Lee/Jill et al, the reason they (W2) are able to make any map is that we
have done all of the hard part of exploration in the limited access we
have been given. If they had to do both, it would take them years, as
they will find out when they get to the part we could not work in A
Tunnel due to the fact that we only had two days of decent water in
there in the last seven years ( and were allowed to dive ). Following
line is easy, figuring out where to put it is not. Our lines are what is
making their map happen, and the map is no better than what we have
already, and will tell us nothing new, nothing important. What is
important is finding the problems, like we just did in the National
Forest with a surface water slough, or like we did there by connecting
Big Dismal to Cheryl and scouring the inbetween nasty part of the caves.

In Wakulla and Leon, what often appears to be the better tunnel is not,
so you have to try every lead. For instance, in Innisfree, the way on is
the little tunnel while the big one blunts out. In Turner, there are
five downstreams, but three of them you have to go upsteam to find. In
Cheryl, the "Bitter end" was the real cave - it took years to figure
that out. In Wakulla, the water does not even flow the route that W2 is
following - that is why it is so tannic - it is just sitting there under
a swamp. We went that way by accident the first time because we hit that
blunt end ( where they accused of wrapping the line around a rock ). We
only went up the Mountain because we were past the real route and could
not afford to turn back - we were on a double stage open circuit. That
was Day One of our Wakulla diving.

We busted our chops finding all of those tunnels, and did it mostly on
open circuit and did several tunnels in each dive. We did not break out
the rebreathers until we crossed 11 Grand. We guessed the existence of K
due to checking the flow - all part of knowing how to explore cave. When
JJ , Bent and I went in there each time, I had a list of tunnels for
them to put line in that we had to plan out before we even saw them or
knew for sure that they were there. 

I marked every lead in that cave on one dive in 1992 while my two
buddies did not even know I was there - they had no intention of ever
coming back - I did. I wrote every one of them in the notes, and went
back and got them years later after assembing a team , training them and
building the scooters for each man. I made every precious minute I was
allowed in there count. I wrote up each dive and that is the TEXTBOOK
that these guys are using to follow our lines and run that mapper and
plan their logistics. I do not see us getting any credit for that.

I showed the Park where the connection tunnels are and that is what
these guys are working on. They boot us out and then give these guys our
data and send them to do what I have spent years and a fortune arranging
and trying to do while it rained and rained. For me to get access to
dive what I discovered and put so much effort time and money into is
like pulling teeth. I had to deal with two Federal Agencies and multiple
private landowners as well as one large one who has never allowed anyone
else access in its existence and they finally agreed to cooperate with
me when they would not even talk to the Government. I had to get three
one million dollar insurance policies and write countless proposals and
operating proceedures . We have worked extensively to protect the entire
area and have now enlisted the help of what "appeared" to be the "enemy"
of that. Nobody else has put in that kind of committment.

 Still somehow we are the bad guys and Stone is the big hero.We bust our
chops and train hundreds of local divers to provide an ongoing base for
years to come. We develop and make bullet proof equipment that they can
all afford.  We prove ourselves everywhere and these guys come to learn
and experiment, and get lucky ( so far), wasting time that we have never
had in the process. 

When I read what is happening to these guys and hear it first hand from
their divers, I am appalled at what these guys do not know about diving
and about simple gear and simple proceedures, and the degree to which
they are using flawed versions of my methods and defective versions of
my gear like the Gospel without having any understanding of how they
really work or what the key elements are. It is frightening. If
something goes wrong ( and God knows we have had it happen to us) these
guys will not know the protcol that I have drilled into my divers for
LIVING through it.

We had to estimate what the cave really looked like inbetween dives and
take shots that this was correct to get this stuff explored efficiently.
You have no idea how hard this is when you have to be right each time or
risk wasting a dive. Jarrod and I then did the extremely tedious work of
checking and measuring every inch of both walls out 7000 feet to find
this and make our map . We then all dove and each team took different
tunnels simultaneously. We had no aborts, no clusters, no second chances
- we had to maximize each dive. We did the dirty work before we ever did
any long dives, and those were done trying to find out where this thing
goes after we had exhausted the nearby tunnels or could not properly
explore them due to tannic water which for us seemed to come at every
tiny little rain shower. For these guys the luck is beyond belief, and
they have spent the last 50 days going where I went in two dives 6 years
ago on open circuit with Exley and Gavin. If we were in there now with
the conditions that these guys have we would have gotten some answers to
the big questions.

