Richie,

So Vanderleest's DCS is more than a little "leg pain" huh?

As for your "Cutis marmorata", skin bends for the for the English speaking,
we are talking about the massive edema which accompanies dcs of the fatty
tissues surrounding the abdomen and we affectionately have termed
"slobitis". You essentially become a temporary fat slob as a result of this
or a fatter slob if you already are one.  Anyone can develop symptoms of
this, even skinny  people such as yourself (I've seen pictures of you). What
is amusing, assuming you still have a sense of humor is that an otherwise
normal person develops what appears to be a beer gut, without the beer. You
find yourself walking around for a week with belt undone and your shirt out.
I thought you knew about these things.  This situation is not uncommon among
saturation divers.

I have never suggested that the USDCT divers are fat or out of shape. As
George has quite plainly stated, there are some people who do not fare well
with deep exposure diving, regardless of their fitness level or experience
level as some of the USDCT guys have done a lot shallow cave diving,
according to their cvs.  You find out who can tolerate the repeated deep
stuff by doing it.  I will say that one should be apprised of this before
embarking on a project the magnitude of Wakulla II.   Some people have a
predisposition to DCS and they end up quiting the deep diving as a result.

DCS is serious business, but if you are going to make a practice of deep
diving you can't take a "chicken Little" attitude towards it. There are
dives where you will suffer mild dcs and you can't go calling 911 every time
this happens. You learn to differentiate what is bad and what is just
routine "beating".  In fact the term deco "beating" is accurate, because it
sometimes feels as though someone physically beat you with a wooden bat
about the fleshy areas if you do not do your deep stops just right.  Even if
you do your deep stops, sometimes your drysuits pinches or a harness
constricts too much or your drysuit floods and some of the extremities get
too cold and so on.

Rich, now that Dituri has come out the closet, so to speak what will be next
shoe to drop? Have you been appointed as public spokesperson or apologist
for the USCDT?

As for the dive times. At least you published your Mk 4 downloads during the
Pahlau expedition and we could see just what happened. According to someone,
the Cis Lunar dive logs are to be published on the website. This will go a
long way to telling us just what is really going on. Why don't you mention
this during your nightly conversation with Dr. Stone.

Bill
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Pyle <deepreef@bi*.or*>
To: Bill Mee <wwm@sa*.ne*>
Cc: Jess Armantrout <armantrout@wo*.at*.ne*>; Techdiver
<techdiver@aq*.co*>; rebreather@nw*.co*
<rebreather@nw*.co*>; Houston Cavers List
<HoustonCaveDivers@ca*.co*>; Cost effective home improvement
<freeattic@co*.ci*.uf*.ed*>; cavers <cavers@cavers.com>;
kirvine@sa*.ne* <kirvine@sa*.ne*>
Date: Monday, December 14, 1998 5:44 PM
Subject: Re: More USDCTisms




> For those who have actually experienced diving in Wakulla Springs, it
> came as quite shock that one could turn an essentially no
> decompression dive to the beginning of the B tunnel into a 47 minute
> bottom fest. Did the 47 minutes include the time it took to walk from
> the Lodge to the Beach, scooter into the basin and count cat fish for
> 15 minutes and then scooter to the B tunnel junction?

I would suspect not.  Rather, I suspect that the bottom time was because
"They placed a radio transmitter beacon and laid new permanent line
to clearly mark the B and C tunnel entrances in preparation for routine
mapping missions to come shortly. They also relocated some safety stage
bottles to the B and C junctions."

> I am sorry about Vanderleest geting bent in the leg. As to this, all I
> can say is welcome to the club. If it had been myself I would have
> taken four Ibuprofens and gone home. This is what we affectionately
> call the "deco beating" and is to be expected, just as one would
> expect minor aches and pains after running 20 miles.  I really think
> that this was due to some other problem.  Wait until these guys do a
> dive where the bottom time is 47 – 60 minutes from the 220 travel gas
> change stop. This, of course, is where the WKPP bottom timer starts.
> Not in the parking lot.

I thought you called it "sports injury"?  How can you profess to be in any
way safer than the Wak2 divers, when this is your attitude towards
clinical bends symptoms? I hope you guys don't plan on having your joints
intact in about 10 years; or, at least make sure your insurance plans
cover artificial joint replacement.

> You can just imagine the horror which will ensue when one of the
> "team" gets a real case of slobitis. I wonder if Barbara Am Ende will
> photograph a closeup of a large black and blue swollen beer gut.

I gather your implication here are that:

1) Wak2 divers have swollen beer guts (they must hide them well, because I
see no evidence of such in the photos); and

2) That risk cutis marmorata bends is inversely correlated with physical
fitness.  If that were true, then why is Joe up on me 2 to 1 on the cutis
marmorata hits, and why do the super fit WKPP divers seem to have such a
high incidence of this otherwise uncommon form of bends?

Aloha,
Rich

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