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ALL NATURAL LIGHT SHOW: CREATURES OF THE ABYSS
CREATURES DEPEND ON THEIR LUMENENCE FOR SURVIVAL FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE
submerge yourself
DIVERS WHO WILL RISK IT ALL FOR dive into the deep with NEW ADVANCES IN SCIENCE experienced divers, spelunkers & more EXTREME CAVE DIVING APRIL 2013 I ISSUE 45
what’s inside
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Underwater Astronauts
Divers sometimes needed rebreather technology similar to that which astronauts use on space missions
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Masters of Knots, Knives & Seamanship
1 ship, 14 people, 7 blue holes, 21 days
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Diving down under
australias most dangerous caves
Dying to Dive
Scientists who will risk it all for science
All Natural Light Show
creatures of the abyss who depend on their luminance for survival
To dive or not to dive
An 800 year old preserved human skull
The bermuda deep project
the great search for deep sea water caves
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Masters of Knots, Knives & Seamanship 1 ship, 14 people, 7 blue holes, 21 days
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We traveled and lived on the 66-foot S.S. Tiburon, an expedition ship that had just enough room for our crew of some 14 people and about four tons of gear, including dive gear, cameras and related paraphernalia, computers, printers, junk novels, and about 50 tanks for various mixes of air. We lacked for nothing in amenities on the boat, though our close quarters meant that a virus remained in constant circulation among the team. Most importantly, the AC worked July in the Bahamas is the hottest and most humid month of the year. We shot at seven blue holes in about 21 days. On a typical day, we'd rise with the sun, offload gear from the ship into vans, then go to the hole and put together a rough base camp. We'd film the dive preparations and jump-ins, and then we wouldn't see the dive and underwater film team until they emerged carrying their scientific
finds, usually two or three hours later. So, at some part of each blisteringly hot day, everyone would vanish into the deep except for a scientist or two, my topside cameraman, the gifted and tireless Gordy Waterman, ace soundman Dave Strayer, and me. We'd use this time to shoot interviews with the film's characters who weren't diving, or laboratory scenes with our scientists examining blue hole finds. At night we'd review tapes, log their contents, back up media, and have a production meeting to discuss what was working and what wasn't. The under water crew had tanks to fill and gear to prep and repair. We'd hit our bunks around midnight, smelly and exhausted. To imagine what our lives were like, think of the glamorous, gin-soaked Bahamas of Casino Royale. Now take away everything but the sweat.
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ay d 1 2 ney: , s e jour l o e htheir u l b ugh 7 , e t thro l p eoey go p 14 w th , p i ho 1 sh To the southeast of Samae San, or Samaesan Bay in Thailand, there exists a hole in the sea shelf that falls nearly 300 feet to the pitch black sea floor. “The Hole” is the deepest dive in the Gulf of Thailand — a dive recommended for “experts only” who are TRIMIX certified and able to withstand currents that can rip a diver into the open sea. More dangerous may be the tankers that plow through the shipping lanes abutting the Samaesan Hole, not to mention the unexploded ordinance that rests tantalizingly on the sea bed. The Samaesan Hole isn’t just a great place to shine a light on deep sea wildlife, it’s also a military dump site.To-date, Freedman has clocked 1,200 open water dives and another 1,000 cave dives. "You go places where no one on earth has been," said Freedman. "When I was diving, I couldn't buy equipment for this sport; it all had to be handmade." A cave diver goes as far as he/she can into the cave and lay a line that follows them into the cave (and shows them the way out). The diver goes until he/she cannot go any further for whatever reason, tie the reel off and leave. "A few months later, a diver that gets to that same spot or further will bring back your reel, and send it to you UPS. Then you can call up
the friend that sent it to you and see how they are." Since the reels are handmade, the small group of cave divers all know what each other's reels look like, according to Freedman. Freedman dove what is now his favorite cave in 1988. "There have been 45 deaths there," he says. "It's in Peacock Springs, FL." Freedman says that the water in cave diving is spring water. "It's like diving in bottled water. The visibility is incredible; you can see 1,000 feet or more on a good day." That is, until a diver kicks up silt at the bottom of a cave and can change the visibility to zero. "The silt has similar specific gravity to water," he says. So the silt takes time to settle; time that many
