North Central Florida Caves
Within a 20 mile radius of St. Pete Beach are more than 30 diveable springs and sinkholes of which eight rank as the best in the world. Conditions permitting, systems available for this service include Devil’s at Ginnie Springs, Peacock I, Orange Grove, Manatee and Little River.
The Suwannee River’s eastern bank and the nearby Santa Fe River offer the best cavern and cave conditions imaginable. For the most part these spring pools are situated in undeveloped woodland along the banks of the Suwannee and nearby Santa Fe River. Just within the state recreational area is Peacock Sloughs, a series of seven beautiful springs and sinkholes connected by an extensive network of underground passages.
Peacock Springs is considered to be the Largest underwater cave system in the USA. Peacock Springs contains a total of 28,000 feet of underwater passages. For the more adventurous, our underwater caves include some of the longest continuous systems in the world and provide spectacular cave diving experiences for certified cave divers. The sinks and cave system provide habitat for at least three endangered species of cave crustaceans. You are not permitted to remove any artifacts or fossils you may encounter during your visit. Diving in caverns, and caves are done at your own risk. Continue reading North Central Florida Caves
OPEN WATER DIVING
You will attend 5 session theoretical training and complete your course of 1 sessions in special site and 2 sessions in natural sites. With the Open Water qualification, you are independant until 18 meters deep with another certified diver.
Open Water Training complete the Scuba Diving Training (participants of Scuba Diver course will join the first three theoretical sessions, the first 2 exercise sessions in the pool, and the first 2 open water dives). If you wish, from the 2nd dive you can start your training using Nitrox. When you’re an Open Water diver, you can dive into all PADI dive centers. Continue reading ADVANCED OPEN WATER DIVING
The Bajau Laut, or Bajo, are marine nomads thought to come from the Philippines, who for centuries have lived out their lives almost entirely at sea. In dugout canoes known as lepa lepa they ply the ocean between Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, fishing with nets and lines.
They are also expert free divers, as can be seen in this image, taken in the waters off Wakatobi, south Sulawesi.
But their way of life is under threat just like Spain holidays. The WWF is working with the Wakatobi National Park Authority to prioritise marine conservation in the area. “The WWF is doing excellent work in creating a maritime park,” commented Cliff Sather, author of The Bajau Laut. “Otherwise, the environmental situation is a disaster.”
Local people are abandoning traditional fishing methods and turning to homemade fertiliser bombs and sodium cyanide to stun the fish. This damages coral reefs and can lead to loss of life.
“We have come across cyanide fishing in the Wakatobi islands, particularly for the grouper trade, and also some bomb fishing,” comments Tim Coles of Operation Wallacea, an academic network that backs conservation efforts.
Unfortunately, they are not the only problems facing the reefs, he adds. “You could wipe out cyanide and bomb fishing and the reef fishery in the Wakatobi Islands would continue to collapse because of overfishing by techniques such as fish fences, bubu traps, gill nets, seine nets and so on.” Continue reading Free-diving Indian Ocean nomads under threat
How long can diver Gary Glemboski stay under water off the coast of Oregon? A lieutenant with the Savannah, Ga., police department’s Emergency Response Team and an avid recreational diver, Glemboski figures he’ll last at least 12 hours
The Special Charity Underwater Benefit for Alyssa, or SCUBA, will help fund leukemia treatments for the daughter of a fellow Savannah police officer. Glemboski is seeking per-hour pledges to raise funds, an incentive he says, to stay under water in the Jenkins High School swimming pool for as long as possible.
Michael Ange, technical editor of Rodale’s Scuba Diving, has volunteered as the dive safety officer for the round-the-clock plunge. Other divers, public safety crews and local businesses have also volunteered their time, talents and support for the fund-raiser.
Where did Glemboski get the idea to raise money by going under? He read about a 72-hour attempt at a world record dive in the pages of RSD (Editor’s Note, Nov. ’02) and thought a marathon dive would make a good fund-raising stunt. Then he learned about Alyssa. “It was always in the back of my mind and when this came up I said, ‘Let’s do it now.’” Continue reading Marathon SCUBA Dive To Fight Leukemia
Cave divers will object to the fact these are called “The Caves” because they are technically caverns. If you can find them, there are two entrances to a grotto that is a rather beautiful sight just like Nasa images.
Don’t let the beauty fool you, this is a dangerous place – not because of the swim through the tunnel-like openings, but because of the bathers that come from the nearby campground and like to jump into the water inside the grotto. Some are even brave enough to do it on the outside, jumping from a pretty good height, which makes them a menace even near the entrances which are about 20 feet underwater.
The grotto on the inside is great, with birds usually dive-bombing around non-stop.
