DIR Diving Blog

Recently had a nice get-together at the DIR-X yearly gig. I managed to get a couple of scooter dives done and demo’d a 3 stage drill, I also ran a line laying workshop for a couple of people. Overall it was a good get together.

Vobster did us proud putting up a new tent complete with a patio heater to keep everyone warm!

Silent Planet also brought a good stock of Halcyon gear for demo’s and try dives.

On the saturday night we had a talk from Phil Short about his cave diving which was absolutely superb. Had me crying with laughter and left me incredibly impressed with what he gets up to. It’s not DIR diving but it was fascinating.

Clare and I got an invite from Mark Chase’s regular dive group to join them on a trip out of Littlehampton on Voyager. They are a serious bunch of wreck divers who really, really investigate the wrecks. Over the years they’ve had numerous bells and identified many a wreck. They are all CCR divers and carry crowbars and lots of lift bags! Not what we’d usually see on the trips we go on.

We were due to dive 2 days but due to the weather this became just 1 day and we couldn’t get on the site that was planned. We ended up diving the wreck of the Alaska. One of the differences to our normal trips was the use of a deco station. This meant that on the way down we had to drop a pair of cookies on the line to the station. As we neared the bottom we then clipped on two strobes, one 5m off the bottom and one at the bottom. The Delta guys were running lines and we basically used their lines. With the 6m vis and the strobes we were happy we’d easily be able to find the bottom of the shot, that said it was pitch black at 63m.

The wreck itself was very broken up that is now heavily concreted into the seabed.  We had a good swim about and using the RB80 gave Clare and I plenty of bottom time. The wreck wasn’t the best of dives but as a second choice it was better than not diving.

We were the last to leave the bottom as we saw the guys cut the waster that secured the shotline to the wreck, we decided that was a clue to leave. Deco on the station was un-eventful, I can see the advantage of having everyone in the same place for the deco. However the extra hassle of setting up the station pre-dive and having to get back to the shot is a bit of a pain. It’s a trade off of course.

Overall worth doing – a good group of guys and I was seriously impressed by the amount of effort they put into the research and effort they put into the diving they do.

Another trip to France beckoned and I was thoroughly looking forward to some cave diving. We’d arranged to stay in a nice villa only a couple of miles from Resell. The RB’s gave us more flexibility with gas so we had less of a pressing need to be on top of a filling station. The plan was for some bigger dives so the idea was to have a break between diving days.

Diving day 1 was planned to be a run up the mainline, turning right at the deep T and heading on to hopefully find and mark the deep re-join. We got all the kit built and hauled down to the side of the water. I suited up and hauled it all into the river and positioned it so we could easily kit up in the water once wearing the RB’s. Unforunately it was then that issues started to crop up. First a stage reg was found to be leaking and had to be pulled out, taken apart and wound back. Next up we had a faulty HP hose, Clare again got out of the water and sorted it. At this point I am sweating like crazy, the DUI 450 undersuit, xerotherm base layers and dry gloves are cooking me even when in the river water. The air temperature is something like 35 degrees and the river water just wasn’t cool enough.

Thankfully we get it all sorted and then clip off 5 stages and a scooter each. We hit the trigger in the river and I’m looking forward to getting into the cooler cave water when Clare’s scooter packs in. We have to head back and in the end both have to dekit. Out comes the toolkit and the trigger lever had snapped. We fix it and are confident its resolved but then have to go through the labourous process of kitting up again. 2 hours from when we thought we were ready to kit up we get to the cave.

The water is wonderfully cool and the cave is as I remembered it. Vis is very good around 15m but we take it steady not quite trusting Clare’s scooter repair. We drop stages as we go – 100% at the entrance, 50% at 21m and 35/25 at 36m. By the time we are down to two AL80’s and a RB80 I’m almost feeling streamlined.

By the time we reach the deep T we are making slow progress and it’s taken longer than normal. Clare dials up the pitch on her scooter and we start motoring on the shallow path to the right. We head through the switchback and soon we reach, for me, a new part of the cave. The line deteriorates and I find a second line begins. Then a third! Then the line I had been on becomes monofilament fishing line. I’d heard the lines are bad but this wad quite something. The cave itself is great to see – lots of big passage with plenty of features in the limestone. We keep going and I keep an eye on the distance markers. We reach 1400m and I know we’ve overshot the deep re-join especially given the 60m depth we reached. I drop a cookie and we thumb the dive and begin exiting. On the way out I note a section where the cave looks like it continues but I’m not sure. Clare had a couple of issues with her scooter sticking on – not an issue in such a big cave but probably due to the repair just before the dive.

