PBS Show on Cave Diving

[jjoeldm]

Dude, I was trying to be humble !!!!

Anyway, I figure that some of the shots must be staged. For example, it's hard to believe that first the cameraman squeezes his equipment and himself thru this tiny opening (all the while kicking up clouds of silt), and then they have to wait for the silt to settle before getting a nice clear shot of a diver coming thru ??? I don't think so. They must get the shots at another location, in an opening which is easily accessible from either side.

This whole thing just blows my mind.

It looked like the Alachua Sink area to me. There's a Sonny's BBQ right there and a double highway just like in the video:

http://www.floridacaves.com/alachuaaerial.jpg

These guys are pretty good and I doubt seriously that very much (if any) of it was staged. Cave diving cameramen are just like the cameramen who film mountain climbers or, for that matter, Ginger Rogers. She did everything Fred did only backwards and in high-heels -- the same goes for the cameramen in this documentary. Really exemplary work!

There is a second installment coming out this month on PBS:

http://www.karstproductions.com/

http://www.floridasprings.org/expedition/dispatch1/page.php

Cave diving, as many here know, is an unusual offshoot of SCUBA that requires a great deal of discipline, training and equipment to do well and safely. Not everyone who does it does it well or safely, just like in regular SCUBA, but there are some very talented folks out there that make it look easy, like Wes' team and the WKPP folks who have climbed the Everest of cave diving not once, but used to do it in their spare time on weekends without serious incident:

http://www.wkpp.org/articles/Exploration/18grand1.htm

It's all about focus . . . .

JoeL

 

[Woland]

There's a fairly good book about the doomed father-son cave divers (Chris & Chrissy Rouse) here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...102-6626922-8721719?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Has some OK bits on their cave diving experiences at Ginny Springs in Florida and their wreck diving in the North Atlantic that took their lives.

Woland

 

[mccabejc]

Okay, I saw this show ("Water's Journey, the Hidden Rivers of Florida") (www.floridasprings.org/expedition ) again last night, and Skiles, Heinerth, et. al. are just incredible. Looks like they weren't wearing rebreathers (since as Mike mentioned they would be too big to fit thru them tiny spaces). I'm amazed that they can spend so much time at 200 ft. without rebreathers.

Anyway, you cave guys are unbelievable. Gives me a whole new level of respect for what you do.

 

[roakey]

Saw another PBS show a while back where a pair of divers, carrying some homemade radio beacons, exploring some underwater springs in Florida, apparently for the first time. They did the same thing, wiggling through incredibly tight openings. As I recall they were at some insane depth (200 ft. or something like that?), and didn't know where or if the spring had an outlet, or they'd have to turn around and come back to where they started. On the surface there were a couple of guys with radio receivers tracking them as they travelled through the underground springs, and it led them thru a restaurant, across a highway, etc.

"Water's Journey", available here:

http://www.karstproductions.com/KarstStore/store_v_b.html

Great CD and awsome photography; Skiles by far is the world's formost underwater cave photographer...

If memory serves, they weren't anywhere near 200ft....

Roak

 

[mart1]

Since you brought this up I'd be interested to know for those who don't subscribe to the DIR principles, how you approach the diving. While I like a lot of the DIR stuff, and to me a lot of it makes sense, it is clearly not the only way to dive technically.

I'd be quite grateful to hear some other thoughts on the subject if not for the purposes of open discussion, at least for my own benefit. If you feel this would be better handled privately, we could take it to PM, but the conversation might benefit others as well.

Thanks

I dive caves and teach cave diving.
I'm not DIR, I'm DIS (Doing It Safe).
That is, I follow a lot of the procedures called DIR nowadays, but which are just common sense. My configuration is 95% DIR, which at one time before DIR was called Hogartian. The only part of DIR I will not subscribe to is the stupidity of blindly following a rigid set of rules just because some divers made these up. I like to keep thinking for myself.
You will find most tech divers feel the same, we just are not as loud on the internet. We prefer to dive

ciao, mart

 

[jeckyll]

*sits back, grabs popcorn*

 

[H2Andy]

The only part of DIR I will not subscribe to is the stupidity of blindly following a rigid set of rules just because some divers made these up.

you need to understand the history of DIR (which is the same as the recent
explorations in Wakulla Springs) to understand why their rules are neither stupid
nor rigid.

try doing the dives the WKPP does without a central protocol and you'll end
up with chaos.

 

[mccabejc]

If memory serves, they weren't anywhere near 200ft....

Roak

You could be right, though I could have sworn they mentioned at one point they were 200ft. deep, then again around 150 ft. The website says on a Wakulla dive (not sure if it was the same one) Jill and Paul Heinerth were at 300ft. Blows my mind.

 

[StSomewhere]

.

 

[PerroneFord]

You could be right, though I could have sworn they mentioned at one point they were 200ft. deep, then again around 150 ft. The website says on a Wakulla dive (not sure if it was the same one) Jill and Paul Heinerth were at 300ft. Blows my mind.

I know the subject at hand is cave diving, but when I decided I wanted to explore shipwrecks, I learned something VERY fast. Warm, shallow water, destroys wrecks. So in order to see intact wrecks here in warm water, you have to go deep. Or, you have to travel to cold, fresh water. Same issue with caves. The warm ones here in FL are often quite deep. Apparently 150-300+ feet deep. If you want to see the sites, you have to follow the dictated profile.

Life is SO much easier when your passion is shallow reefs at 40ft!