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I attended the IANTD conference in Coventry, England this weekend. It was an excellent event both from the point of view of the speakers and the practical sessions that took place. The highlights for me were Wakulla 2 - Expedtion outline by Dr.Bill Stone Buddy Inspiration closed circuit rebreather CIS Lunar Mk5 There were pool sessions and workshops on the MK5 and the Inspiration. The buddy inspiration is a seriously sexy piece of kit. It is a fully closed circuit rebreather with a constant set point ppO2 that will give 300 minutes of operation. It is rated to 100msw and for use with nitrox or heliox or trimix as a diluent. The unit provides for open circuit bailout on the diluent and 02. Three oxygen sensors are used along with 2 independent computers which monitor the oxygen sensors and allow the oxygen set point to be altered in the water if required. The first units are currently being shipped at a cost of about 2500 UKP. There is talk a seperate deco computer to take care of all of the trimix options, closed or open circuit in the pipeline this year. I'll believe it when I see it. Until then your stuck with Proplanner or the equivalent. For the sort of diving I am doing it looks to be perfect. Pity it will take 12 to 18 months to get the dosh saved. The CIS Lunar MK5 is a great piece of kit but it is as far beyond my needs and Budget as a Moon shot. It was billed at around 9000 UKP ( I was also quoted around 15000 dollars (US) - these are figures I was TOLD so don't worry about the exchange rate). The most interesting thing to me was to begin to appreciate the awesome gulf between what I personally would consider a significant dive and the gargantuan logicistical and technical nightmare that can be an extreme a major cave expedition in the Mexico or Europe. The number of personnel and the effort and hardship involved just in getting to a dive site perhaps 24 hours from the nearest exit from a cave system is incredible. Wakulla poses a whole different set of problems. Access to the site is a whole lot easier but the scale and depth of the exploration possible is where the problems begin. It is very difficult not to be impressed by the equipment and development that have gone into the preparation for Bill Stones Wakulla 2 project. The MK5 rebreather and the scooters with multi segment spiral phased-array-sonar for surveying sound just the business. However, it struck me that since the outfit is currently recruiting for front end and support divers that experience is on the team is a questionmark. The saturation approach seems to have been well researched and used commercially, but may well be problematic given the entrance layout at Wakulla. The WKPP approach seems to be less technologically dependant from what information comes out on the web. They seem to be relying on a combination of being hyper-fit and riding the edge of their physiology to acheive their ends. Undoubtedly they have a huge amount diving skill and experience and also up to date knowledge of Wakulla springs. I would naively contemplate that a co-operative Stone/Irvine effort would be most likely to yeild a safe and outstanding result for the three-month operation but then what would there be to squabble about on Techdiver. Should be an interesting year. One older guy at the conference made an interesting observation about why he came along to the conference. "Diving knowledge is mainly folk lore. And if you don't meet the folk, you don't know the lore." Andy H. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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