We’re back at the 36m bottle without any dramas and begin the long deco. We discount the entry into the cave but we are still in the water for 4 hours by the time we’ve finished the deco and ascended. We then had the hard slog of getting all the kit back to the car. I have to say I found my physical limit that day. By the time we’d got the 10 stages, 2 rebreathers and scooters up to the car and packed I was exhausted. I honestly don’t think I can manage more gear with just two of us in that heat with that length of dive.

We had a couple of days off diving to relax a bit and decide to have another go. We did decide to make some changes!

First – we would set off for the cave at 7am when it was nice and cool. We had stripped all the gear down and fixed it – Clare’s scooter’s relay had got slightly too sensitive and it took us a while to replicate the failure in the cave (it seemed fine on first inspection) and we can only presume that fixing the trigger shortened the cable by an infinitesimal amount which was on occasion then too short to power off. It was failing one in every twenty or so uses – but clearly that was too many so it needed attention and fine tuning.

Second – we would take the left hand fork for the deeper route in the cave and treat it as a thirds dive (well the RB80 equivalent). This means that we would simply press on until we hit gas – or hit the deep rejoin from the other direction. We were content that we could comfortably ID the route we had taken the day before should we reach that section – it was clear that my marker was much further down the line and we would not be seeing it again this trip.

Finally, we would limit bottom time. The almost four hour dive had been very punishing on us after a difficult set up and we were not up for that again in 10 degree water – not on this trip anyway. It needed to be fun.

And fun it was. No issues, everything working fine, we zipped round the deep circuit in around 45 minutes – about 20 minutes quicker than when Clare did it on OC a couple of years ago.

I was interested to see that the rejoin line was a piece of monofillament fishing line which was running up the side of the main tunnel on the opposite side of the tunnel to the two parallel mainlines (at that point in the cave). I was unsurprised that we had missed from the other way but both of us recognised exactly where we were – and were happy to press on and exit.

We got back to first deco cylinder and as the dive was much shorter we were out of the water 3 hours after we descended. We got all the gear back to the car and then chilled out for the rest of our time. Having some days off and not trying to max out your time is actually very sensible when the dives get very long.

As we left France we were already talking about heated vests and whether we could go a bit further….

We only managed to get one dive done on this trip due to weather. We had a slog out in rough weather on the saturday, I ended up with my drysuit and my mask on helping David to strap all the kit down as waves crashed over the boat. We binned the diving and turned around heading back to shore.

Sunday was much better and we managed to get a dive on the wreck of the SS Athen. It’s a steampship which collided with the SS Thor in 1907 and subsequently sunk. It now rests in 56m and we had quite a nice dive. John Grogan shot the following video.

After an excellent week in Scapa last september the DIR-UK team had booked a trip to Shetland on Valkyrie. With tales of excellent visbility and almost un-dived wrecks we were very hopeful for a good week. The trip north to Shetland started off feeling better than Scapa -- good roads exist all the way to Aberdeen and as we reached the ferry for an overnight crossing everyone was in good humour. The group had two trucks going up with the 7 of us split between them. The ferry ride was un-eventful but sleeping in a chair was not that easy and we all ended up a little uncomfortable and tired the next morning. We had no diving to do on saturday as it was changeover day for the boat so we sorted kit but tried to leave Hazel and Helen in peace.

Sunday and first diving day beckoned. We were off to dive the wreck of what was believed to be the Leonatus. The Leonatus was torpedoed by UC 40 whilst on route from Loch Ewe to Lerwick with a cargo of coal on 12/12/1917. She now lies in two halves in 60m of water (52m to the deck) with a considerable amount of wreck left to explore. Clare and I were on our RB80’s and we were joined by Joe Hesketh who was OC. We worked out some suitable gas reserves and went diving. The wreck came into view at around 40m, the visbibility was stunning. We set off and found ourselves heading towards the stern. Reaching the enormous rudder and prop was a superb sight and we counted four blades -- answering a question which Hazel had wanted to know. The prop was big enough for us to swim through the blades. We start moving up the wreck with the aim of getting to the bow.

