I slammed into the hotel door waking Jill Heinerth from her sleep and my things, very typically, proceeded to explode across the small room. Jill laughed as I began to unpack my still wet wetsuit, sunken helmet and jumpsuit closely followed by high heels and a cocktail dress. It is not often that I travel to caving in high heels, but the EuroTek gala dinner is a classy event and Leigh Bishop demanded that I get dressed.
Dinner was quite a glitzy and glamorous event. The boys dressed in bow ties and suits and looked very stylish and handsome, while the women ran for their money with the celebrities on the red carpet. It was a great night and I spent it in lovely company. At its core, though, EuroTek is about sharing a passion for technical diving, so presentations is where the real action is.
EuroTek is an advanced diving conference held in Birmingham, UK, and the 2010 event was truly fantastic, with an array of fabulous speakers discussing everything from equipment, imaging and physiology to rebreathers, safety, and cave and wreck diving. . I must admit that the word variety can hardly be used to describe the choices I made, but with so many amazing speakers talking about exploring cave diving, surely my narrow-minded itinerary can be forgiven?
Rick Stanton, arguably the most badass of all cave divers, spilled the beans about exploring Pozo Azul, a cave in northern Spain. Rick Stanton, Rene Houben, John Volanthen and Jason Mallinson kicked butt and laid more than 3.6km of line in one dive. The cave is now over 9 km long from the surface, with 8.8 km underwater, which is a world record for the longest cave diving penetration. Truly inspiring stuff.
Martyn Farr, the ancient salt of cave diving, gave a tour of classic dark-site diving in Europe and the UK. Some stunning photographs accompanied adventure stories from countries throughout the area, including Ireland, Sardinia, and France. It certainly whetted my appetite for caves in this part of the world and it seems that a move to Europe at some point in the future seems practically inevitable.
Now, Phill Short is my kind of man, anyone who can get through a hole the size of a coat rack underwater will get my full attention. His story of how to get out of a collapse at Swildons was an absolute classic. Of course, he asked for volunteers for his future excavation and it is probably better that, for now at least, I live on the other side of the world. I can easily see myself in the back of the Swildon Cave pan in hand, digging every Saturday for the next two years.
The guys from Finland, Antti Apunen and Janne Suhonen talked about the Molnar Janos cave system below the city of Budapest. There is a lot of exploration in that part of the world, but it was the incredible photographs that showed that stole the show. Hearing the amount of effort and preparation that went into creating each and every one of these made me really appreciate the images in his book ‘Divers of the Dark’.
Craig Challen talked about exploring the Cocklebiddy Cave in Australia and while I was on one of the trips I joined him to support a fellow Ozzie and keep him on the straight and narrow path. Can’t we allow him to tell lies now? He did a great job and it reminded me of how much fun that trip was, so another trip to the Nullarbor Desert is in the works.
I also attended Tom Mount’s presentation on survival dynamics, a topic that really fascinates me: why do some survive and others don’t? The philosophy of diver survival is complicated, but when it comes down to it, it’s about mind over matter. Tom offered a pretty spiritual approach to surviving when things go wrong, as well as some practical advice – practice and train your diving skills!
Leigh Bishop had the unfortunate task of sharing with us the ins and outs of the Carl Spencer incident on the Britannic Expedition in 2009. She did an excellent job of sharing the lessons learned and it was certainly a presentation not to be missed. Hopefully more divers will follow his advice on board; stay in shape, check out new gear before big dives, and think before you jump.
Finally, the ever-entertaining Simon Mitchell had a lot to share about decompression, CO2, and patent foramen ovale, or PFO. I am a huge fan of his entertainment, although he provokes lectures and I learn a lot every time he opens his mouth.
Finally, I had to listen to the sound of my own voice as I shared stories of cave diving exploration in Florida and Australia. It was a lot of fun and I had a really great audience both days, thank you!
I’m already looking forward to EuroTek 2012. Maybe I could save some money for the next event and splurge on some of the toys on display – they were delicious to say the least. It’s always good to see the latest and greatest in scuba gear, rebreathers, and scooters.