. I'd really like an urn with a slow release valve, a time-release valve, hidden in some remote part of the system that would release just a bit of my ashes at 10 or 100 year intervals. Or maybe ask Michael Angelo to mix my ashes, some of them, with his artificial cave clay and blend me into that clay bank just where the milky-blue turns clear! Now that's a grave sight. No tombstone, no plaque, but an urn with my name and born/dead dates hidden where no one will ever find it, releasing the molecules that was once me into the cave waters, to join the milky blue haze.

Starting a new CCR Trimix class tomorrow

2009-11-27T21:55:00.000-08:00

I'll be teaching a new CCR Trimix class starting tomorrow morning. Should be lots of fun! These guys are experienced CCR divers and very experienced OC divers, so we should have a good time. Dive #1 will be a shallow dive to access skills and work on some specific drills. People always ask why we are doing this drill or that drill and most of the time, there are specific skills to be learned by working on the various drills. At this level of dive training, there is also an expectation that students will be able to calmly deal with not only single failures or emergencies, but also with multiple cascading situations that will test students ability to calmly and methodically deal with problems underwater.

We will work on gas planning, teamwork, emergency scenarios, equipment configurations, gas physiology, decompression theory, dive planning, dive tables, dive computers and unit specific issues for their individual CCRs with regards to trimix diving.

Should be a challenging yet enjoyable experience for both me as well as the students.

I always enjoy teaching this upper level classes, because more often than not the students come prepared and eager to learn. (If not, they get sent away until they are eager to learn!)

Advanced Underwater Photography Installement #1

2009-11-22T18:11:00.000-08:00

First of all, I will be the first one to admit that I am not a expert at photography whether above ground or underwater! I do have a lot of fun with it and have over time gotten a little more proficient although I still have a long long ways to go! I once heard someone say that "underwater photography is an exercise in frustration!" I can absolutely agree with that statement! There are just so many variables when it comes to underwater photography that you usually don't have to deal with on land. My intention with this blog is to gradually, overtime write about some of these variables and when possible share some of my lame attempts to deal with these variables.

So here we go - Advanced Underwater Photography Installment #1 is hopefully the first of several ramblings about underwater photography techniques. I make no promises as to how often these installments will come, so check back occasionally and see if I have come up with anything new!

So here is a little about me and my camera/housing setup - I have one of the old original Canon EOS 1Ds, 12 megapixel cameras with a Subal housing. (At one time, this was the latest and greatest, but alas as with all things digital, it has long since been surpassed by other cameras which are far more powerful and have all sorts of cool and unique functions that I wouldn't even know how to use. So for the meantime,I use this "old school" digital dinosaur, that continues to serve me well. I do look forward to the day when a manufacturer releases a camera that require no talent or skill. This will suit me just fine!)

I have both a wide dome port as well as a macro port for my Subal. For wide angle underwater photos I shoot a Canon 16-35 mm lens and for Macro, a Canon Macro 100 mm lens. Additionally, I have sever Sea & Sea strobes as well as some old Nikonos strobes. I primarily use the Sea & Sea YS 120s but occasionally also use a a YS 30 for backfill purposes. (More on that in a later installment). For arms to hold and position my strobes, I use Ultralight gas filled arms to help achieve neutral buoyancy.

When traveling, all of this photo gear takes up quite a bit of room and weighs a ton. It seems like on every trip I am just about fed up with hauling all of this stuff on the plane, but once I have arrived, I am really grateful to have my gear. For me, underwater photography helps keep diving interesting and challenging. With all of the underwater variables such as changing light conditions, visibility, current, challenging animal behavior, backscatter, and the list goes on and on, it seems like there is always something to work on and improve and definitely always something to keep my attention.

Here are a couple of shots - one macro (Brittle Star in Fiji) and one wide angle (Whale Shark and diver in Galapagos - natural light/no strobes) to wet you appetite for future installments! Underwater photography can be a life long pursuit that will challenge even the most experienced divers and photographers.

I love it!