Outside of the caves are an uneventful collection of large rocks devoid of life aside from an array of crayfish. The gradual dropoff outside of the caves will take you below 100′ in just a couple of minutes but there is little to find other than a couple of good thermoclines and the sterotypical Tobermory rock (in many places the rock almost looks like a sponge with roundish voids over an inch in diameter making it look like the rock is comprised mostly of air). Continue reading The Caves “Tobermory”
Aquatic World offers FREEScuba training to all 10 through 15 year olds in Johnson County. This is a savings of $295.00 (group course tuition). This includes classroom, pool sessions and home study, in both an individual and a group format. This is the required training needed for lifetime international certification.
Terms and Conditions
Student must provide proof of age.
Student must take class with a paying (over 21) parent, guardian or friend. Students 10 and 11 years old must be accompanied by either parent or guardian.
Both minor and adult must purchase a textbook and study kit.
This is a quick update of what has transpired to date during this year’s US Deep Caving Team expedition , which you have helped to make possible. We are currently at the conclusion of Phase I, and are organizing for the beginning of Phase II in Costa Rica.
During Phase I, our field camp was based in San Augustin Zaragosa, the closest village to the main entrance to the Huautla cave system. From here, we have set three in-cave camps, at depths of 400 to 500 meters below the surface. Our team has been composed of seven members, from the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Great Britain. The main focus of this phase was Cueva de San Agustin, which currently terminates in a chamber 200 meters long, 30 meters wide and up to 115 meters tall. Two camps here were of 6 and 5 days, respectively, at the -465m level. The room is filled with enormous boulders that have primarily fallen from the roof of the chamber.
Several waterfalls enter this room at different ends (the most spectacular being an 80m freefall cascade). We first attempted to follow the waterflow down through the boulder-choked floor, into lower river passage. However, several protracted dig efforts did not provide a route. Simultaneously, other team members used rotary impact hammer drills and rock bolts to scale the sides and roof of this chamber to reach the dark holes above. A first climb of 40 meters ended in an impassible crevice, while a second through one of the waterfalls – known as the Sala Doble Dome — required 6 vertical lead pitches to reach a horizontal continuation. Unlike big wall climbing on the surface, underground leads are quite tedious … leaning out over subterranean overhangs in the dark under a waterfall to set the next anchor as far above the hanging stance as possible. The new drills (solenoid action rotary impact) and stainless deep-embedment bolts made the climbing fast and safe, but still quite arduous.
During this attempt, we gained over 150 meters in height (rigging nearly 500 meters of rope), and surveyed 470 meters of new cave. This is the first new exploration in this cave since 1969, although many groups have entered the cave. Our route headed southwest, which was the direction of our goal of Sump 9 in Sistema Huautla. After surveying through the new horizontal passage, and leading several more short climbs, we connected to another passage! We hurried into the new tunnel to try to figure out what cave we had connected to only to find that we had made a grand vertical loop above the big chamber, back into the main route down Cueva de San Augustin. The elevated airflow in this cave appears to be a circulation through this loop, driven by the force of the waterfalls. Continue reading US Deep Caving Team Expedition
Underwater Kinetics announced today the introduction of a new, innovative line of stainless steel knives for the dive market. The Underwater Kinetics¹ “HYDRALLOY Series” of dive knives utilizes a unique blend of metal alloys and proprietary finishing techniques to provide a knife with the strength of 420 Stainless Steel, while exceeding the corrosion resistance of 316 Stainless Steel..
With the expansion of our HYDRALLOY Stainless Steel Dive Knives, UK continues to leverage our technological capabilities to provide innovative and superior products to the dive market. This metallurgic advancement was developed specifically for the diving industry in an effort to provide divers with an economical alternative to titanium without sacrificing its benefits.
Underwater Kinetics provides a wide range of knife styles and sizes to suit every diver. The BLUE TANG dive knife will accommodate any style of diving and is packed with all the features a diver would want such as a full-comfort grip handle, serrated edge for cutting rope and line and a hooked edge line cutter. The BLUE TANG is available in drop point or blunt tip blade style. Continue reading UK Announces New HYDRALLOY Dive Knives
About five years ago I took my oldest son on his first dive with me following his certification. While on this dive, he found a UK400 dive light. It was covered with silt and mud from lying on the lake bottom for who knows how long. He wiped the muck from the lens and the switch and turned it on. And, to our surprise it worked! .
It was then that my son and some friends foolishly took a small boat out on the Kiamichi River here in southeastern Oklahoma where the river runs across our property. They turned the boat over dumping everything they had with them, including the UK400 dive light, into the river. I returned to the area to again look for things.
The river had dropped to a level lower than it had been since October and I thought I might recover something. About 30-40 yards downstream, caught in the base of a bush was that dive light. It was once again covered with muck but I wiped it off a bit and hit the switch. After six months in the river it lit up once again! I am sold! With first hand experience like this, I will always trust Underwater Kinetics to light up my dives.
