Feb 272012
 
One year on

Agnes Milowka A year ago today, Ag passed away while cave diving. I miss her. In the weeks and months after she died, I learned a lot about grief. To start with it was impossible to forget that she wasn’t here any more, or to think about anything else. I talked repetitively about her life and her death to friends who were kind enough to listen. Getting distracted by day to day living meant that when I stopped thinking about the task at hand I would suddenly remember that she was gone. It was like walking into a brick wall each time, over and over again. Constantly holding my grief front of mind seemed easier than the repeated shock of [read more…]

Feb 202012
 
New perspectives in tunnels

About the site The photo above was taken in Tank Cave, although it could easily be taken in almost any tunnel of about the same size. Tank has shallow depths allowing plenty of time for photos, and with over 8km of interconnecting tunnels there’s a lot of clear water to play in. The cave also shows a lot of variation between different areas of the cave with white walled breakdown chambers giving way to orange tunnels and dark brown rooms. About the dive This particular dive was the first of the weekend, without any particular photography goals in mind. We travelled down the Gold Line to visit an offshoot tunnel known as the A extension. This area of the cave [read more…]

Feb 132012
 
Exposure compromises in Kilsby's Sinkhole

About the site Kilsby’s Sinkhole is a huge, crystal clear freshwater cave formation in Mt Gambier. From most areas in the cave you can look back and see daylight, although past 40m you can get down between the rocks. A classic sinkhole formation created by a roof collapse thousands of years ago, Kilsby’s has a rockpile in the middle coming up to 15m depth or less. One side descends to 25m or so, and the other down to 60m+. Visibility is usually in excess of 40m – you can watch divers swim along the opposite wall and see their trailing bubbles ascend to the surface above. About the dive The clear water, natural light and sheer size of the space [read more…]

Feb 062012
 
RIP Andrew Wight

Andrew Wight passed away on Saturday afternoon. He was an Australian cave diver, an underwater film maker, the writer-producer of the Hollywood movie Sanctum 3D and a good bloke. He followed his passions – a full list of his movie, documentary and TV credits can be seen here. National Geographic has put up a tribute to Wighty and Mike DeGruy here. They’ll be missed.      

Jan 302012
 
Backlighting in McCavity Cave

About the site McCavity Cave is used by local cave divers to refer to the underwater portion of Limekiln Cave, part of the Wellington Caves near Wellington, NSW. Approximately a 5 hour drive from Sydney, Wayne and I flew up from Melbourne one Friday night to check out the cave diving. McCavity is notable for a couple of reasons, the first being the underwater stalactites and stalagmites. The second reason is the unusual entrance. After climbing down through the dry cave to a chamber known as Central Station where gear is assembled and drysuits are donned, divers duck and crawl through the last section down to a small hole. Recent rains had brought the water level up to the top [read more…]

Jan 232012
 
Long exposure in the Shaft III

About the site The Shaft is a site that I’ve talked about twice before. From a manhole-sized hole in the middle of a paddock divers are lowered to the water’s surface 8m below. After gearing up in the water you drop into the depths below – the central rockpile and debris cone starts at 35m, and the cave gets down to over 100m on one side. The walls are predominantly black and the small entrance means there’s very little natural light in the cave. Dive lights struggle across the huge distances. In summer the angle of the sun allows rays of sunlight to pierce the darkness. The ambient light coming straight down the hole is enough for the human eye [read more…]