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In case anyone is interested, this is the article from Electronic Telegraph May 13 A BRITISH diver, internationally renowned for his exploration of deep sea cave systems, has died on a routine expedition in the Red Sea. Rob Palmer, 45, was diving with three companions off Hurghada, Egypt, when the accident happened. He dived off the team boat but, instead of swimming over a reef, he immediately started to sink in the water. His friends swam hundreds of feet down in an attempt to rescue him. One broke for the surface after reaching a depth of 210 feet. The other two swam on to 325 feet before losing sight of him. Tim Breen, one of Mr Palmer's companions, said he realised something had gone wrong the instant his friend hit the water. "He just dropped into the depths," said Mr Breen, 22, who has been diving off Hurghada for two years. "We swam down after him and tried to halt his descent and pull him back to the surface. He was falling at quite a rate and we were all having trouble keeping up with him. "We have all been trained not to attempt to rescue someone unless we are in a position to do so without endangering our lives. At 70 or 80 metres, I pulled back. The other two went down further before coming up. "There was nothing we could do. We just had to watch Rob sink into the blackness." Mr Breen said the group had stayed in the area for five hours, searching the surface. But he doubted Mr Palmer's body would ever be found in waters where depths of up to 4,000 feet have been measured. John Bantin, a friend and diving partner of Mr Palmer, was in the boat when the accident occurred. He said the reason for his death might never be discovered. "His buoyancy control device may have failed, he may have become disorientated and thought down was up, or he could have had a heart attack as he hit the water," he said. Mr Palmer was one of the most celebrated figures in the world of cave diving and news of his death was broken to his friends in the sport at last weekend's National Cave Diving Group annual dinner. His most adventurous dives were undertaken in the 1980s when he lived in Bristol, working as a schoolteacher. In 1982, he made a record 2,700 feet journey through the Blue Holes of Andros Island, off the Bahamas. He filmed the dive and wrote of it in his book, Deep Into Blue Holes. He had also conducted record-breaking dives in underground cave systems, journeying 700 feet below Wookey Hole and Cheddar and into a lost network thought to extend 30 miles under the Mendip Hills. In recent years, Mr Palmer had given up his more dangerous expeditions and moved to the Bahamas with his wife. He was concentrating on teaching and writing. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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