E029 - Cave Rescues & Recoveries with Edd Sorenson

Hey, I hope you are having a great start to the year :)!! It's great to bring you Episode #93 Tamara Adame - "The Path to Cave Instructor". Thanks again for your support.

Huge thanks also to XDEEP for sponsoring the show. Their support has been instrumental in the success of this podcast and it is sincerely appreciated.

One of the pinnacles in the application of sidemount diving is of course cave diving and cave exploration. It's an addictive pastime to research and then ultimately physically search for and then investigate flooded holes in the ground in an attempt to find that euphoric "never seen before… virgin cave passage.

Many cave explorers either started their journeys as sidemount and cave instructors or found their way to this profession as a way to pay for their passion. For the vast majority, it's a match made in heaven where they get to earn a living sharing and teaching about how to dive caves and then applying their skills to their exploration. Teaching is also the perfect way to keep their cave diving skills current and built into muscle memory.

The path to becoming a cave instructor is long. There's joining courses with other instructors, observing their teaching styles and content, having your skills reviewed and critiqued, then when you are ready… assisting on courses, being evaluated and then eventually qualifying as a Cavern instructor, teaching, building experience and then repeating this process twice more to reach the coveted level of Full Cave instructor. I'm using the TDI agency levels here but they map easily to the levels of other agencies… long story short… it's a journey full of pressure, failures, learning, and ultimately I am sure one of satisfaction when achieving a pinnacle level in the dive profession.

In this episode, Tamara Adame joins me to share her journey along this path to cave instructor under the mentorship of Patrick Widmann of ProTec Playa. I had the good fortune to meet and hang with Tamara a bit while I was at ProTec training with Patrick. She's an amazing person, a great diver, and has a real passion for caves and diving.

Tamara talks about growing up around the ocean in Mexico and how this shaped her love of everything aquatic. She shares on her time in Belgium building her career before she found herself back in Mexico and ultimately falling in love with caves and cave diving. She shares on how she met Patrick and how he guided her on her path to becoming a cave instructor. Tamara goes into how she came to work at Protec and the standards-driven focus of the team there.

We discuss the challenges, failures and ultimately achieving the standards required in cave instructor training and where Tamara is taking her diving including her scientific diving work and the search for "Tamara's Cave".

Enjoy :)!!

Steve

Great to bring you Episode #92 Pepe Tiburon: "Tren Maya - A Disaster in the Making". Big thanks to all of you and also to our brilliant sponsor XDEEP. Your support makes this podcast possible.

Many of you will be aware of the environmental issues and development pressures experienced on the Yucatan peninsula in the area spanning from Cancun to Tulum. This area encompasses the largest cave systems in the world, many of which are also of huge archaeological and environmental significance, playing home to rare species of flora and fauna, Mayan artefacts, and geological features dating back millions of years. On top of that, the caves are aquifers that carry the water supply for all life in the region.

Development pressures and the lack of adequate development controls have already damaged the region recently the Mexican Government's plan to build a train loop from Cancun to Tulum directly through the pristine jungle and above the precious caves of the region has caused huge concern and opposition. Known as Tren Maya, the train was originally planned to run along the highway meaning its impact would be manageable however, following opposition from the hotel industry, the Government decided to move the train 7km inland through the jungle and yes directly over some of the best-flooded caves on the planet. All cave divers should be concerned about this but more than that, the loss of jungle habitat, endangered species, and the ongoing and increasing damage to the water supply should worry us all.

I have covered this topic in other episodes notably EP #36 Somos Los Cenotes with Phillip Lehmann, Natalie and Vince of Under the Jungle and also with Alessandra Figari #77 and Robbie Schmittner #85 but when Stratis Kas provided an introduction to Jose Urbina Bravo or Pepe Tiburon as he is known I took the opportunity to meet and find out more.

In this episode, Pepe takes us through the background and history of Tren Maya and then describes the issues and terrible outcomes likely if this project is allowed to continue. He speaks not only of the damage caused by the Tren Maya project itself but also of the "Cancer" that will result in terms of additional development surrounding the train and environmental damage in these last remaining pristine jungle regions of Mexico.

Pepe updates us on his progress including winning a legal injunction to stop the project before this was overridden by the Government. He talks of the ongoing battle to oppose the project and his recent trip to Mexico City to meet with the Government face-to-face. But Pepe also provides balance to the discussions with ways in which development might occur in the region where technology and modern techniques might both reverse current issues and allow for responsible development in the future.

