2017 Calendars

 Cave diving, Ocean diving, Other  No Responses »
Oct 102016
 
2017 Calendars

2016 seems like it’s only just begun and 2017 is already sneaking up on us. With the end of the year in sight, my 2017 calendars are now on sale. Calendars come in both cave diving and ocean flavours with lots of space to note your important dates for the year. The caves side features a number of beautiful shots from the Timorese caves with a good mix of local and exotic. On the ocean front this year’s calendar is dominated by big animals in blue waters – whales, sharks, mantas and more. The photo pages are A4 (approx 12″ x 8″) with the dates grid on the page below. The calendars are ringbound with a punchhole for hanging. Even better, prices [read more…]

Tanks in Cocklebiddy

 Cave diving, Nullarbor  No Responses »
Sep 132016
 
Tanks in Cocklebiddy

I spent last week off the grid, merrily moving tanks from one location to another and back again. By the end of five days on site we had relocated over a tonne of dive gear from the east coast to the Nullarbor, from the vehicles to the water, and from the water’s edge to over 4kms inside the cave. The cave of course, is Cocklebiddy. The quick trip had a goal – to return to Toad Hall with my Dad, nearly 34 years after he was the first diver to surface inside it. It was a family trip with Mum, Dad and I joined by Steve and Ryan and a film crew. You can see our documentary early next year on [read more…]

Underwater tank wrestling through Elk River

 Cave diving, Caving, Victoria  No Responses »
Aug 172016
 
Underwater tank wrestling through Elk River

Our Elk River supply trips are now down to a fine art. Each push trip requires two or three resupply trips – removing the empty tanks from the previous exploration, taking in full tanks, plus caching other gear as required. We are now using a lot of carbon fibres tanks for the longest swim through sump 7. The carbon fibres are much, much lighter than equivalent steel or aluminium tanks and can hold higher pressures. The drawback of the carbon fibre tanks is their buoyancy characteristics in the water.We have placed kilos of lead weights at the diving gear up spot. Each 9L tank takes 6kgs of lead to sink it. We are definitely not carrying this lead backwards and forwards. [read more…]

Overnight exploration in Elk River

 Cave diving, Caving, Victoria  No Responses »
Jul 272016
 
Overnight exploration in Elk River

We had an interesting weekend in Elk River with the longest trip underground to date. After multiple set up trips to replace empty tanks with full ones we headed in to use them. The trip was complicated by large floods that swept through Buchan two weeks ago. I wasn’t sure what effect the raised water level might have had on the cave, or the gear cached throughout. The first victim of high water levels was the first aid kit, laid out on a beach before sump 4. We found most of the items from the kit floating in the water just before sump 4 and were able to rescue them all. The bag itself had made further progress and was [read more…]

Exploration and photography in Timor

 Cave diving, Overseas  No Responses »
Jul 192016
 
Exploration and photography in Timor

The joy of Timor is the big tunnels. And the white walls, and the clear water. The karst landscapes creates a lot of dolines and only a few go to water – the countryside makes you work for underwater success. So when one of the beautiful blue surface pools finally does drop into massive going tunnel the elation is incredible. In this series of photos Dave and Sandy had carefully manoeuvred their way into an entrance pool they discovered last year. This time the water was still clear when they got in. Sandy was able to find her way through the small hole at the bottom of the pool and into the big blue passage beyond. This particular entrance pool [read more…]

Split shots in Timorese air chambers

 Cave diving, Overseas  No Responses »
Jul 122016
 
Split shots in Timorese air chambers

One of the features of Timor is the very soft limestone that I talked about last week. As well as exploding cave ceilings, this also leads to large breakdown piles in the cave tunnels. Which means that the big blue passages are periodically interrupted by collapses both underwater and above. As you can see from these shots, air chambers provide a whole new playground for cave photography. Taking split shots in the ocean means waiting for very calm days or finding sheltered spots. Underground, in a place completely enclosed by rock, there’s no need to worry about the weather rippling the surface. When the divers are still the water surface is completely flat. With a rock to stand on and not [read more…]

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