Diving the Lot – Fontaine de Truffe

 Cave diving, Overseas, rEvo  No Responses »
Sep 302014
 
Diving the Lot - Fontaine de Truffe

After a check out dive in the Cabouy (which is big and dark with average vis), and the Ressel (which was lovely but a bit milky), I was excited about a trip into La Truffe. Rather than an active streamway, the water in La Truffe in summer comes from percolation through the limestone. This means the vis is crystal clear and very Gambier-esque. The tunnel here is smaller than the first two caves and stays shallow through a number of sumps over a long distance. Our plan was to dive the first sump and have a look in the second. The one concern was the size of the entrance restriction. I was keen to take the rEvo in rather than moving [read more…]

Diving the Lot – the Ressel

 Cave diving, Overseas, rEvo  2 Responses »
Sep 232014
 
Diving the Lot - the Ressel

I’ve just hit the ground in Australia after a brilliant two weeks cave diving in France topped off with speaking at Eurotek in the UK. Over the course of the trip I took over 2,000 photos in the French caves. And over the next few weeks I’m looking forward to sharing my favourites with you, with a little backstory behind them. As usual, huge thanks to those who made my diving possible and enjoyable and accommodated my need to take lots of photos – Joachim Krieselemaier, Tom Feiden, Georg Stauch, Duncan Price, Forrest Wilson and Ken Smith. Thanks also to Leigh Bishop, Eurotek co-founder, for inviting me to the conference to speak about our ongoing Elk River project in Birmingham. [read more…]

Cave exploration through mud

 Cave diving, Overseas  No Responses »
Aug 052014
 
Cave exploration through mud

About the cave This week we are practising a little bit of tropical cave exploration, in some (very) warm water. These photos are hot off the press from yesterday’s dives and taken in the same area as last year’s expedition to these very beautiful formations. The scenery was a little different though – instead of white rocks and blue water, we had squelchy brown mud and blue water. This particular cave was one which I previously dived through a very short sump to discover an internal air chamber but then ran out of time to check the other side. The rockpile had clean white rocks from 2m above the water line and I had hopes that if we continued far [read more…]

Whalesharks at Cebu, Philippines

 Ocean diving, Overseas, Reef diving  No Responses »
Feb 112014
 
Whalesharks at Cebu, Philippines

About the site I was in the Philippines over Christmas at Atlantis Dive Resorts, Dumaguete, courtesy of Diversion Dive Travel. The prize I won gave me the choice of the two Atlantis locations, Puerto Galera and Dumaguete. The big advantage of Dumaguete is its proximity to Oslob and the whalesharks at Cebu. My understanding is that the fishermen at Cebu used to chuck their bycaught shrimps and other small fish overboard when they returned, and the whalesharks quickly learned where to get their free meal. The whalesharks are now a major tourist attraction with canoe loads of local and international tourists visiting every day. About our visit There was a strong breeze when we arrived causing small white caps across [read more…]

Exploration part 2

 Cave diving, Overseas  2 Responses »
Oct 282013
 
Exploration part 2

Running your own line is a lot more fun than following someone else’s, even though we knew this part of the cave has been visited 15 years before. We swam on through the second sump with the tunnel gradually becoming both wider and taller. After a few hundred metres the passage appeared to end in a flat wall. After checking each side I spotted air above and scooted up between the wall and ceiling to surface in the second air bell. This one was a lot more diver friendly with a few big rocks sticking out of the water, but deep enough to swim from one side to the other fully kitted up. The air seemed fine and there were [read more…]

Exploration: the real thing

 Cave diving, Overseas  No Responses »
Oct 212013
 
Exploration: the real thing

Right, enough of the local stuff and back to the story! Following my muddy little grovel on our second day, we followed a tip from the local guy and went walkabout to look at a few laundry spots in the area. Just down the road and around the corner we discovered another huge doline with pools at both ends and a young woman having a wash in one of them (fully clothed!). After a quick free dive with mask and torch Stefan pronounced it good and we returned that afternoon with dive gear. Having spent the day tramping through the bush, clambering around other holes and evaluating prospects we didn’t have too much time left, so Stefan dropped in with [read more…]

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