Unnecessary Deaths in the Tech Diving World

2009-11-14T15:44:00.000-08:00

This past week as seen a tragic death at Eagles Nest Cave in North Central Florida. All diving related deaths are regrettable and especially tragic to friends and loved ones as well as their dive buddies. The death this past week of this particular diver is especially disturbing because it need never happened. I say that because this particular dive team was not cave trained!

Apparently, both of these divers were diving CCR (Inspirations) and have neither cave diving certifications or CCR Trimix certifications. Eagles Nest is one of the pinnacle deep cave dives in Cave Country. Most certainly a deep trimix dive and at a location that has claimed several lives over the years, Eagles Nest is often referred to as the Mount Everest of cave diving. It is obviously not a dive to take without serious preparation and without the proper level of training.

According to the latest internet forum wags, both of the divers had recently enrolled in a CCR Normoxic Trimix class that was blown out due to weather. The instructor for some reason decided to move the class to EN to take advantage of a diveable site unaffected by the current tropical storm. The instructor reportedly sent the two students packing after the first dive when he realized they were not yet prepared for that level of diving. Unfortunately, the two divers returned to EN to conduct a dive on their own in an ill advised attempt to explore EN. Reports indicate that they were using diluent mixtures that were inappropriate for the intended depths and that this could have possibly contributed to the tragic result of their dive. You would also have to assume that the overhead environment contributed to basic problem that they experienced. One of the divers bailed out at 200 feet depth and refused assistance from his dive buddy when offered, and thereafter fell unconscious at depth. His buddy was unable to pull him out of the cave and had to leave him at depth in order to ensure his own safe ascent. Very sad indeed.

Bill (Bird) Oestrich and Cotl McCoy were the two primary recovery divers. Unfortunately, these types of deep recoveries as very dangerous for the recovery divers and in this particular case should never have been required! Two divers, untrained and under experienced diving in a serious cave that they should have never been in in the first place let alone by themselves lead to an unnecessary death and one that will continue to affect the diving community, their families and friends for a long time to come.

Hopefully, the tech diving community will learn from this tragic event and instructors will be more diligent in choosing appropriate venues for classes and students will take seriously cautions and training prerequisites for various dives they are contemplating. We are a self regulating industry, and I would hate to see that change due to the actions of a few. I am very sorry for the loss of life, and hope that we can avoid future such loss.

2009-11-08T15:37:00.000-08:00

I just finished up 2 days at DEMA and then 2 days cave diving in Cave Country (North Central Florida).

Had a fun time at DEMA catching up with friends and checking out the latest and the greatest dive equipment and drooling over new locations for future dive trips! We saw lots of CCR stuff (rebreathers) and probably the most exciting unit is the new Hammerhead Extreme with lots of new features including new electronics that will allow for downloading via bluetooth individual dive data. The screen size is also almost double the size and should make it much easier to read. It will also make it possible to update the software via the internet. Easier quick connections of all of the hoses, a smaller more streamlined BOV, a very cool O2 sensor holder that allows users to remove the O2 sensor module much more easily than previously. These new updates will make an already great unit absolutely fantastic!

The other cool CCR update at the show is the Sentinel's CO2 sensor and electronics. This is quite possibly the worlds first really true to life functioning CO2 sensor that is actually currently available. Exciting stuff!

The Apoc was there, but it is really difficult to tell if it is actually a production model or just a prototype. Time will tell.

While diving at Peacock Springs with Mike Robinson, we ran into Jakub from Golemgear. He was diving a very cool sidemounted Hammerhead, that he had designed and built. It uses a spherical O2 tank that is housed in an extended tube that connects to the bottom of the Hammerhead canister. I saw Jakub swimming underwater with it and it looked very streamlined and I think it will pretty much go anywhere that an OC sidemount diver can go. Pretty cool design!

Mike and I did a dive at Peacock, Little River and Orange Grove. We were diving OC sidemount. (Didn't have time or space this trip to haul along the CCRs, but it was a blast none the less) We crawled into some very tight nasty little spaces and had a lot of fun working on our sidemount skills! We stayed at my place in Ft. White and were able to do a little work on the yard and house. www.cavecountrylodging.com

Gotta love Cave Country! Very relaxed and laid back! Just what the doctor ordered!