Clare is leading the way at the moment -- we knew the bell hadn’t been recovered from the wreck and Hazel had explained that there would have been two bells on a wreck of this size and one would have been by the anchor winch. As we get to that area I hearing Clare yelling in excitement (rather squeaking due to the helium we were breathing) and Joe and I move rapidly next to her. Clouds of silt are billowing up from the wreck as Clare pulls out a bell. Immediately both Clare and I turn to Joe and ask him if he has gas -- being on RB’s we knew we didn’t really have a time-limit but our OC buddy definitely did! He checks gas and gives us an ok. At this point we crack on -- I ask Joe to help retrieve my lift bag from my storage pak, which he does. Clare is busy freeing the bell and looking for attachment points. It’s clear that there isn’t an attachment point on the bell so I swim over the top of Clare and pull the mesh bag I know she’s carrying out of her pocket. We manage to get the bell into the bag and begin securing it with bolt snaps and the lift bag. I fill the lift bag but as my argon bottle starts to run out I ask Joe to step in. Clare secures a 4.5′ SMB as well and fills that as well. As that fills we see the bell lift off and begin it’s ride to the surface.

The three of us are all visibly really excited. We check gas, swim a metre or two away from the cloud of silt caused by extracting the bell and then thumb the dive. Back on the boat the whole group is buzzing with excitement. What a start to the week!

Day two was to be the Glen Isla. The 1263 ton steam ship Glen Isla foundered and sank following a collision with SS Glenelg. She was an iron cargo vessel built by W.B. Thompson, Dundee in 1878. We jumped in and found a quite well together wreck in excellent viz. Clare led and took the team under two of the decks towards the bow. Unfortunately I had a deep mix in the RB from the day before so was breathing a bottom stage through the RB. I also wanted both O2 and 50% on deco so I ended up with a 3 stage dive. Clare took just a 50% stage and it made us quite different in size!

A really nice dive -- we were able to cover it twice over. John and Andy were busy filming so we have some good footage of the wreck as well:

Day Three -- Gwladmena. his wreck was quite shallow -- no more than 40m but not quite as intact as the Glen Isla the day before. Photo opportunites abounded though as it was the one wreck this week that my camera would travel in on due to depth.

Again John and Andy did a great bit of video work:

Next up we tried to find a new wreck! Hazel had info that the Dovre was in a bay up to the north so complete with lots of scooters we set off with a mission to find a new wreck. It was a very shallow dive and my team never found it. Luckily John and Andy did.

Next big dive was my second favourite of the week -- Anglo Dane. This wreck had been hit amidships and had been blown in 1/2. We were diving on what remains of the stern. We went hunting around inside the wreck and found some fascinating parts of the engine room. The real difference to the south coast diving was the wrecks hadn’t been stripped so are much better to look at underwater.

Final dive of the week was on a fishing vessel called the Valkyrie. Hazel was very keen for us to find the bell of this wreck -- as of course the diveboat shares the same name. The wreck had some interesting history -- it had sunk in good weather very near a lighthouse in shallow water -- possibly not an accident? It was shallow enough to salvage but unfortunately as it was towed into deeper water it sank again and was this time was un-salvageable. We dropped down into fantastic vis. You really could make out the stern from the bow. Huge nets are draped over the wreck at the stern and bridge and it was quite hard work in places to wriggle past it and look for the bell. We searched the entire wreck and concluded no bell. That said it was a lovely dive and the spectacular vis made for a lovely dive.

Managed to get a friday off work to go dive the Warrior 2. I’ve dived this one before on a DIR-UK trip but it was an opportunity to get out while the weathers good so why not.

The wreck is the remains of what was an armed luxury steam yacht which had been built in 1904 which survived World War One. The 1,120 ton vessel was dive-bombed and machine-gunned in WW2 and in 1940 finally went down about ten miles south-east of Grove Point.

The wreck lies in about 55m and is still clearly wreck shaped in places. The weirdest feature is the remains of the swimming pool with the Mosaic tiles still visible. I dived with Clare and David Martin, photos are courtesy of David’s camera. We did 43 minutes on the bottom and left when the tide was running

DIR-UK weekend this time using Scimitar Diving down in Weymouth. First day was the wreck of the Minerva – I’ve not actually dived it before. The visibility was very good possibly as much as 10m and the wreck is very ship shaped. It’s a bit small for a group of 8 divers but we all managed to stay out of each others way.

