Surveying in DD31

 Caving  1 Response »
Jan 282015
 
Surveying in DD31

About the cave DD31 aka Swain’s Cave was discovered and first entered in 2012. It extends to over 2.4kms of streamway passage leading to a terminal sump shortly before the expected resurgence on the surface. The entrance is in the same doline as DD4 Jones Ridge Cave which has been known for decades but this little gem didn’t reveal itself until very recently. Combined, the tunnels in DD4 and DD31 add up to over 5kms of passage. I had caved in DD4 previously when we inserted Harry into the terminal upstream sump and I was excited to have a look at the downstream half of the system. About the trip The first thing that struck me about DD31 was that [read more…]

Oztek 2015!

 Other  1 Response »
Jan 202015
 

I’m both amazed at how quickly Oztek seems to have come around again, and amazed at how many dive trips to exciting places I’ve managed to achieve since last Oztek. Oztek 2015 is on the 14th & 15th of March at Australian Technology Park in Sydney. As with Oztek 2013 I’ll be speaking. This time around my talk is around the joys and challenges of models in photos. I’ll be discussing about how to work with your dive buddies, persuade them to pull happy faces, and find the angle that looks heroic amid the chaos. The speaker schedule is now out and I’ll be in Room 6B on Saturday at 10am. I’m also looking forward to having a chat on [read more…]

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MOD3 and 100m on the rEvo

 Ocean diving, Reef diving, rEvo  No Responses »
Jan 132015
 
MOD3 and 100m on the rEvo

Once we had progressed through the skills and drills dives discussed in the last post, it was on to the deeper stuff. This meant many of the same flashcards seen previously with the added pressure of extra depth. Rather than swimming out from shore we also added some very small boats to the fun. The second photo here is me fully geared up in my rEvo as we chugged towards the dive site. On arrival in the right location it was a sideways manoeuvre to get fins on and slip over the side of the boat. The driver then passed in my three stages and we did a floating S drill as a team. It’s the rainy season in Bali at [read more…]

MOD2 course – taking the rEvo to 60m

 Ocean diving, Reef diving, rEvo  1 Response »
Jan 062015
 
MOD2 course - taking the rEvo to 60m

I have just returned from ten days in Bali, and nearly 20 hours of time underwater. After doing the MOD1 course on my rEvo in warm Indonesian waters back in 2013, it seemed like time to repeat the experience with a little more depth. I’ve done enough rEvo diving over the intervening period that I was comfortable with the combined MOD2 and MOD3 courses in one trip. The plan was for skills, drills, theory, work up dives and an eventual dive to 100m. First up was the MOD2 for normoxic trimix bailout. Of course, as per the MOD1 course the camera came along for the ride. I installed the deep spring kit in my Aquatica housing prior to the trip [read more…]

Merry Christmas!

 Cave diving, Caving, Ocean diving, Reef diving, rEvo, Tasmania  No Responses »
Dec 232014
 

It doesn’t quite feel like the end of 2014, but apparently it really is. I’ve had an amazing year with some fantastic diving – from muddy sumps in Elk River and Tasmania to crystal clear tropical water in Komodo to secret caves in Indonesia and scalloped rocks in France. For Christmas I’m headed back to the tropics. Tomorrow I head off to Bali to complete my MOD2 and MOD3 rEvo courses with Marc Crane at Tek Deep Asia. I was very happy with the rigour and detail of my MOD1 course back in 2012 and with a few hours under my belt, these courses seem to be a fitting way to end 2014. All going well I will be surfacing [read more…]

Diving Dreamtime sump

 Cave diving, Caving, Tasmania  2 Responses »
Dec 172014
 
Diving Dreamtime sump

About the cave Growling Swallet is a major sink in the Junee Florentine karst area in Tasmania. Water from the river that rushes into the cave entrance has been dye traced to emerge in the Junee resurgence, several miles away. Unlike other caves in the area Growling has an entrance that doesn’t require ropes or SRT, just a few very sketchy free climbs. The name describes the noise of the river rushing in when in flood, and as you would expect caving is only possible in low water conditions. The way through the cave alternates between following the water and climbing up and over it. From a caving perspective this means that even on the way in (usually downhill) there are [read more…]

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