Lastly Pepe shares with us ways in which all of us who love this region and care about the environment might assist and support the fight to oppose the Tren Maya project in its current form.

So sit back and join me with Pepe Tiburon in this episode of… Speaking Sidemount.

Watch a video of Pepe showing the damage.

Hey, great to bring you Episode 91 Ellen Cuylaerts - "The Power of Positive" with the support of our sponsor XDEEP, and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Massive thanks to both for their support :)!

Of all the disciplines associated with diving, photography and videography have always been special to me. The ability to capture that perfect moment, underwater, in often challenging conditions, dealing with lighting and composition along with the technical requirements related to the camera in an underwater environment. Add to that the dive skills to be stable in the water while seeking "the shot".

I love shooting GoPro videos of my dives, clipping images and then editing them into almost a video logbook of where I have been and dived and then sharing them on the Sidemount Pros YouTube channel is satisfying. But like anything there are levels to this, and in photography, to capture images that are worthy of magazine spreads or covers and win awards against their peers is the pinnacle.

There are many great photographers and videographers out there and I've had a few on the show such as Laurent Miroult, Stratis Kas, Philip Lehman, Natalie Gibb and Becky Kagan-Schott. Some have also worked on conservation and wildlife photography in their work.

My guest in this episode is very much in this vein. Ellen Cuylaerts hails from Belgium and is an award-winning photographer focused on ocean wildlife photography. She has a unique perspective on her work as she seeks to develop deeper connections between humanity and nature through her images.

Ellen is also a cave diver and now an explorer. She was part of the all-female Xunaan Ha project under the tutelage of Robbie Schmittner my guest in Episode 85.

As we talk of Ellen's diving and her work we can’t help but touch on the many challenges that she has faced from being a mother to two high-functioning autistic children to losing her partner to suicide and a type 2 DCS incident that left her with paralysis. Through all of this, Ellen has shown extraordinary strength and resilience and most strikingly, an amazingly positive attitude and outlook. She now applies this to her work and to her conservation efforts where she is a leading speaker and voice for the environment.

Sit back and enjoy my conversation with Ellen, in this episode of… Speaking Sidemount.

Cheers Steve

This episode is brought to you by our brilliant sponsor, XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support that makes this podcast possible.

 In this episode, I catch up for the third time with Thorsten Waelde or Toddy as he is known. I first met Toddy in Episode 24 when we did a deep dive into Toddy Style Sidemount. We caught up again in episode 44 to talk about his Utopia Exploration project in Sardinia only a few months after I had returned from my trip there. I've since been following Toddy's exploits with interest and when I saw the stunning work he was doing on the Bel Torrente exploration via a video on Toddy's YouTube channel (See link below), it was time to catch up and hear more. The amazing part of this project is that it is a multi-sump or siphon project where the cave under exploration has dry sections connected by flooded passages. The penetration length requires the exploration team to live underground for several days, staying at base camps in the dry sections as they progress further into the cave. This creates massive complications to the project, especially the logistics of moving the equipment required and the physical and mental application required is immense.

In this episode, Toddy gives us an overview of the Bel Torrente project. He talks of the team he has assembled, the skills required before we get into the logistics of this project, the equipment, and the evolution of their procedures as they encountered new challenges and requirements at each section.

We talk cave geology and the risk and danger of an accident deep in the cave before Toddy explains how he uses Seacraft Dive Propulsion vehicles and the new lightweight Seacraft GO that is easier to carry across the dry sections.

We finish discussing the Cave Camps that Toddy runs at Protec Sardinia, where qualified cave divers can experience aspects of these projects by diving into a cave and spending a night at a base camp. The Cave Camps include workshops on how to use dry tubes to take equipment into the cave and a heap of time exploring the beautiful dry sections of the caves in Sardinia. I am super excited to check these out.

Enjoy, cheers!!

Steve

Thanks to:

Our Sponsor - XDEEP

Thorsten "Toddy" Waelde - Protec Sardinia

YouTube Video - Follow the Conger: Exploring the Bel Torrente Cave 

Here's Episode 89 brought to you by our sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Thanks so much for your support. 

Over the past 88 episodes, cave diving has featured heavily and that's no accident. As you'll be aware, sidemount diving grew from the requirements of early flooded cave explorers, firstly the CDG in the UK, with others around the world following and eventually building on sidemount diving, equipment, and techniques to give us what we have today. In many ways, sidemount diving has evolved to the requirements of cave divers however sidemount diving today is enjoyed by many who never have, or in some cases never intend to dive caves.