Second day we dived and unknown believed to be the Ull. The Ull was a 500t Norwegian steamer lost in 1917. Nick Chipchase had given us the marks and we had the opportunity to look it on the sonar on the way back from the Minerva. Diving the wreck was actually a lot of fun. There was a lack of light down at 50m and it meant the small wreck felt much bigger than it was. It was heaving in Lobsters with so many of them you could tell it was almost undived. We spent 40mins on the bottom and had a really good look round. Clare found the helm which was cool but we’ve always said we’d only lift a bell.

Scimitar did a good weekend overall. Food and care on the boat from Gary who was acting as a deck hand was ace!

Spent last weekend helping Clare out on a fundamentals class at the NDAC. Visibility was challenging and the class had 5 students so Clare had to do double the normal dives i.e. one team in first, stay in the water and get the second team in.

It was actually really good fun, very good group on the class and I really enjoyed helping out.

Just back from an awesome weekends diving arranged by Lanny Vogel. He’s based not far from Poole and he booked us a trip on Beowolf to do some nitrox diving. With the help of his fiance Clare they also put on a bbq on saturday night and made the weekend quite an event.

Diving wise we did two wrecks – Betsy Anna and the Kyarra, and we did two drift dives. Weather was sunny with calm seas and vis was on sat 4m but 6m odd on the the sunday. Best dive was the Kyarra where we got 50 minutes on her before the tide was starting to pull.

It gave us a good amount of time to explore and we went from midships to the stern, all the way up the bow and then drifted the length of it with us leaving as we reached the stern.

Myself, Mal and Mike after the dive.

Overall a superb weekend – good enough to rekindle my desire to go UK wreck diving!

A Florida trip once again. I just love Florida cave diving. It’s challenging, hard work but the caves are worth it.

Starting off gradually we dropped the RB80’s off to Halcyon for a service. They done a lot of hours now and they recommend a yearly service to swap out o-rings check regs etc. We met Casey McKinlay and caught up. Turned out he’d brought his dive gear and was up for a dive. He asked if we had scooters and when we said no his response was “can you get a couple?”. Luckily Doug from EE was happy to help and with a couple of Doug’s scooters we went off to Ginnie springs.  Gear wise we just took 1 bottom stage. Scootering into Ginnie with Casey was good fun. He led the way in and has a degree of comfort scootering that is very noticeable. He’d got some issues with his masking fogging and by the time we got to 3300ft near the berman room he was fed up with it, so swapped it out for a backup. We turned the dive around then and shot out at a huge speed aided by the flow. It was good fun – a very easy 3.

Casey had a really useful extra for Florida – a hand truck!

We also met some members of DIR-X from Florida who’d driven up to do some cave diving. Really nice group of people and we asked them to say hi on the boards.

Following day we are back at Ginnie. We did a double stage swim dive and man that’s hard work! Jumped off to Hill400, then jumped off to double lines. We passed through a silty section where there was much less room and it needed a lot of finese and careful technique. Eventually we dropped 2nd stage jumped again. Our plan was to check out the ice room and thanks to Paul and Bryce’s directions we hit it first time. Reached the end of the cave in a new section of Ginnie which was cool. I was a little cautious on gas due to possible silt we may have stired up so we turned a little early and made our exit.  Overall it was 110 min in cave before we got back and started deco.

Given the conditions in Florida we’d already planned to head up to Mariana county and dive the Mill Pond so off we went. We would be diving jackson blue and doing a dpv class with Nick Leone whose wife kelsey joined us as surface cover on the first day.

We were due to be using Silent Sub scooters something I’ve not done before. We dropped in for the first dive and Clare was due to be running the line so made her way forward and picked a good rock just before the overhead. I was hanging back a bit giving her some room and turned round to move back out of the cave and let go of the trigger. To my surprise the scooter stuck on! I’ve dealt with this in the past but as dive one on a cave dpv class it was quite funny. I palmed the rear of the prop dialing it down somewhat however that left me unable to beat the flow to get back to Clare and Nick. After some flashing they exited and I showed Nick the problem. We get to the waters edge and put the scooter out and disconnect the battery. Turned out the relay had welded. Bit a drama but Stacey from Cave Adventures turned up with a spare a N-19 so we could carry on diving. We get sorted and go for a 2nd attempt. We got much further reaching 900ft and then doing some towing exits. On the 2nd entry the mini ran out of battery power requiring us to do a towing exit for real!  Already having had two real failures by the end of dive 1 I figured I was getting some value from the class . The flow was really up in Jackson and we saw some guys swimming in which looked really hard work!

