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Andrew,

I don't where you got your erroneous information regarding our "failure"
to get proper permissions to dive in the caves of Iwate. As a matter of
fact, I am here in the village of Akka together with Lamar Hires of Dive
Rite and a support team of 17 cavers and divers and just
finished laying 330 meters of new line in the cave system Shigawatari.
This new line added to the line we laid last year and the year before
has now doubled the length of the originally known cave from over
20 years ago.

Yes this has been a long, ongoing project. Yes, it is politically tricky
business to get permission to do these projects in Japan. Yes, we have
been extremely successful in obtaining these permissions.

Yesterday Lamar and I took a day off from pushing the sump further in
order to go pay our respects to the Mayor of Akka, the cave manager of
Shigawatari, the Mayor or Iwaizumi, the city councilmen, the selectman
to the prefecture of Iwate, and the original explorer (now 90 years old)
who discovered the cave Ryuusen-do. In each of these cases we brought a
gift and sat a chatted over Japanese tea for around 30 minutes. We also 
took an additional 2 hours out of our day to give a presentation at a 
local school. 

Furthermore, we are doing work in terms of water sampling for isotope
analysis and water quality analysis for the Ministry of Health and
Welfare of Japan and the Geological Survey of Japan Institute. The
samples we are collecting are going to be part of a database that until
now was impossible for them to create since no one was able to get to
the sample sites.

I would say that we have our bases covered.

This project started for me over 6 years ago. I have lived and worked in
Japan for 10 years and know the ropes and speak the language. Lamar and
I have been patient and have certainly been using the proper channels.
We have been working with the guys who were working on IANTD Japan
before your so-called "founder" bought the franchise out from under
them. Technical diving is about changing the configuration and expanding
the rules in order to safely push the limits of diving in pursuit of a
goal. It is not about putting on a long hose in order to attract
"nookie".

This project and the guys we are working with will certainly do more for
the budding technical community in Japan than banding up doubles for the
wanna be's and posers. We have taken 4 Japanese divers through full cave
and NITROX certification training and then given them actual exploration
experience where they had to apply these skills. What have you done?


Peter Thompson


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