Visitors to the DIVE 2011 exhibition, held at Birmingham’s NEC over 22/23 October, can hear about wrecks at one of the few locations in North America that Germany attacked during WW2.
Rick Stanley’s afternoon talks at the show detail the wrecks and their remarkable history according to relatives of a key personality involved in the action in 1942.
Before WWII, Germany had acquired iron mined from Newfoundland’s Bell Island. Once war was declared, this relationship ceased and the Bell Island ore started to be shipped to Britain.
Germany’s response was to attack shipping taking on iron ore in Bell Island’s Conception Bay. Four Allied carriers moored there were torpedoed by German U-Boats over a two-month period in 1942.
In September, U-513 torpedoed the Canadian Lord Strathconca and the British Saganaga. In November, U-518 sunk the Rose Castle and PLM-27.
Today these wrecks sit upright and intact at depths ranging from 18m to 48m, in clear water and covered in starfish, anemones, sea urchins, mussels and crabs.
The Apprentice Cave diver course represents the first half of the training required to complete the NSS-CDS/NACD Full Cave Diver level. Emphasis in this course is upon dive planning and skill perfection through actual cave dives.
Techniques learned through earlier courses are critiqued and expanded. The Apprentice Cave Diver course is not intended to prepare divers for evaluating all facets of cave diving. It is intended to expose students to different cave diving scenarios of dive planning and skill perfection.. Although the student is introduced to more complex navigation techniques, students are encouraged to complete the next level of training before attempting complex dives. Upon successful completion of the course, the student is issued training card for a one year time-limit.
Where Does Our Training Takes Place: The Suwannee River Valley is the world’s leading cave diving playground. It is where most of the world’s cave diving training takes place and where most of the divers return regularly. The sites below are centrally located right here in our backyard, only to be explored by you.
We take the students to different site to expose them to the widest possible array of conditions, including high and low flow, large and small passageways, silt and silt-free bottoms with an instructor who is the Best in the business. No one site can offer this! Let us guide you and train you properly and safely to appreciate the overhead environment: Continue reading Apprentice Cave Course
This cave diving course develops basic cave diving skills with limited penetrations of the cave environment and is the second level of progression to the full cave diver certificate. It is a recreational cave diving course.
The course develops and establishes minimum skills, knowledge, dive planning and preparation, problem solving procedures, swimming techniques, emergency procedures and the basic abilities necessary to safely cave dive within limited penetrations, using SINGLE TANKS. (Double cylinders are not to be used unless the student is planning to enroll in the Apprentice/Full Cave Diver training program).
Take a look below at the 3-day Combo Cavern and Introduction to Cave Diving Course.
This is a two day course including lectures and a minimum of four Cave Dives
Prerequisite: NACD or equivalent Cavern Diver Certification
The Advanced Openwater Scuba Diving Course is the second scuba diving certification. It is the first step to becoming a seasoned, serious scuba diver. It is a rating that is respected world-wide. The Advanced Openwater Scuba Diving Course is designed to expand a scuba diver’s knowledge and skills through both scuba diving academics and progression of five openwater scuba dives. Combine the Nitrox Course for a nominal fee (see below).
The class fee includes lectures with video presentations, pool/confined water training, instructor’s fee, agency fee, and the “Advanced Openwater Scuba Diving Manual”. There are no hidden expenses!
Certification: IANTD, SDI/TDI
Fee: $225.00 per student (In case your pricing, you may find cheaper courses. However, when one takes my course, he/she receives quality training from an extremely fit, and experienced diver. )
Stage Diving is aimed at cave divers who wish to learn the special techniques of rigging a stage bottle with the necessary hardware and regulators. This course is intended to help develop the participant’s skills in extended penetration diving with the use of a stage cylinder’s). Longer decompression and more complex navigational concerns are covered. At least an hour of lecture to include discussion of motives, equipment, procedures, technique, task loading and decompression.
All stage bottles could be filled with air, or could contain a variety of breathing gases as required by the dive plan.
The cave diver will be entering the cave breathing off the stage bottle, and at some point it will be detached from the cave diver’s harness, and left clipped to the guideline. The cave diver then continues on, breathing off back mounted doubles. The stage bottle is retrieved on the way out of the cave, reattached to the cave diver’s harness, and breathed while exiting the cave. Continue reading Stage Diving
The Benefits of Cave Diver training are not limited solely to the ability to safely explore underwater caverns and caves.
Most students say that they learn more practical information about diving in just the first few days of Cave Diver training than in any other course they have taken — including instructor courses!
The equipment modifications one learns as a Cave Diver are not only essential for diving in overhead environments, they make open-water diving much easier as well.