After lunch I swapped out to scooter number 1 after a repair. Clare’s scooter had the battery swapped over and we set off for another dive. This time Clare’s scooter was really slow. We did get further to around 1100ft or so. However at a fissure Clare couldn’t get through, the scooter was so under powered as she entered the narrow space and the flow picked up it couldn’t move forward. It turned out that Clare rolled off left post on the ceiling while trying but immediately noticed. We gave up and ended up doing a gas sharing exit. All ok, we had a bit of conversation over whether we should tow for air share or scooter side by side and settled on towing. We ended up doing another and the  2nd air share was quicker to get going. Deco easier now I knew what to expect from the flow.

The following day we were back at JB for more scooter class. We tried to do a more complex dive and dropped the scooter at the first T and swam right. The flow required some very careful hiding behind rocks. We completed circuit and picked up the scooters. Once again we did gas sharing exit and tried a few different towing techniques. Essentially we used the leash on the standard body to clip to the leading divers d-ring. This was a much faster way of hooking up for a tow and actually was very comfortable way of towing as the towed diver keeps their scooter in hand. Didn’t work too well for the gas share as the distance involved was too great. However for a non-gas share it was excellent.

After lunch another dive – up main line until we hit 1/4’s. Nick failed the scooters and we started swimming out. We had to contend with multiple light failures and we exited blind. All went cool, been there before on classes and it all worked OK. Nick was good fun and I enjoyed the class. I’ve done a few non-GUE classes and it’s always interesting to get another perspective. While I’ve done lots of scootering it was important to us to have some cert cards in case we were challenged.

Our next dive was at a site called springboard with Edd Sorenson. We’ve used Cave Adventures many times for gas and boats when up at the Mill Pond and Edd and Stacey are just great. Fantastic customer service and they honestly seem like nothing is too much trouble. Springboard is currently on a development site for housing. At present it’s just split into lots. We pass a sign saying “trespassers will be prosecuted” Clare laughs and says “excellent that’s better than shot”. Edd’s reply was “in jackson county that means the same thing”. We grinned but as Edd owns a lot here it’s not an issue.

As we arrived Edd is very careful at checking for Gators, luckily none can be seen! Gearing up I got bitten by fire ants after I stupidly stood on a mound of them while taking photos. We finally get into the water where I’m relieved to cool down. Springboard is a really cool cave. We had excellent vis 20+ metres. The formation of the cave is sort of triangular with a very narrow section by the roof with the lower part of the cave being much broader. We took several different routes through the cave and pretty much managed all of the back mountable part of the system. There is an ongoing passage which Edd is exploring using sidemount.

This is a very pretty cave and was great fun to dive. Edd was telling us how Wes Skiles loves to dive it because it gives such unique photos. I was eaten alive while we were getting out of the water. Geniune florida swamp!

Next day was day off having had a long day driving back from Mariana. We needed to pick up rb’s from Halcyon factory and then assemble gear for the following day. We had lunch with Jarrod which was a nice opportunity to catch up. Having built the rebreather racks and assembled all the bottles for the following day we then end out going out to dinner with Kevin. He’s good fun and it’s always nice to see him. Given our challenges with Diepolder Kevin also offered us an alternative dive. Diepolder is currently a closed shop for NSS-CDS or NACD and being GUE qualified neither Clare or I could dive there. The irony of the situation is not lost on me given some of comments around diving up at Wakulla! Anyway Kevin offers to take us to Eagle’s Nest an offer which we took him up on.

The following day we hit Ginnie with freshly serviced rb-80 and scooters. The plan was to try out the units and also to have some fun. I have to say it was damn hard work. On a scooter in flow the loop flapped aroun in my mouth shredding my gums. The Rb in a frame is like having a huge sail strapped to your back. Clare was clearly as uncomfortable as I was. We progressed further in but my back hurt and we kept stopping. The only nice thing was we had lots of time as the 30/30 seemed to last forever through the breather. We got to hinkel but it took 50 mins, on OC we’ve done it in just under 30! We dropped scooters with a plan to look at mainland, but having run a jump and started in, it looked pretty small. Given how little fun I was having I decided we had done enough time and exited. Clare swapped scooters with me at maple leaf and hers was a Mark Messersmith who was at EE running a class when he got back and he made us feel a lot better. Apparently it happens to everyone!