Given the large percentage of Sidemount divers diving open water, I thought it was time we pulled together another episode on the Fundamentals of Sidemount diving and what it takes to get good at sidemount. As you may have noted, I don’t tend to get into debates on sidemount on Facebook or other online sites, but I recently had a discussion, let's call it, on the benefits or otherwise of sliding d-rings with Turk Vangel of Prana Divers in Bali. Turk goes by the handle Turk Diggler... an awesome nickname by the way and a great play on the star of the movie Boogie Nights if you didn’t get it.

Even though I didn’t completely agree with him, Turk was making some solid points, so I thought why not get him on the show and together go through our thoughts on what it takes to be good at sidemount… from soup to nuts, beginning to… we'll, there's never an end to learning… as we'll find out.

As a side note and I guess a shameless plug, much of what I am covering here is also available in my eBook "Sidemount Fundamentals" which you can check out and purchase via my website at www.sidemountpros.com/store

With that said… sit back and join me with Turk on the Fundamentals of Sidemount Diving.

Cheers Steve

Thanks to:

XDEEP for their support - XDEEP

Turk (Diggler) Vangel:

www.pranadive.com

https://www.youtube.com/@pranadive

Instagram - @prana_dive_amed & @scubawithturk

This episode is brought to you by XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support, that makes all of this possible.

It's my great pleasure today to bring you episode #88 on the fifth anniversary of the founding of this podcast. If you told me on those nervous days starting on this venture that we'd still be pumping out episodes five years later and that I would have produced this many episodes, talked sidemount with so many great divers, and then have the good fortune to meet and dive with some of them in person, we'll to be honest… I probably hoped for some of this… but in short, I am very proud of what we have accomplished.

I'm not sure there's been a lot of recognition of the podcast in mainstream technical diving but for me personally, to be listed in the InDepth magazine Who's Who of Sidemount Diving for the contributions this podcast has made to Sidemount Diving, was hugely satisfying.

Along with producing Speaking Sidemount, I think a massive benefit to me personally through the podcast, has been the growth in my own diving knowledge. There's no doubt that talking to and hearing the thoughts and experiences of the very best is a fantastic way to expand our thinking on sidemount diving and I sincerely hope that many of you have also learned something through listening to each episode.

But… there's much more to do and interestingly, this August is also the tenth anniversary of me taking my first steps into sidemount and cave diving. When I think of my path, from my Sidemount, Cavern and Intro to Cave Courses, and then spending two years floundering at times trying to take what I learned in the warm freshwater cenotes and caves of Mexico and apply it to temperate saltwater diving in Northern California and New Zealand, going from Aluminium cylinders to steel, wet suit to dry suit, grabbing what I could from the internet and YouTube, failing, refining, and eventually making progress, before I went to Gozo and trained and worked with Tom Steiner at Gozo Technical Diving. Over the 2 seasons I spent there I was able to make massive progress working with some phenomenal role models including Tom, Audrey Cudel, Steve Martin, Vas Proud, Peter Tschannen and Thorsten Mewes.

I see many others taking a similar path and so, in this episode, I meet and chat with a man that I can only describe as a great guy. Scott RG hails from the highlands of Scotland and like me dovetails his professional career with a massive passion for diving. Scott can be found early in the mornings diving in the mines of Scotland and the caves of the north of England. His passion for diving has led him to make a massive commitment to dive training completing instructor training before discovering sidemount and cave diving. He trained in Mexico with Tristan Termat moving thorugh Sidemount, Cave and Advanced Sidemount training and then applied this to the frigid waters of Roscobie Limestone Mine in Scotland and another mine that Scott only describes as Project X. Having hit the limits of Open Circuit diving Scott decided to train on the KISS Sidewinder rebreather with Jacek Konikowski. The sidewinder has opened up longer and as Scott and I discuss, safer dives. Scott has now installed 5000m of line into Project X. That's a lot of string as he describes it.

Sit back and enjoy with me our 5th-anniversary episode… Scott RG - "The Mines of Scotland". Thanks for your support…

Great to share Episode #87 Arielle Ginsberg - Belize Cave Exploration, brought to you by our sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support.