Diving in the Maldives on the Aggressor liveaboard

2009-11-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

We have just completed a week of diving on the Maldives Aggressor based in Male, Maldives (pronounced Mahlee!) After a grueling 36-hour flight that included a 5 hour layover at JFK and a 6 hour layover in Dubai airports, by the time we landed in Male, we were definitely ready for some R&R! Flying coach on Emirates airlines was quite an experience especially with a very large Arab man who oozed into my seat the entire trip from JFK to Dubai!

Gwen and I arrived one day early and checked into the Bandos resort, just a 20 min. boat ride from the dock at the airport. The resort was beautiful and we took advantage of a much needed day to catch our breath!

The next evening, we met the rest of the Dive Addicts crew at the airport and hooked up with the Aggressor staff and went by Doni (the dive boat) to the Aggressor. The boat is brand new, about 110 feet long and is a motor schooner. As far as liveaboards go, it is one of the nicer boats we have been on. The crew was all Maldivian except the “Co-Captain John” who is from Florida. The crew was a little shy but worked very hard and were very accommodating.

The food was all right, not fantastic, but better than our food in Indonesia last year! The cabins were fairly large and the ensuite bathrooms were huge by liveaboard standards.

Now to the diving! We had a slow start and after the first day I was starting to wonder if we had really wasted our time and money coming all the way to Maldives. However, I was absolutely wrong! By the end of the 2^nd day I was saying this is really, really great diving! We saw Mantas on several dives, Mobula Rays, Marbled Sting Rays, White Tip Sharks, Gray Reef Sharks, Hawksbill Turtles, Green Turtles, and one Whale Shark! We also saw some fish and critters that are unique to the Maldives including the infamous Maldivian Sponge Snail!

Probably the most notable thing about the diving in Maldives is the schooling fish. Once we sailed to the Southern Atols called “Thilas” in Maldivian, we started having really great dives, with enormous schools of various types of fish including Bat Fish, Blue Stripped Snapper, Oriental Sweet Lips, Red Snapper, Jacks, Tuna, Dog Toothed Tuna, Blue Trigger Fish, Banner Fish, Black Pyramid Butterfly Fish, Cornet Fish, Unicorn Fish, Powdered Blue Sturgeon Fish, Big Nose Unicorn Fish, Glass-eye Big Eyes, and Moorish Idols. When I say schooling fish, I don’t just mean a few here or there, but I mean schools of literally hundreds! It was absolutely amazing!

We also saw several different types of puffer fish – Guineafowl Pufferfish, Black-spotted Pufferfish, Yellow-eye Pufferfish and the Starry Pufferfish. Really a wide variety! In addition, we also saw several blotched Porcupinefish.

We saw several different types of eels – Black Cheek Moray, Honeycomb Moray, Yellow-margin Moray and the Giant Moray. I have never witnessed so many eels on the reef at the same time, sometimes two or three eels in the same holes! You had to be quite careful that you didn’t bump into one or touch one. They would also quite often be seen free swimming, even during the daytime. We also saw quite a few Lion Fish mainly the Spotfin Lionfish but also the Common Lionfish. We saw lots of Stone Fish and on one dive we saw a very large Frog Fish as well as a Leaf Fish. Both were VERY cool! Saw a few Mandarin Fish.

We saw more large Groupers than I have ever seen anywhere in the world. And of course, the several large Napoleon Wrasse, including one called Freddy that was very friendly! He hung around for 10 mins. or more and was very photogenic!

We saw lots of Anemonefish and Clark’s Anemonefish as well as 3 different types of of anemones.

The coral and sponges were not prolific, but the fish life more than made up for it!