“You may e n d a n g e r everyone o n a d i v e by having o n e unlucky mo m e n t . ”
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divers do not have. The classes Freedman took taught him the proper techniques to propel himself forward and not disturb the silt. "Those without training can die." Freedman dove for many years until he lost a buddy who died trying to set a world's record. "He was going to try to set a new record in a cave we called the Macho Pit," said Freedman. "It's very deep; I think it goes to Hell. The maximum safe depth for scuba is 120 feet. My friend, Sheck Exley, set the 700 foot record and was trying for 1,000 feet. He died doing it." Freedman tapered off his diving after his friend died and after he got married. "Of the eight of us that used to dive together, three are alive today," he said. While Freedman may not cave dive any longer, he does still sail a boat and doesn't let the weather stop him. He's sailed in a hurricane for 36 hours; sailed around the Mediterranean; around Europe; across the Atlantic; from New York to St. Martens by himself, nonstop. On that trip, he actually wanted to go on to Bermuda, but it would have taken more days and he didn't want to worry his wife, plus he knew she'd be mad when he got home. "It was fun," says Freedman. Freedman has put 46,000 miles on his boat, the Kimberlite. At about seven miles an hour, that's a lot of time. This Kimberlite is his third. His first he sold to a guy in Detroit. The second one is in Switzerland on Lake Geneva. And he still sails the third, a 53 footer. So, what does cave diving and boating have to do with jewelry? "Nothing," says Freedman. "I'm off work when I'm on the boat." And while he may be off work, he still meets people that want jewelry and want him to sell it to them. "People trust me; they like me, that's the secret of jewelry. I have many customers, some extremely wealthy, that shop with me from all over the country." Freedman met many through sailing, often parking next to a boat whose owners were famous. But cave diving, sailing and jewelry do intersect, at least for a hands-on jeweler. "Being able to fix little things is helpful, since when diving or in the ocean there are no stores and no merchants," says Freedman. "If it breaks, you have to be able to replace it, repair it or jerry rig it. Being a jeweler helps me to do that when needed." Freedman grew up on Long Island, near the water. "Sailing is the thing to do here," he said. He's certainly mastered that water sport and so much more.
I kept track of the divers' morale and health, both of which had ups and downs, and I sometimes worried about them. They are an exceptionally proficient group—masters of knots, knives, seamanship, and, of course, diving. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been much use to a film or a scientific expedition, and, frankly, probably would've died long ago. However, there's a term our divers used called "task-loading," which means unconsciously adding tasks to the things you have to do, or being conscious that you're over-burdened and not speaking up. Task-loading kills people. The dive team was task-loaded to the gills. In addition to the variables of technical diving and collecting samples, they had to contend with the problems of lighting and filming underwater. Add to that the ordinary hazards of cave diving—cave-ins, silt-outs, faulty gear, decompression sickness, nitrogen narcosis, oxygen toxicity, running out of air, and, of course, simple, everyday drowning. Take all that and put it on a tight schedule. Oh, and whenever you're above water you're being filmed, and the producer expects you to be engaging 24/7. But we came back with no injuries, largely because we were wary, and we had planned to be wary. While pushed, no one dived whose ability or safety was compromised, as far as I know. Sick people stayed in bed. Besides being our chief science diver, Brian Kakuk was also the diver in charge of safety, and he has an uncanny sixth sense about other divers. So we had a good safety structure. Other than a couple of rebreather malfunctions and a small cave-in, we had no dive-related safety incidents. Things can go wrong, of course, no matter how thoroughly you prepare. For example, it's nearly impossible to predict avalanches of loose rock, and big cave-ins. In the film, Kenny Broad says, "We're swimming over boulders the size of houses, and you know they came from the ceiling." I've no doubt that luck played a part in our expedition, and that teams with even greater attention to safety than ours have lost members. In the end, I took away a great appreciation of the divers' self-reliance. I'm a PADI Rescue Diver—which on this shoot was a qualification about as useful as being a good singer and I've always had drilled into me that you never dive alone. You dive with a buddy.