I recently picked up a Facebook post by XDEEP describing the exploits of Arielle Ginsberg. Arielle is a founding member of the Belize Cave Diving Society and is its first female member. The project sounded amazing but a shared post by Arielle's exploration partner Ben Popik really got my attention…

This is my badass cave diving partner and bestie Arielle getting the attention and praise she deserves!

In the photos below, you can see her bravely exploring just a couple of the many cenotes we've found together on Ambergris Caye. While I’m constantly talking about our cave diving explorations, I often leave out the part about how Arielle always goes in first (because she's way braver than I am and *marginally* less afraid of crocodiles). She’s easily one of the toughest people I know — weighing in at a mean 98 lbs

This is the first of many cave-diving accolades for Arielle, and I couldn't be prouder to be her teammate and friend!

Now I'm not sure if it tops that, but I learned that Arielle is also a scientist… an immunologist, specializing in flow cytometry and bioinformatics and now, I just had to hear more, if only to learn what the hell flow cytometry really is :)

In this episode, Arielle and I discuss how she got into diving, and how she melds her scientific work with diving. Arielle shares how she moved to Mexico, fell in love with the caves and was set on a path to become a cave diver. She tells us about her training and mentoring with Natalie Gibb of Under the Jungle who was of course my guest in Episodes 18 and 36… before we get into the fantastic exploration of Systema Paloma in Belize. We each share a heap of stories including a few on those moments in cave diving that let's politely say got us somewhat concerned, and we close with Arielle sharing on the support that they have received for the Systema Paloma project, and where they still need some help…

Enjoy, and thanks for your support :)!!

Image Credit - Natalie Gibb

Awesome to bring you this episode sponsored by XDEEP and with the support of the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Massive thanks to both for making this podcast possible.

A couple of episodes back, I let you all know that I was working as guest editor along with Stratis Kas, with none other than Michael Menduno to assist in producing what I think is going to be a groundbreaking issue of InDepth Magazine entirely devoted to Sidemount diving. To say this is a coup for the sidemount diving community is a massive understatement and I think it's a real coming of age for sidemount in general.

The issue will be out in early July and will be available to the InDepth Magazine email list and via their website. This issue aside, InDepth is in my opinion, the very best technical diving resource going. If you are not already a subscriber, do yourself a favour and go to the GUE website, Blog page where you'll find InDepth. It's free to subscribe and you'll find a treasure trove of back issues there as well.

Now given the enormity of this InDepth issue for sidemount, I thought it made sense to get Michael Menduno on the show to not only talk about the Sidemount issue itself but also to learn from his incomparable depth of knowledge on both the history and current state of technical diving.

In addition to being a capable technical and rebreather diver, Michael is renowned as a pioneer in technical diving media and is, without a doubt, one of the world’s leading dive media personalities.

In this episode, Michael talks about his start in diving and how this led to a career in dive media. I ask Michael how he coined the term, “technical diving”. Michael shares with us about the progression of technical diving from a few disparate groups to today, where we dive with equipment, processes, and training that has made technical diving safer and also, more capable.

And then we talk at length about the stunning decision to develop an entire Sidemount issue for InDepth, how this came about, and what we can expect to see in this issue. We end with Michael musing on taking a sidemount course himself.

Enjoy :)

Hey, great to bring you Episode 85 with the support of our sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Massive thanks to both for their support of the show that makes all of this possible.

It was super cool to do this episode with renowned cave explorer Robbie Schmittner. Robbie has spent the last 25 years exploring the caves of the Yucatan peninsula and has mapped literally hundreds of km of flooded passage. Along the way, he has been responsible for connecting cave systems that have become the largest explored cave systems in the world including Sac Actun and Dos Ojos.

This experience has given Robbie a unique perspective on cave exploration and a deep understanding of the caves of the Yucatan and how they are formed.

In this episode, Robbie gives us some background on how he came to Mexico and then we discuss his early days of cave diving including his time with cave legend Bil Phillips. We discuss many of Robbie's achievements including the Sac Actun-Dos Ojos connection before Robbie provides what I can only describe as an unbelievably compelling view into his theories on how the caves of the Yucatan were formed. He tells us how he is using this information to inform his current exploration. Robbie has published a paper on his theories and I will try and get this to you all separately.

We talk about the all-female Xu nan Ha expedition before Robbie gives us his perspectives on the use of closed circuit rebreathers in cave diving and his recent experiences training with Edd Sorenson and Patrick Widmann on the KISS Sidewinder.

Thanks again, Steve