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Adriaan - there is no "big one" for the record books . That requires more than lying. He knows we will be back in there, so he knows that to lie about that is hopeless. They have no intention of going anyplace. The clear part of the cave is a snap - even they are able to dive it given enough gear and time, although they seem to be shying away from B Tunnel for some reason. Keep in mind that the farthest they have been is about were I get on a stage bottle open circuit. We do not dive the nearby tunnels on rebreather since it is totally unnecessary and an added complication to otherwise very simple dives. They have no divers, so they need the rebreather just to make it. Any electronic rebreather appears to "work" for a while. It is when they fail that you better be good. They have no such abilities, Stone knows it, so he keeps them close in near the entrance. We use rb for the outer stuff since we have very limited access, and can not waste dives setting up each time - we must use the same bottles over and over. It would be more fun for my team to do the full dives each time, and far more fun to do them on open circuit, but we do not have the clout of Stone, so only three teams of ours dive at once in one day , once per month ( our allotment of dives) - and all three do more in one dive than Stone's entire "project" has done so far, or will do. Stone knows full well that if he loses a diver in the conduit, his team of complete and utter dillatantes will never be able to find the diver, and nobody in cave diving but the WKPP could, and I know the entire cave inside out, and that means I would do the recovery, and that means Stone would get the truth told about it, just like everyone else has when I have had to do the recovery. He will not risk that , trust me. Besides, that is not what he is trying to prove at all - he is trying to sell a rebreather. I think his "methods" of diving have already been proven the pinacle of inefficiency, Bruic has spilled the beans on him as well, and his toys , bells and whistles are useless anyplace but a massive sink like Wakulla. Our methods work EVERYWHERE. The pathetic thing is that so far, in 32 days, he still had not gone as far as I did the first time I dove the cave. These guys are the worst in the business. Rebreathers, bells , chambers, compressors, unlimited time and gas, $8000 batteries in $30,000 scooters, a million dollars or more spent, and these guys can't do what I could do with open water gear. The other pathetic thing is the constant lying, and the fact that they do more deco for a weenie dive than we did for the World's Record. They take longer to go 1/6 the distance we do then we did to go the whole way. The desperation of these guys is showing through the lies - they are so intent on competing with me that they are about to kill somebody doing it, and I could go back in one day and do it again , and be home for dinner. Look at the dive our team just whipped off in Cheryl, and compare that to the Charlie Foxtrot going on at Wakulla. I had a grant from the U.S. E.P.A. to find the source of the surface water in Leon Sinks, and we did it in one dive, which would have been a record itself if we had not already placed the bar so high ourselves with five other record dives last year. We also have a grant to do the same at Wakulla, and will do so once this jerk gets out of our way. We could have done it last month when the water was perfect for it - inverted from the cold and still clear, but no, we had to sit on our butts while Stone's novices learned how to dive in the basin - a real travesty. The last time we had that condition was 1992, and we got only two dives, and then it blacked out, but we went 6500 feet in those two. Adriaan_Haine@ce*.be* wrote: > > George, I think you hit the nail right on the head with this post. > Bill Stone is using these guys as guinea pigs for his rebreather. The only > diving > he has done so far is some shallow stuff. Perhaps he wants to be sure his > rebreather > can do the trick before he will go for 'the big one' to get his name on the > record books?
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