The Dive Addicts group included the following divers:

Randy Thornton

Gwen Thornton

Mike Robinson

Laura Robinson

Mark Robinson

Candice Caulkins

Jeff Matson

Craig Ramon

Doug Smith

Amy Smith

We had a little mishap on the second dive day. Jeff Matson unhooked his tank from the bungie that holds the scuba units in place on the boat and it fell on his foot ripping off his toenail and fracturing his toe. It was bleeding pretty badly and Jeff had to fly back to Male to the hospital via seaplane and have it x-rayed. It turned out that he did not need surgery and was able to rejoin us on the boat the next day, but unable to continue diving. Craig Ramon came down with some kind of a upper respiratory infection and was unable to dive more than a couple of times during the week, so the Madivian diving didn’t work out for those two, but they did get some diving in while visiting Thailand on the way over there.

Overall the week was a blast, the diving was superb and the boat and crew were very good. I would highly recommend the Maldives Aggressor to anyone who is interested in a unique diving experience. The flights getting there are a bit of a nightmare – 36 hours in total from SLC, but none the less, a great week of diving!

Just chillin' at JFK on our way to Maldives!

2009-10-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Gwen and I are sitting here "just chillin'" here in the Delta Sky room at JFK. We are on our way to Maldives to meet 8 other divers from Dive Addicts and board the Maldives Aggressor. Our itinerary is Salt Lake to NYC, NYC to Dubai, Dubai to Malee (Maldives). 36 hours in total! Fortunately, we are arriving one day early so we can kick back and rest from our vacation!!!!

Even though this is just a recreational trip, I'm really looking forward to doing some relaxing diving and concentrating on my photography. I've said many times that underwater photography is an exercise in frustration. I'm hoping that I can take a sufficient number of photos on this trip to end up with some nice shots.

I'll be shooting my Canon 1DS, housed in a Subal housing. I have both a wide angle dome port as well as a macro port. I suspect that the wide angle lens and dome port will get more use on this trip than the macro set up due to the expected large amounts of schooling fish and pelagics, but we'll see how it goes.
Humpback and Black and White Snappers, Trevally Jacks, Barracuda, Batfish, Unicornfish, Yellowback Fusiliers and Harlequin Sweetlips
I'll try to post some shots on the way home next week, since I don't think we will have internet access on the boat during the week.

2009-10-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

Here I sit in the Crown Room at LAX on my way home from wreck diving in San Diego. I was teaching an Advanced Wreck diving class for Rick Heil. Joshua and Michael were also diving with us. Josh, Michael and myself were on our Hammerhead CCRs and Rick was diving a set of steel 95s with a ali 40 of deco gas.

We had a blast. We dove on Friday on the Lois Ann which was alright, but slightly crowded. On Saturday we dove on the Humboldt which was MUCH nicer and had lots of room and great amenities - nice dive ladders, hot shower, hot food, plenty of bench space and dive masters that were very tech savvy. They made the diving a real pleasure. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Humboldt to anyone diving in San Diego. (Waterhorse Charters http://www.waterhorsecharters.com/)

Over the two days, we did 4 dives on the Yukon and 2 on the Ruby E. Lots of space on both boats to do penetration and although not technically difficult, it is just challenging enough to offer the students a realistic wreck diving experience. ( at least it is realistic enough to demonstrate and let them experience some wreck penetration skills. I think Rick will agree that the location and course material was challenging as well as fun. We also dove with Doug and Marc from San Diego which was a pleasure. Doug was on a Hammerhead and Marc was on a Hammermeg. ( a Meg with Hammerhead electronics)

The Hammerheads worked flawlessly and we had a great time working on skills and exploring these wrecks. We will be back again to use both of these wrecks for future classes! Had a great time!

2009-10-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

Can you tell which case belongs to my daughter in law Ashlee?!!!!! Josh and Ashlee drove down to San Diego today to meet us this weekend for some wreck diving. Ashlee has yet to embrace the Thornton passion for all types of technical diving, but we are working on her! The first step will be to purchase a suitable tech diving box!

2009-10-12T22:50:00.000-07:00

I taught the second session of an Evolution class tonight to two gentlemen from Bountiful. They do a fair amount of diving in Hawaii every year. (7-8 trips per year!) Must be nice!

We will be in the pool tomorrow night and then we head up to the crater next week to start the open water segments. They seem to be picking up the concepts fairly quickly which is always nice!