Producer James Barrat (left) got accustomed to conducting interviews while standing shoulder deep in the waters of a blue hole
In cave diving, however, you may head into a cave with several buddies, but you're always diving alone. That's not existential hyperbole if something goes wrong in a cave, your buddy probably can't help you. You train to self-rescue. You're just too far from safety to think about survival any other way. In fact, you may endanger everyone on a dive by having one unlucky moment. Suppose, for example, that you're the last person to squeeze through a tight passage and you get hopelessly stuck. One second you're a valued member of a cave-diving team. In the next, you're the cork in the bottle containing the lives of your friends.
“Things can go wrong no matter how thoroughly you prepare.”
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Australia's most dangerous caves The Shaft Sinkhole, Mount Gambier, Australia. In a tiny hole in the middle of a huge flat field where you’d least expect to be diving, lies one of Australia’s most infamous but truly spectacular cave dive site- The Shaft. Aptly named because of it’s entrance which is an inconspicuous narrow shaft water drain, with only a swinging ladder to descend to the water 8 meters down the dingy shaft. Your scuba tanks and kits are lowered down to you to kit up in the water, in the darkness. But once you’ve conquered the task of all the prep, the small lake chamber has a huge underwater chasm with some of the clearest waters in the world. The immense cavern is impressive to say the least. An outstanding dive, the shaft is definitely one of the most unique sinkhole dives
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in the world. Why it’s challenging: Well other than the fact that there is only one small entry and exit point which isn’t the easiest to access, the cavern leads off into two tunnels located at either end of the cavern. Your scuba tanks and kits are lowered down to you to kit up in the water, in the darkness. One leads of to a depth of around 85 meters (278 feet) while the other 120 meters (almost 400 feet). Divers have made the unfortunate mistake of getting carried away and not correctly estimating their supply of air to make it back to the exit, a crucial part of planning a deep cave dive. Today, the CDAA (Cave Divers Association of Australia) limits divers to a maximum depth of 40 meters at all it’s sites in Mount Gambier to avoid diving accidents like those. Although
cave-adapted animals have long been known and studied from freshwater caves, the discovery of similar animals from marine caves is a recent event brought to light by cave diving explorations. Anchialine (underground voids near the coast filled with tidal, brackish or marine water) caves typically possess surface layers of fresh or brackish water separated by a halocline from deeper, fully marine waters. Cave diving has been an essential tool to explore and study the deeper waters in such systems where most stygobitic animals live. Anchialine and freshwater stygobites are mostly crustaceans, and include several higher groups of crustaceans found only or primarily in subterranean habitats.
Di v i ng
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s r e t n u h e r reasu
t
Treasure hunters have discovered what they believe to be the world's most valuable shipwreck at a location thought to be off the Cornish coast.
Cornish
coast.
£250
million.
Using state of the art mini-submarines, hunters have already recovered 17 tons of 17th-century gold and silver coins from the wreck codenamed the Black Swan worth at least £250million.
Experts said last night that there could be hundreds of millions of pounds worth of bullion and artifacts from shipwrecks still on the ocean floor.
105 found in one month
hudreds of
millions of
pounds
Artifacts over a century old are still intact from a old shipwrecks, and are becoming more and more of a popular discovery. Over 105 statuettes found in 1 month.
