Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
Great job this weekend by eveyone. Maybe some of those who were
involved could put out some of the stories - I missed most of it as
usual due to being underwater.
What I do know. You guys showed up Friday and pulled off a four team
series of gas dives rotating 16 safety bottles in intervals out to 6500
feet at 300, detail mapping the beginning of the cave, replaced the
troughs, two more gas teams filmed for TV and a team shot deep still
photos of the cave and the bone deposits with some extremely
sophisticated camera gear made specially for this purpose ( maybe we can
hear about that), four gas teams took water samples from four different
tunnels using the same tubes over and over in one of the most amazing
shows of coordinated teamwork that I have ever seen anywhere ( all done
in the sum of the bottom times). At least six dumptrucks full of
exototics ( hydrilla and elodia) were removed from the Spring, we did a
TV news segment , we worked new members in, everything was marked,
placed, and executed flawlessly, we have a decompression accident that
was handled more perfectly than any I have ever seen, and we had a great
series of dives at Indian and had a look at Shepherd as well. John
Rose's mother even showed up.
You all are truely amazing. We have not done a team operation since
May, and it is as if we had done this every day since then - great work.
Dawn ran the surface - maybe she could tell us about that, and the guys
who ran the gas teams can tell us what went on there. How was Indian
looking?
For my part, Jarrod Jablonski and I did a 110 minute bottom time with
the new Halcyon rebreathers ( we finally retired our old ones ). These
were bullet proof, and allowed us to run nearly 7000 feet out, find new
tunnel, move bottles around, and get back all on 45 cubic feet of gas.
We then did the entire deco on them up to the oxygen . I ended up using
between 500 and 1000 psi out of each deco gas. Total deco was seven
hours. The cave was tannic over clear , so we had to ride the floor the
whole dive, making it a solid 280-300 profile. The line was burried in
many spots due to the heavy flow this summer, and there were blocks af
really bad water. We discoverd a wall of nasty water at the A/O tunnel
intersection, and we found a nice new tunnel just beyond that. The nasty
water moved forward 6000 feet overnight Friday due to a rain Thurday
night in Tallahassee, making the dives Saturday extremely difficult, but
a no-problem situtation for the good teamwork WKPP divers. The tunnel we
found is a monster spring at 300 feet , starting 6600 feet out in O
Tunnel. No name yet. It came off of the far side of a giant room. We ran
this dive all on one scooter ( new batteries ) while towing the long
range mini nicads, and with safety scooters on the floor, and 16 safety
bottles.
In all we explored new cave, filled in map details of existing cave,
took about 30 gallons of samples for radioisotope testing by FSU, took
hundreds of stills, hours of video, filmed for TV, did a TV news
segment, removed weeds, fixed and replaced the safety gear, ran 30 odd
gas dives, another several cave dives at two other locations, used
rebreathers and up to thirty scooters without a failure, and involved 60
some people without disrupting a single function of the Park, the Camp,
or the Refuge. We handled what situations we had in stride, we all met
for dinner and had a great time, and everyone was home safe with no
horror stories.
By the way - no air was dived for any purpose other than shallow
support . This is real technical diving. I can also tell you that I
dove with a diver I had never been diving with before, a guy originally
trained in cave and gas by Jablonski, and was absolutely amazed : he
exectuted the dive flawlessly and took water samples with me and Bill
Mee out in C Tunnel as if he had been diving with us for ever - a real
case of proof of the skill of JJ in teaching people how to do this, and
a real case of the proof of doing it right and being invobved with the
right organization that actually does something besides yap.
I have never seen so many scooters and gas divers moving effortlessly
and perfectly thourgh the water with everything going like clockwork and
no visble sign of activity from the surface - good job everyone - you
guys are the best in the business.
--
Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]