International Cave Diving Conference

Kristin Rubin with Tom Atkins

The following are comments by Kristin Rubin, OSFR board member reporting on the OSFR tabling at the conference in Lake City held on May 25, 2019.  Thanks Kristin, for the work and for the report.

I have often thought that at tabling events, we were there to inform others about what we do as a group for the environment and to share information of events that are impacting us as a whole, but at this event is was so much more!

The conference hosted exactly what they said: International Cave Divers, but officially the International Conference of the Cave Diving Section of the National Speological Society.

David Green, from Dallas Fort Worth asked, “How can divers and environmental groups help each other?”

Tom Atkins states that “There are river flood stages/water syphons into the aquifer that sometimes bring debris as it syphons in specific spots.   Cave divers see these areas but the person on a boat only sees what’s on the edges and the surface of the water.’

Maybe we can.

Lee Gibson, has lived and dived all over Florida, and has lioved  just down the river near SR 47 for thirty years.

Paul Heinerth, (was married to Jill Heinerth) discovered Twin Dee’s Springs, near Weeki Wachee in 1973. (In 2014 divers found where they connect) In 1979 he discovered Giant Cave in Belize and has been a dive instructor since the 1970’s.

Karen Meyer invites us to St. John’s River State College to see ‘Toxic Puzzle’.

Dominic Guiab (a Filipino name) hails from San Diego, and gave me a tidbit of information about the history of the Philippines. Did you know it goes back some 700,000 years and recent history to 4,000 BC?

The list goes on; we have so much to learn from each other if we listen. There was continual interest in the Murdered Turtle and the Scrubtown Sinkhole, the phosphate mine and the karst rock.

Here are a few of the attendees: 

Susan Fowler, Lake City Dive Center.

Cameron Poitier, Summerville, SC, 13, who is just beginning dive instruction and wants us to recognize his Boy Scout Troop 725. He is already a very concerned citizen of his natural surroundings.

Denis Bogatyrev, Moscow, Russia, shared pictures of diving in Orda Cave, Orda, Perm Krai, Russia. It is one of the thirty largest gypsum caves in the world and Denis said he likes ours a lot because they are much warmer.

‘Vish’wanaty Raman – India – Pune, a cave diver, enjoying our waters while his wife is teaching at University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA.

So thank you Tom Atkins, a new OSFR member, for extending an invitation, also doing so much more by being a presence and putting OSFR in contact with Elisha Gibson for a space at the event.

Thank you Natalie Wright, board member and very soon to be mom for always helping at these events and Sarah Younger’s dive into helping at the event!

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Tom with Sarah Younger