Weekend before last was the CDAA AGM and associated talks and dinner in Mt Gambier. After giving a talk on my evolution from cave diving to sump diving over the last ten years and listening a bunch of excellent presentations from the other speakers, it was great to get in the water on Sunday. Steve and I headed to Pines, a site I haven’t visited much since finishing my Tank pre-requisite dives some years ago. My Pines dives in the intervening time have mostly been with cave-rated buddies or for gear checkouts and involved photos of sunlight in the main cavern. So it was nice to be back, on the rebreather and headed for the Crazy Czech’s Room. Steve was on open circuit with a whole bunch of tanks and we planned for a nice long dive.
I have previously taken some moderately average photos of my Dad in the CC Room, that didn’t inspire me enough to both posting them to the website. The rocks in there are not particularly attractive – an absence of strong lines and a blah off white colour with scratches from passing divers.
We did reel into this pretty little side room slightly deeper down, which was a much better photographic prospect. The colours here are much more cheerful and it feels a bit more cave like. I also like the piles of silt resting on the rocks, although I could do without the damage to the rocks along the wall. The rock here is fairly cheesey and it’s easy to see where divers have investigated potential leads or just smacked the wall with fins as they turned around. On the other hand, the wall marks do make it easier to see where potential explorers have already been, and reduce the need to wedge yourself into small holes and add to the mess.
The second shot here was taken as we headed back out of the room into the main portion of the CCR. With Steve reeling I could anticipate his arrival along the line and find a good spot for framing. I like the rocks here on the left and the effect of the strobes through slightly milky water below. From this angle the wall scratching included in the frame is minimal. While headlights can be a pain in the behind some of the time, the headlight-in-the-middle-of-the-silhouette effect is one that I’m coming to appreciate more.