Cave Divers ‘envied like a little boy does an astronaut’ February 10, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , add a commentOccasionally, whilst clicking through the hundreds of diving stories I read each day, you find one which reminds you of what it was like to first start diving. There’s already been a great story today about a diving instructor swimming with killer whales in front of his first time scuba diving students, and now we have a nice story about what a beginner diver thinks about cave diving.
David Raterman was lucky enough to be able to take a try dive with Josh from Extreme Exposure, at Ginnie Springs. I’m not sure when he actually did it, as the last time I went over to Florida (June 2005) Josh had left to do some ‘proper’ work, but maybe Josh is back now.
Anyway, David writes a nice piece about how magical diving is and has a great writing style describing the feeling of looking into the mouth of a cave for the first time;
I floated in front of the cave, with my streamlined buoyancy compensator steadying my altitude like a hover pack in a science-fiction movie, sticking my hand in and out of the cave’s mouth. Earlier one cave explorer had told me he’d encountered formations so pretty, seeing them was a near-religious experience.
Inside, you might find Indian artifacts, mammoth bones and huge rooms - all rarely seen by mankind, he explained.
After having a great time learning to breathe underwater for the first time and exploring some of the Ginnie Springs wildlife and features, David seemed to be well impressed by Josh;
Eventually I turned and looked at Dolan, who was watching me from two feet away. I thought of his experience, which included diving 4,800 feet into a different cave, and I envied him like a little boy does an astronaut.
Mexican cenotes a sight to behold for dedicated scuba divers February 3, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , add a commentIn a great article for the Miami Herald, Susan Cocking describes a recent trip cave diving in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.
In prehistoric times, the Yucatan was a coral reef and after the last Ice Age 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, water levels dropped, leaving dry limestone caves. Rain dissolved the limestone layers and cave roofs and walls collapsed or eroded, leaving dripstone formations on floors and ceilings in subterranean rivers. The nature-made sculptures are nothing short of spectacular.
Unlike North Florida’s network of underwater caves — which are often deeper than 300 feet and subject to the powerful flow of underground springs — the average depth of the Mexican cenotes is about 45 feet and little to no current. Hundreds of feet of caverns can be explored safely without straying out of sight of surface light, or making decompression stops.
Susan dived at Dos Ojos (two eyes), an underground river on the Carribean Coast, known as the Riviera Maya. In order to enter the cave, you have to climb down a ladder through the narrow opening, your scuba gear being lowered to you on a rope.
Just gearing up on the wooden dive platform was a treat. We stood in the middle of a wide, water-filled limestone cave decorated with stalactites and stalagmites — limestone projections that extend from the ceiling and up from the floor. At our feet, the water was so clear that it appeared nearly invisible. We felt its coolness — 72 degrees — through our thick, neoprene wet suits when we got in.
The cenotes of the Riviera Maya, little-known to anyone outside cave-diving circles 10 years ago, attract thousands each year. What keeps them from becoming overrun is their numbers. Of the nearly 500 cenotes registered among the 100-mile coastline between Cancun and Felipe Carrillo Puerto, explorer Sam Meacham said nearly 150 underwater caves and cave systems covering 380 miles have been mapped and surveyed, including the ninth-longest cave on Earth — the 440,000-foot Ox Bel Ha (Three Paths of Water).
Some links Susan recommended;
• Xibalba Dive Center, Tulum; www.xibalbadivecenter.com.
• Yucatek Divers, Playa del Carmen; www.yucatek-divers.com.
• Go Cenotes, www.gocenotes.com
• Dive Aventuras, Puerto Aventuras, www.diveaventuras.com
• Hidden Worlds, Tulum, www.hiddenworlds.com
New Call for British cave scuba diving safety December 10, 2005
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , add a comment
An article from the Yorkshire post covers the inquest of British Cave scuba diver Colin Pryer, who sadly died scuba diving in caves near Horton In Ribblesdale in March 2005.
After hearing statements from Colin’s partner and Brian Schofield, a scuba diving expert from the British Cave Diving Group CDG, the coroner recommended that safety procedures should be reviewed, particularly with regards to the ability to help scubadivers in trouble whilst scuba diving the caves. Full story follows;
Safety measures in cave scuba diving to be reviewed after a man drowned while exploring caves in the Yorkshire Dales.
Experienced cave scuba diver Colin Pryer, 29, died in caves near Horton-In-Ribblesdale in March after becoming entangled in loose line left by another scuba diver during the 1970s.
His inquest at Skipton Magistrates’ Court yesterday was told that it was the second time Mr Pryer, from Newcastle, had entered Low Birkwith cave. He had been scuba diving a few days before to make sure the line he was to follow was safe.
His partner of three-and-a-half-years, Gemma Jones, said that at 10.45am on March 13 Mr Pryer called her to say he was going scuba diving and he expected to be out of the water by 3pm. But at 3.40pm, when he still had not called her, Miss Jones called the police and cave scuba divers were sent to track him down. Water was pumped out of the cave tunnels and he was found dead at 11.30pm.