Advanced Wreck Class

2009-10-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

Just started teaching an Advanced Wreck Diving class this afternoon. We are headed to San Diego next weekend to dive some of the "tourist wrecks" in wreck alley so that my students can get a taste of what wreck diving is all about. Should be pretty tame diving, but will give them an opportunity to do actual penetration.

One of the wrecks we will be diving on is an artificial wreck called the "Yukon", which is a decommissioned Canadian Coast Guard Cutter. The Yukon has been prepared for recreational divers to experience wreck diving with large holes cut in the side for easier access. Should be a perfect site for a new technical divers introduction to wreck diving. I'll post some pictures from the trip later next week.

2009-10-09T21:34:00.000-07:00

This is the sign that leads to Cave Country Lodging, our house in Ft. White, Florida! I will be down there diving for a couple of days immediately following DEMA. Should be a good time!
www.cavecountrylodging.com

2009-10-02T14:34:00.000-07:00

Josh Thornton, myself (Randy Thornton), Richard Lamb, Tom Lamb and Amy Smith dove Ricks Spring last Saturday with the intent of shooting some photos of as much of the explored sections as possible. When we got there the entrance appeared to be quite a bit smaller due to a substantial amount of rock that had slid down closing off a portion of the entrance. It has always been a side mount entrance, but Saturday it was suitable for skinny guys only! This basically meant that Josh was the only one who could initially get in! Once Josh was inside, he was able to scoop some of the new rocks out of the way which allowed Richard to barely squeeze through! The next 40 mins or so was spent with both teams (inside and outside) clearing the entrance so that we could all make it through the entrance. This also meant because the water is 40 degrees cold, we were already quite cold before the dive really got under way!

My camera set up is a Canon 1DS

which is quite large. It's housed in a Subal housing with two large Sea & Sea strobes on long arms. With a large dome port to accommodate the wide angle lens,we were all quite concerned about damaging it in the restrictions in a couple of different places. Consequently, we decided to put it in a milk crate to transport it to at least the first dry section. This turned out to be a very bad idea! I was to be the lead diver carrying the milk crate/camera so that I could be ensured of good visibility, but between the cold, flow, and trying to swim carrying a heavy milk crate, it was just about enough to do me in! About 35 mins. into the dive we were in a fairly tight tunnel called the "Slippery Slide" that only has room for

one diver when I suffered a major free flow! (I'm assuming due to the cold!) Carrying stages, camera, in a tight tunnel with a free flow made for some hair raising moments, and by the time the team was able to turn around in tight quarters with all of our gear and high tail it back towards the entrance, I had experienced about as much fun as I wanted for one day! Fortunately, my son Josh offered to carry the camera back out! (OK, I shoved it in his face and said: "Here you take this sucker!") Turning around in the Slippery Slide caused a silt out and we excited in next to zero viz. We ended up loosing two additional strobes that we were going to use in slave mode to light up the place. They were worth about a $1000 so we were pretty bummed about that, but better strobes than a diver! Hopefully we will find the strobes on another dive sometime.

Diving in cold water caves is another whole level of

stress that is hard to explain. Heavy gloves, hoods, thick undergarments, etc. etc. just complicates virtually every aspect of the dive. We are seeing incredible sights, but it is WAY hard work!

Josh and Matt are heading back up to Ricks on Tuesday to do another push and get some pictures for an article his is writing for Advanced Diver Magazine. I won't be able to go, but I wish them luck! We don't believe we are close to hitting the end. This is exciting stuff. Josh and Richard are convinced that we can haul a ladder somehow in to the 2nd dry section and climb up the 20 foot waterfall and explore that section, but I am not convinced it's possible. We'll see how that goes! We now know that there are at least two sources of water, one of which is coming down the water fall.

That's it for now. Stay tuned!

Josh, Amy, Me and Tom showing off the Crate of Death!

