Suwannee County is the #1 cave-diving destination in the world July 14, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , 1 comment so farThere is an interesting article in the suwanneedemocrat website, which highlights the great cave diving available in the region. Suwannee County is apparently the world’s most popular cave diving destination, and in the article Janet Schrader interviews a cave diving instructor, John Orlowsky, who has been cave diving and teaching cave diving for many years;
“I started coming down here when I was teaching scuba diving at the University of Pittsburgh,” Orlowsky said. “I talked my students into trying it, took a class in cave diving and fell in love with it.”
Cave Diving in the Lot Video July 1, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , 3commentsYou may have already seen my post regarding the recent trip Bob Cooper, Rick Huggins, John Kendall, and I made to France, where we dived the Emergence Du Ressel, Landenouse, Fontaine de St George, and Trou Madame. John made a short video of the highlights, and here it is for you to enjoy. Its about 14 minutes long, so make sure you have a fresh cup of tea before pressing the play button.
Ambitious project to map Island’s underwater caves June 22, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , add a commentThe island of Bermuda’s limestone caves date back between one and two million years and have never been mapped..until now. An ambitious project to map the caves using a combination of traditional cave diving techniques and technology which will follow the progress of divers from above ground, is due to start within the next 12 months. During the project the caves are also to be filmed in a documentary by Jill Heinerth, says the Royal Gazette;
One of the world’s top cave diving experts, Jill Heinerth of US-based Karst Productions, has already produced a number of films following “the water paths of the world” including exploring caves created in the ice-shelf of Antarctica.
“This seemed like a natural for an episode of ‘Water’s Journey’,” she said of the upcoming documentary on Bermuda.
“The caves here are magnificent and part of the reason is because they have been so protected. When you go swimming in the caves, it is like going through a church. The formations were formed when they were dry caves and later they became submerged.”
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Boy saves his older brother by performing CPR after freediving accident June 16, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : Accidents, CaveDiving, Freediving, News , add a commentTaylor Smith was lucky to have been freediving with his brother on a freediving trip to Blue Spring Cave. The cave is 120ft deep and freedivers sometimes find air pockets which accumulate due to expelled air from scuba divers exiting the cave. It seems Taylor found one of these pockets and fell unconscious. He was then dragged out of the cave by his brother, Wesley Smith and another buddy, Brian Cummings, and the help of other divers.
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WKPP record dive: Full detailed report and pics released June 13, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , 1 comment so far
The WKPP have released a detailed report of their record dive which I mentioned just after it took place over the weekend of 19-21st May 2006 and have also published a gallery of pictures covering the dive, both in and out of the water.
The WKPP is a dive team which have been undergoing an extensive exploration of Wakulla Spring for many years, and the longest dive so far had been to 19,000 feet with an average depth of 290ft. This dive was a few years ago now (2000) as the visibility of the cave has been too poor for diving. Conditions this year have improved though and the WKPP have made the most of it, with a dive extending the previous record by 1,000ft or so and with a bottom time of over 400 minutes!
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First Dive in Fish Rock Cave June 8, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving, OceanDiving, Travel , add a commentI often read the articles at Travel-Dive and wish that I could dive all these great places. O often also look at Jane Wilkinson’s blog on The Deep Stop, as she is a great photographer. I was really pleasantly surprised to see that she has written up her first ‘cave dive’ after diving what is called Fish Rock Cave, in Australia. Fish Rock cave is in New South Wales and Jane dived with the South West Rocks Dive Centre, which is owned by a family of brothers who have lived and dived there all their lives. Although Jane was anxious about the dive she came through it all admirably and its a great story.
Even though visibility was good, in the darkness I was straining to see where the break in the rock was to exit along the tunnel. Although far from panicking the fact that I couldn’t see the exit made me anxious and being very aware of how I was feeling I knew my breathing rate would automatically start going up and I would be getting through the air, which of course made me more anxious! However, it can’t have been for long before Scott returned – probably not more than a few minutes but I have to confess to hanging onto to him for a moment or too for reassurance just till I had calmed down. Fortunately he guessed and didn’t think I was making a pass at him 24m underwater in a cave!