GUE Cave 2 Scuba Diving Report, Florida, 2005 Part 3 November 29, 2005
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , 2commentsWednesday
In the morning we headed off to Ginnie again for two dives. I did the reel and we went down the ear. The dive plan was to try and prove a circuit today, doing 4 jumps to end up back on the main line and then to do the second dive down the mainline to find our jump spool from the previous dive and then exit that way. I had a busy dive as some other team had already run a reel in an inventive way and I had to look for an alternative route, which turned out to be better anyway and Tyler even said �excellent� at the debrief which was quite surprising as he isn’t usually so loose with his compliments. We had already had ‘top notch’ which I was still recovering from . We dropped the deco bottles at the secondary tie off and I tied in to the mainline. Along the gallery, through the lips, keyhole and cornflakes to the tabletop jump, which I set and then signalled to my teammates to follow. Scott set the next jump followed by Don and then I set the final jump before thumbing the dive, according to the plan. Mission accomplished, we headed back, with only a few light failures along the way, Tyler testing how well we reordered the team according to the resources left.
The second dive and I was third with Don second and Scott first. We didn�t need to place a reel and so we made quick progress through the cave until finding my spool. The two guys just swam along it but I signalled a hold and confirmed that we were indeed OK to exit this way and pull our spools out as we were leaving the mainline. All fine and we headed out. Again we had failures on the way out in the form of light problems but nothing really major. We pulled all the spools, found the mainline and exited to do our deco.
GUE Cave 2 Scuba Diving Report, Florida, 2005 Part 2 November 28, 2005
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , 1 comment so farIntroduction
After spending a week visiting Mickey Mouse and many other Orlando attractions, Elena and I headed up to High Springs so I could take my scuba diving cave 2 class with Tyler. My teammates for the course were Scott, who I had completed my Cave 1 with in November 04, and also Don, who had taken Cave 1 a few years ago, before there was a DIRF course. Elena, SWMBO, had organised some horse riding lessons and a couple of nature trek things to keep her from getting bored, and so I was all set. For those who want to go on a cave course and have non cave diving partners, this was a great idea and Elena really enjoyed herself, which can only mean more cave scubadiving trips for me Florida really does have a lot to offer if you need to ‘balance’ our dive-life and family-life
Sunday
With some trepidation I turned up at the newly refurbished EE store on Sunday morning to be met by Tyler, Scott, and Don. During the night Elena and I had awoken to a lot of fizzing and hissing as my HID battery pack had decided to explode whilst being charged! I found out that you should not use a convertor for the US sockets as it screws up the charging. It cost $570 for me to find that out! After getting our twinsets filled and analysed as well as oxygen deco bottle we went through some initial academics before heading off to Ginnie for the swim test and the first scubadive.
The swim test was easy and I did that in 7 minutes or so. I successfully managed to dodge running the reel for the first dive and Scott volunteered, with Don second and me third. I had been a little nervous as I hadn�t scuba dived a cave since November but as soon as I was in the water and heading down the ear everything came back and it was as if I had not had the break. Ginnie was as beautiful as ever, with limitless viz and comfortable 21 degC water. Our task was to put in the primary tieoff, followed by the secondary and drop our O2 bottles (which were hipclipped at this point). We were then to head off up the main line until we reached thirds. We hipclipped the O2 bottles all week as we don’t take them very far in the cave, just enough to be out of the way of nosey swimmers. Ginnie is an excellent scubadive, the vis goes on for the full spread of the 18W HID and once you know the cave a little, the flow doesn�t beat you up so much. Anyway we headed along the main line and I forget how far we got but I think it was turned when my light mysteriously failed. I switched to backup and called the dive, and so we started heading back. It wasn�t too long before the others lights failed and we all returned on backup lights, picking up the O2 bottles and doing 5 minutes deco. Cave diving is totally different to the ocean. I still find it a little strange doing a deco stop sat on a log rather than in open water.
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Scuba Diving Expert warns Wal-Mart site may harm caves November 27, 2005
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving, Conservation , add a commentALACHUA - The cattle didn’t know what to make of Cindy Butler as she roamed on their pasture Friday listening to headphones attached to a gray disc.
Butler followed the sound of an electronic hum as it grew in intensity, leading her to the edge of a 80-foot-wide depression in the ground.
The headphones were picking up the sound from a magnetic device carried by cave scuba divers nearly 200 feet below the surface. Butler will present the findings to Wal-Mart as it moves forward with plans to build a store on the 31-acre property on U.S. 441 near Interstate 75.
“I don’t have an issue with them building on here - as long as they don’t build on the cave,” she said.
Butler is a certified cave-scubadiving guide who leads expeditions into the nearby Mill Creek Sink. Mill Creek feeds into the sink, its waters being carried through a series of underground caves that eventually lead six miles away to Hornsby Spring.
She said the fragile cave system could be damaged by Wal-Mart - especially a fissure in the rock below the proposed store. Scuba divers brought the magnetic device to the fissure, so Butler could document its location above ground.
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