MAY 2013 I ISSUE 46
all na
atural creatures of the abyss who depend on their luminance for survival The U.S. National Speleological Society defines a successful cave dive as "one you return from." "Extreme Cave Diving," the program I produced for NOVA, is really about the blue holes of the Bahamas. It's about cutting-edge science that gives us important data about our climate and reveals a lot about the Eden of now-extinct animals that once lived on the islands of the Bahamas. But blue holes are immense, flooded caves, and the only way to explore them is through the dangerous sport of cave diving. Onboard we had some of the world's best divers. Dive leader Brian Kakuk is probably the planet's premier science and cave diver. Jill Heinerth is an internationally sought-after technical diving instructor. Wes Skiles, our director of photography, is arguably one of the most talented in his line of work. Read on to next page
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DYING TO
DIVE Divers who will risk it all for science
W
hile some people might die doing science, a lot of people die cave diving: each year an average of 20 worldwide. The U.S. National Speleological Society defines a successful cave dive as "one you return from." "Extreme Cave Diving," the program I produced for NOVA, is really about the blue holes of the Bahamas. It's about cutting-edge science that gives us important data about our climate and reveals a lot about the Eden of now-extinct animals that once lived on the islands of the Bahamas. But blue holes are immense, flooded caves, and the only way to explore them is through the dangerous sport of cave diving. Onboard we had some of the world's best divers. Dive leader Brian Kakuk is probably the planet's premier science and cave diver. Jill Heinerth is an internationally sought-after technical diving instructor. Wes Skiles, our director of photography, is arguably
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Florida's greatest cave explorer, living or dead. All our divers have been feature-film dive doubles or consultants. Yet each knew several other, equally expert divers whose dead bodies they had recovered from caves. Including the expedition leader, anthropologist Kenny Broad, the dive team has recovered the bodies of more than 100 cave divers. To imagine recovering just one, think of a flooded, crumbling 10-story building at night. There's a dead body in the basement. You have to find it and drag it to the roof. Could you? What if it was a friend? Wes Skiles recovered the body of his best friend from a cave. He also recovered three brothers who realized they were hopelessly lost and out of air. Wes found them holding hands.
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Discovering an 800 year old preserved human skull In the geological sciences, blue holes hold just as many wonders. When cut open, stalagmites from blue holes display layers like the rings in a tree. Analysis of their composition reveals a year-by-year diary of the Bahamas' climate for the last 200,000-300,000 years, including rainfall, the chemicals in the rain and air, even the temperature. They don't just record past periods of extreme climate change, but also tell us how fast that change can grip the planet. There was enough to learn about the different sciences related to blue holes to interview the scientists who joined a recent expedition: marine biologist Tom Iliffe, ornithologist David Steadman, molecular biologist Jenn Macalady, cave scientist Nancy Albury, geochemist Peter Swart, and others. In all of these dives, you never know what you’re going to find or what will find you. There are creatures that once lived and became extinct before science even discovered them. It is as dark abyss of the unknown and in each dive, you risk your own life for the sake of discovery.
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The deep, oxygen-free zone of one of the caves preserved an 800-year-old human skull, shedding light on the Lucayan people who inhabited the Bahamas long before Columbus visited. In the geological sciences, blue holes hold just as many wonders. When cut open, stalagmites from blue holes display layers like the rings in a tree. Analysis of their own composition reveals a year-by-year diary of the Bahamas' climate for the last 200,000-300,000 years, including rainfall, the chemicals in the rain and air, even the temperature. They don't just record past periods of extreme climate change, but also tell us how fast that change can grip the planet..This was definitely one of the most unique sinkhole dives in the world. Why it’s challenging: Well other than the fact that there is only one small entry and exit point which isn’t the easiest to access, the cavern leads off into two tunnels located at either end of the cavern. One leads of to a depth of around 85 meters (278 feet) while the other 120 meters (almost 400 feet).
LUCAMAYA
N TRIBE OF
THE BAHAM
AS SPEAK
TO THE MY
THS OF TH
E SEA
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