The specialized buoyancy control, body position and propulsion techniques taught in Cave Diver courses create very environmentally sound divers. One seldom sees cave divers banging into or dragging equipment across coral reefs.
Many cave diving students are wreck divers who are seeking to learn penetration procedures and techniques they can apply to wreck diving. Although cave diving are distinctly different activities from wreck diving, many wreck divers report they find learning to cave dive helpful. Continue reading What are the additional benefits of Cave Diver training?
The Mt Gambier region of South Australia is famous for its numerous caves and sinkholes but Tank Cave stands out from amongst the crowd and is the crowning jewel as far as cave divers are concerned. Tank Cave, named so because a water tank used to rest right over the top of the entrance, is an extensive, maze like system with over 7km of passage which makes it one of the longest caves in Australia.
The Tank Cave entrance is on private property and the Cave Divers Association of Australia (CDAA) strictly control access to the site. The complicated nature of the system (it looks like a spider web gone wild) requires a strict familiarization process that allows cave divers to get to know the cave step by step. While there are a lot of hoops to jump through before you allowed access to the site, on the upside this means that every cave diver is intimately familiar with all the main passages of Tank Cave before they venture off into the many side tunnels.
Sometimes cave divers worry that Tank Cave will prove to be a huge disappointment after all the fuss leading up to the first dive but even the gold line dives are quite exciting. Tank Cave in unlike any other in the Mt Gambier region, it is a real gem and it is a joy to dive. The cave is stunning, it is relatively shallow (a max depth around 20m), there is no flow to fight and the water is crystal clear – you can’t go wrong really.
The best part of diving in Tank Cave however is that there is still plenty of potential for exploration. Whilst most people assume everything around the Mt Gambier region has been found and discovered this is definitely not so and is most certainly not the case in this cave. My second weekend there, whilst still doing familiarization dives, my buddy and I found going passage right off the gold line. It was a little hole but the tunnel quite clearly went. My buddy couldn’t actually fit through the restriction initially, so he patiently waited for me as I went off to check out what was beyond the squeeze. In the end I laid almost 300m of line, so clearly there is a lot more new cave passage to be found in Tank Cave. Continue reading Tank Cave – Pushing C Tunnel
The “Dive” is a one-piece 7 to 5 mm which reflects heat for men. This has a hood attached and closes in front. Cmode and easy to make. Double-Bastille hand. The “Dive” is trying to dive centers in particular.
Description: Amphibia/ Dry Suit
Model: WS300370-381-S
Easy to make, cmode in the water, Amphibia is the Sub Coltri dry suit that was tested as technician and is a friend and confident diver who require not only superior SUBMISSION, but the convenience allowing total diving in cool water. Soft Neoprene 7 mm double-lined boots incorporated RGID with nonskid soles and reinforced knee pads. There is a separate hood to eliminate long before diving Preparing and 5 mm smooth look of special seals and neck roll of 3 mm neoprene to Continue reading SCUBA Diving Suits, for Man & Women
Underwater Archaeology. 20 years left on the seabed an archaeological Andalusia.
Among other material found near the sunken galley had six cannons, two anchors, perforated lead plates, frames, barrels, pulleys, etc..
The Minister of Culture of the Andalusian Government, Paulino Plata, has acknowledged that the Andalusian remains abandoned for over 20 years an archaeological find on the Almeria coast that was once described as “rich” because he was serving in those dates, Javier Torres Vela, as headlines of the day.
He said then that “there is a legal obligation to deposit all the findings in the Provincial Office of Culture. The policy that emerges is that the archaeological remain as close as possible to where they were found. “And so close that have been, have not moved from where they were, and that despite Torrres also noted that “it is an interesting experience that enriches the archaeological landscape of Andalusia.”
Specifically, the PP justified questions with the following argument: “According to the newspaper Almería digital news, 2011, the Delegate of the Government of Andalusia in Madrid was the director of the archaeological survey which was from August to October 1989, having been discovered in a sunken galley Galley beach in the town of Carboneras, Almería province.
PROTECTION OF UNDERWATER HERITAGE
The Odyssey Explorer was recently approached by spaniards forces of public computer for possible expoliacin underwater treasures of the southern peninsula Ibrica. The navo simply a treasure hunter ms.
November 2007
Often, when we look histricosa museums or skating, we face materials, sculptures, Nfor, etc., Found under the sea.
The Mediterraneo, a sea almost closed the Phoenicians, Romans, Carthaginians, Byzantines, Turks and spaniards kept trficos and battles, is a warehouse of Authentic wrecks. The setting of the passage of Gibraltar, a narrow corridor through which circulated from the Antique and fought countless boats, is one more point, as the environments in all of Greece or the Italian islands. Continue reading When we look historical museums or skating, we face materials, sculptures, Nfor, etc.