I had to get different partners for each dive like Sankey, JJ, Brent,
Casey, Gavin, Exley, Mee, Rose, Armentrout, Barry, Chris Werner, Landon,
Head, Tomsits, Sherwood, Sallot, Berman, Kincaid, Messick, Main, Miners,
Ted Cole, etc just because these guys have real lives and can not spend
all of it diving every time we get the nod. They have to make a living.
Many of them had to get degrees, start careers and families. I had to
encourage them to do that first, dive later when they wanted only to be
part of the adventure.  There is no telling how much money it cost me in
missed work to show up for every dive, every meeting, every event, every
time the State needed information, etc , or how many great dives in Leon
Sinks I missed because I had to be there when allowed. I still met all
of my reponsiblilties in every area of my life and of this project.

I can not tell you how much it pisses me off to see these guys being
allowed to walk all over that.

I can not tell you how pissed I am that when I encouraged Casey to go
get his MBA,and both Jim Stevenson of DEP and I wrote letters of
recommendation for Casey to grad school,  he had to sell his scooter to
pay for it, and then Jason Richards stole it so Stone could copy it.
Casey got his MBA, he got a top job and a giant company, he got married,
bought a house, and now is back with us and has the staying power to be
a long term player in the Woodville Karst Plain Project. This is far
different that what Stone has assembled for his team, or what is
important to those guys who will be long gone in a month. 

While we did put 50,000 feet of line in Wakulla, we never got to do the
tunnels we really wanted to do, like A and G due to rain and tannic ( G
is not the G on Stone's map). We never got to come from the other
direction because we lost access ( we now have it back but the water is
bad and the offset basins too cold to dive safely).

All of my guys have put a lot of effort , time and money into our
ongoing project, and Stone gets to come in with a million bucks and
follow our lines , capitalize on our work and claim our success.

I hope anyone can understand where I am coming from here, and how
exactly my feelings about his reflect what my whole team is thinking.

Lee Ridley wrote:
> 
>    While trying to work a couple of homework problems for mechanics I
> thought I would humor myself...  As a result I got the following response.
> ENJOY
> Lee Ridley
> 
> Lee Ridley wrote:
> 
> >Thanks for your message. we appreciate the support.
> >
> >> On another note I would like to ask if it will be possible
> >> to triple the current explored distance in Wakulla as sugested by Bill
Stone
> >> in articles preceding the Wakulla II project? If so when will these longer
> >> dives take place and will they be completed in the orginal time frame
> >> setfourth before the project begun?
> >
> >I believe when Bill made that statement several years ago, there were no
> >rebreather dives being done at Wakulla. He was not in fact referring to the
> >current distance explored by the WKPP. They have a tremendous record of
> >exploration here, but the end of the line has never been the focus of the
> >Wakulla2 Project. We have been mandated by the State to build a three
> >dimensional map of the cave lying under the Park property. If time allows, we
> >hope to explore beyond the boundaries, but only if we have completed a map
that
> >satisfies the Park's needs.
> >
> >> Also, (not that its a big deal) I was
> >> wondering why there seems to be relatively few USDCT members that are
> >> actually form the US,  doesn't this pose a experience problem considering
> >> (according to the daily updates) that these international divers don't do
> >> these kind of dives on a regular basis.
> >
> >Actually, most of the team is from the U.S. We have over 100 part and full
time
> >people on this project. At any given time we have around 25 on site. There
are
> >several international members on the lead diver list. They are extremely
active
> >explorers from all over the world who have proven their dedication to this
> >project through training over the last two to three years. Their record of
> >exploration may not be well known by many American divers, but their
experience
> >in this type of conditions (and far worse) is tremendous.
> >
> >Thanks again for your interest, and please do not hesitate to contact me with
> >further questions.
> >
> >Sincerely,
> >
> >Jill Heinerth
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> THANKS ALOT
> >> Lee Ridley
> >
> >

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