I should mention that during the trip we met the two cave 1 classes. On one class was one of Clare’s fundamentals students Michael Griffin. We went out to dinner with them and tried to give them some advice about Ginnie. Must have helped a bit we got a nice text from Michael later in the week when he passed cave-1.

Next day and we are at Alachua sink with Bill Main. The Bill Hogarth Main who is credited with the Hogarthian config. He was a really nice guy – southern gentleman was my impression. He is absolutely fascinating to talk to, having started cave diving in 1969 he’d got a wealth of experience. He was also very comfortable in water. The dive went very well its a really nice cave and not commonly dived. We hit 54m max depth before turning although i thought it was a 45 average. Cave was very unmarked from diver traffic with some amazing stratified clay banks which were pristine. The passages were small but kept opening up into larger rooms. The rock itself was very sharp and intricately formed. All too soon we were exiting. Deco in the cave mouth was quite cool as we started our stops right at the base of the cavern. As we moved up I moved my 50% to being hip clipped which was much more comfortable when it was a little lighter. We had one minor issue in that Bill’s computer stuck on 21% and wouldn’t acknowledge the gas switches to the 40 and 80% he carried. That resulted in a very long deco!

The next dive was at Eagles Nest with kevin. We were due to be diving a 4 but Kevin’s buddy Freddie had a dead scooter once he got in so we ended up as a 3. Kevin dives a KISS rebreather but has the right mindset and Clare’s dived with him a couple of times. The basin at Eagle’s nest is quite broad but very pretty. We drop 02 at 6m by a log and start into the system. The cave itself starts almost like a plughole with the basin being a sink. It’s a narrow passage only big enough for one diver and it opens out into the most enormous chamber. The debris mound is vast, truly the scale of the cave is awe inspiring. We descend on 35/25 dropping our 50% bottles in some loops on the line. As we reach the top of the debris cone we plug in the trimix bottom gas and stow the 35/25 on the line. Some big ok’s and off we go.

The cave is absolutely vast. We duck under an broad ledge at 80m and set off down a passage the size of a motorway. It is simply a huge, huge cave running at 75m. The vis is excellent and I get the most amazing view with the 3 of us abreast, I can see Kevin’s light on the right wall, Clare in the middle and me on the left. The Rb80 worked perfectly, truly this is what its for. My gas usage was tiny even at these depths and Doug’s scooter was perfectly weighted. We passed through some enormous chambers large enough to park a plane in and I’m just uttlerly blown away by the raw power of the water that carved away such a cave.

We keep the hammer down and pass gigantic line markers which are about 6 inches long (normal ones are 1 inch) which are needed due to the size of the cave. We end up turning the dive at 2250ft at the end of the upstream line. Kevin’s whooping into his loop and its just one of the most memorable dives I’ve ever done. We begin our exit and while on the way back Kevin comes off the trigger, somewhat surprised I work out he’s stopped to look for fossils! With the deco building up we get going. We do all the deep stops and soon reach the deco gas at 38m. All of the intermediate stops happen in the cave before the chute narrows and we spend our time following kevin around looking at the cave. Kevin is exceptionally solid in the water and follows the floridian cave approach which includes things like a long hose for donation rigged the same way as our rb80. The Deco was long at 145 mins but the dive was worth it. We whiled away time at the 6m stop looking at a catfish which was swimming up and down inside a hollow log and peeking out at us. We finally surface 200 minutes after we left the surface and chill out in the sun for 1/2 hour on the surface.

Next up was hauling all the kit out where we met Curt Bowen, the owner of Rebreatherworld forum. After packing away for Eagle’s Nest we took Kevin to dinner. For me Eagles Nest was the best dive I’ve ever done, so Kevin thank you once again. We did have another diving day planned but after such a good dive decided that we’d done the last one of the trip. When you can’t top it why try!

One of the things that really made our trip wasn’t just the caves but the friends we have out there. Casey took us for a dive and then lent us gear for the week. Paul and Doug at EE sorted out every issue and always made sure we had what we needed. Halcyon, particulary Corey Smith who serviced the rb’s were superb. Edd and Stacey up at cave adventures were incredibly helpful and make it a pleasure to visit and a must stop on any future trip. Then you had the guys who went diving with us Casey, Edd, Nick Leone, Bill Main and caver kevin. So thank you guys we had a blast. Back soon.