2009-09-27T16:58:00.000-07:00

I'm sure for many of you that live full time in cave country or other areas around the world where there are numerous caves found, exploring a virgin cave is not a once in a life time event! For a small group of tight knit Utah cave divers, Ricks Spring is a dream come true. You may recall reading an article in the CDS magazine last year written by Wendell Nope, concerning the ongoing exploration of Ricks Springs in Logan Canyon, Utah. Of course compared to Wakulla or other major exploration projects, Ricks is of little consequence in the overall scheme of things, but having a diveable cave within a couple of hours of home is absolutely fantastic!

We have been pushing this cave over the past 3 years. Originally dived by Wendell Nope and Richard Lamb, the Ricks exploration team now consist of 10 people: Wendell Nope, Richard Lamb, Tom Lamb, Matt Mimnaugh, Tibby Petrescu, Mike Robinson, Amy Smith, Joshua Thornton, Michael Thornton, & Randy Thornton.

As a high flow, high altitude fresh water spring, diving Ricks is a challenge in many ways. It is only diveable during certain months of the year due to excessive flow! When I say flow, I mean during spring run-off times, you can't even make it in the entrance let alone make any headway in the cave! Probably the biggest challenge is the water temperature. 40 degrees is cold by anyone's standards, and cave diving in this environment certainly appeals to only the most vigorous divers! Dry suits, thick hoods and gloves make virtually every aspect of laying line in virgin passageway a challenge. Additionally, smoothed scalloped surfaces with few legitimate tie-off points make for line laying challenges.

About 1500 feet into the cave, you hit a dry section which then requires climbing up a waterfall section and portage through approximately 300 additional feet of dry/wet limestone area to the next section of going underwater cave. As of two weeks ago, with the teams assistance, Josh and Michael Thornton added about 300 feet of additional passage making explored passage past the dry section about 700-750 feet, for a total of approximately 2200 feet of cave explored. (rough estimate, as at some point we will go back an do a legitimate measurement!) According to Josh and Michael, the new unexplored passage became extremely silty as the percolation dislodged silt resting in the scalloped cups on the sides of the cave and viz when from 100 feet to 2 inches!

Run times for exploring the end of lines at this point are running in the 2 to 2 1/2 hour range, so you can imagine how cold the divers are when exiting the cave in these temperatures! The divers usually require help removing their equipment and getting out of the water at that stage because they are so wiped out!

The cave is definitely sidemount access. There are some very large passages, but also some restrictions that just wouldn't allow for backmount access. Yesterday, in order to continue past the dry section, the push team staged cylinders at the dry section so that they could use just their primary LP 85s in the new section without having to worry about extra stages in the large crack that is currently being explored.

Last year the CDS donated some gold line to be installed. Less than a year later, parts of the gold line already need to be repaired, and we hope to work on that project in the next few weeks as well as improve the routing in a few places. Past the dry section there is only exploration line in place for now.

August 2009 - Florida Cave Diving Trip

2009-09-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

Peacock Springs is one of the most beautiful sites in Cave Country. The cave goes for thousands of feet and

makes for hours of wonderful dives.

Now a State Park, it has great facilities for cave divers. We dove at Peacock over two different days. Great time!

My son in law, Scott Olcott was with us doing his Cavern and Intro to Cav

e training. Notice the big smile on his face since he passed his class!

Scott gearing up at Peacock after he completed his class!

Amy Smith and Matt Mimnaugh spent the week diving with us. Amy was on side mount all week and Matt was on back mount.

Josh, Michael and I gearing up with our Hammerheads at Little River. LR is one of my favorite caves in North Central Florida. The flow was down a little bit due to the floods the previous 2 months, so the viz wasn't quite as good as normal, but none the less the dive was fantastic!

We did approximately a 2 hour dive. Gotta love cave diving on CCR!

My first Blog post ever!

2009-09-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

This is my first Blog post ever! My daughter has been blogging for quite sometime, but I am a little late coming to the party! I figured that I would make this Blog centered around diving. ( I know, big surprise!) My wife told me that I should name my blog "How I waste even more time on the internet with diving!" Hopefully, someone out there will be interested in reading my thoughts on diving. If not, at least I can entertain myself!

Oh well, I don't really know too much about this blogging stuff, but at least I got started. Stay tuned for more exciting, highly entertaining & witty thoughts on all things diving related!