Cave Diving Kupang, Timor

 Cave diving, Overseas  No Responses »
Oct 042015
 
Cave Diving Kupang, Timor

Timor! I have just finished my third annual trip to the karst region of West Timor. In 2013 following some of Stefan Eberhard’s research, Stefan and I went for a quick reconnaissance trip. We spent a lot of time driving around and looking at dry holes in the tropical sun before finding our way into a major underwater system. On the last day we laid half a kilometre of line into massive blue tunnel with crystal clear water beckoning us on. It was enough of a high that organisation for the next trip began pretty quickly. In mid 2014 myself and five others headed back to the same area for further investigations. The first dive to continue the master tunnel [read more…]

A lightshow in Fossils Cave

 Cave diving, Mt Gambier  No Responses »
Aug 112015
 
A lightshow in Fossils Cave

About the site Fossil Cave is a small cave-rated dive in Mt Gambier. It’s close to Tank Cave, close enough that there’s ongoing speculation that one day divers might be able to swim from one to the other. It’s a shallow affair but does display the crystal clear water that makes you think you’re diving through air. The cave was named after the fossil remains which were extracted for study back in the 80s. About the dive There’s less light in winter but the lower angle of the sun means it comes in at a better angle for cave entrances like Fossil and Pines. On the day we had high winds and scudding clouds so the sun beams were a [read more…]

An underwater forest in Ela Elap

 Cave diving, Mt Gambier  No Responses »
Jul 292015
 
An underwater forest in Ela Elap

About the site Ela Elap is a Mt Gambier sinkhole, close to Little Blue and One Tree. It’s known for being deeper, darker and at least a couple of degrees colder than the other two sites. The bottom gets down past 40m and rather than the 13-15 degrees of the other sites my computer was reading 10. Ela has been closed for a few years. The last time I dived it is a distant memory (possibly due to cold narcosis on those dives) and I was keen to get back for another look. About the dive We arrived in driving winds and surprised a few ducks off the surface of the water. While they struggled to take off in the [read more…]

Kilsby’s in Winter

 Cave diving, Mt Gambier  No Responses »
Jul 152015
 
Kilsby's in Winter

About the site After a weekend of hauling hundreds of tanks through Elk River cave, it’s nice to post these shots of Kilsby’s Sinkhole from the weekend before. Floating through huge spaces, effortless, clean and serene…a bit different to grovelling around in mud with heavy packs. I’ve been really happy with photos I’ve taken in mid-summer in Kilsby’s before. Through December and January big rays of sunshine pierce the water, illuminating the site. At this time of year Mt Gambier is freezing up top but roughly always the same temperature in the water. The lighting in the sinkholes is dramatically different however. About the dive On this particular day we had low, grey clouds with just a touch of drizzle. [read more…]

Three rebreathers in Tank Cave

 Cave diving, Mt Gambier, rEvo  No Responses »
Jul 072015
 
Three rebreathers in Tank Cave

After a productive Saturday morning on the Mt Gambier main street buying tiles for my kitchen floor, and a pleasant Saturday afternoon dive in Kilsby’s, Sunday brought a relaxed two hour swim through Tank Cave. The site was open for Sunday only and the four of us were the only ones there. This made getting in the water a lot easier – no rushing to clip on bailout with someone standing awkwardly hunched in dive gear (or the reverse). With three models in the water at the same time this was the first opportunity to test out all of my strobes on a single dive in a while. A couple of my inon Z240s have been playing up with electronic [read more…]

Four years on the web

 Other  No Responses »
May 192015
 
Four years on the web

While I was pootling around underground in Mexico, this website passed its fourth anniversary. Four years since I spent a weekend setting up web hosting and nervously publishing my first photo and article. I didn’t tell anyone what I’d done for fear of early criticism sinking the whole grand idea. As I said two years ago I was afraid of having one of those two-post blogs, where the second post was about not having much to say “but be sure to check back soon!”. To avoid this I wrote my first dozen articles well before I posted the first one. For most of 2011 I had a 10 article buffer that slowly became a 6 article buffer followed shortly after [read more…]

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