Camillo kick dive.....yes it is true.

We dove Camillo today, but not an exploration dive. We actually, hold on to your hats.....did a kick dive without the rebreathers. Here is how it went down...there are a bunch of folks down here for the GUE Mexico Fun Event and we have the key to the Ranch and they wanted to dive Camillo. Plus one of the guys is doing some photo documentation of the cave system for us. The Global Underwaters Explorers Fun Event was an impromptu event set up by two GUE instructors with the help of Zero Gravity. There are about 30 people down here doing different diving and excursions. So there were 8 divers today heading off in different directions of the cave. it was nice to do a kick dive and poke my head into some holes when we usually just scooter on by to get to our destination.

Tomorrow we are doing an "excursion dive" with Danny and some other people to a cenote called Yaxchen....it is part of the Ox Bel Ha system (currently the longest system in Mexico). On Tuesday or Wed we will go back into Camillo when I get to check out the lead I saw and run the reel. I hope it goes a long ways!!!

The seminar we heard on Friday was an update on the WKPP (Woodville Karst Plains Project-they hold the world record for the longest/deepest cave dive) by Mark Messersmith. It was really interesting, the Powerpoint showed some numbers that are truly staggering. Each rebreather diver spends about $85,000 on gear, a big push dive costs about $10,000, the dive was 28 hours long, and there were a bunch more.....these guys are hard core. Mark talked about doing deco in Turner Sink where you can't even see your buddy because of the silt, so you put your computer right up to your face and tap your buddy on the arm when it is time to switch gas...this went on for hours. The result of these dives showed the Florida State Government how important the spring water is, how fast it travels, and the time they thought the sewage leach fields was taking to get there was actually much faster......they thought years and it turned out to be 32 hours. Guess what sewage treatment plant got moved after that discovery! Anyway, it was really interesting.

It was announced today that the 2010 GUE Conference will be in Mexico this year....I hope we can go!!!