I Know What You're Thinking
No, those are not typos. No, I am not whanging on about that series of books by the barely-known and almost-successful author Jay Kay Rollalong (sp?), which were made into a series of low-budget derivative films. Art!
Although the subject of DEATH does indeed come up, because in this Intro we are going to be covering not one but two cave dives that went very badly wrong, as we look once more into the hobby that combines claustrophobia with total darkness, like being stuck on the Tube in a power cut, when flooded.
SILT: "A fine deposit of mud, clay, etc, especially one in a river or lake," states my Collins Concise Dictionary. No, they didn't include " - or flooded cave system" because they are sensible folks with no urge to risk slow and prolonged death. Art!
This, gentle reader, is the title illo for 'Rowands Reef', a British Columbia (which name 'Columbia' used to be taken as a antonym for 'America', so with 'British America' Conrad is only honouring the past) blog dealing with diving, and this page is about diving in a 'silt out'. Art!
Here is the 'Otter' part of today's title, thanks to marine activity, and given the sheer number of divers out there, many will be called 'Harry'.
First, a bit of a treatise on silt. This is verrrry fine material that builds up over time on static surfaces, until it is disturbed, and the disturbing is usually done by other divers, impacting said silted surfaces or practicing poor 'finning' where they stir up the silt with their flippers. Being silted-in is no joke; the waters go from transparent to the opacity of milk, meaning visibility is measured in inches. Silt is so fine it can take hours if not days to settle again, which is a problem if you're on a limited volume of tanked air. Art!
This is Picaninnie Ponds, Mount Gambier, site of a cave diving death in 1972. Two divers, one with a basic qualification and very limited experience and the other with as little cave diving background, entered the main pond and expended 60% of their air, before deciding to go off into a side cave - the 'Shallows' of today's title.
Neither of them used a guideline, meaning that they had no reverse route to follow when the cave immediately became silted-up and visibility dropped to zero. Not only that, they got separated and both had to swim around blindly trying to find the entrance. On only 40% of their air supply.
One of them got out by sheer luck and the other drowned, mere feet from the cave entrance. Art!
Alleyns Cave
Another disaster from 1972, at the cave subsequently dubbed 'Death Cave' by the Australian gutter press. One diver headed into the caves first, without a guideline - you may see where this is heading - after telling his three compatriots to remain behind.
They didn't. They followed him into the entrance tunnel and into the cave proper, and promptly silted the whole thing up. Only one made it back out alive. Art!
That's a general schematic with arrows showing where police divers recovered three bodies the next day, when the cave was still silted-up. Deathly shallows indeed, and who'd ever volunteer to be a police diver, who have to willingly go into physical situations and environments that have already killed people?
ANYWAY as already mentioned, these deaths served to drive an accreditation course on cave diving in Australia, in recognition that it was both potentially extremely dangerous and very different from open water diving. Because sane people indulge in open water diving. Art!
That's another illo from 'RowandsReef', showing a silt out from the perspective of a diver behind their buddy. They devote a whole page to negotiating one's way out of a silted environment, only one piece of advice I shall show here, or we'd have an Intro 10,000 words long. Art!
"When diving in any enclosed environment like a wreck or cave, you should always lay a line as you go so that you don’t get lost inside."
(Emphasis mine) Neither of the disasters above would have transpired if they'd used a guideline, wise after the fact. Art!
This is the above-ground entrance to Alleyn's Cave, which is Closed and most definitely Not Open For Diving. This keeps the sensible divers away. The Darwin Award winners, however .....
Yes, rest assured we will come back to this.
Dimport Substitution
Yes, once again we are back to the wonders of Ruffian bureaucracy. Conrad recalls seeing a list of metrics about Ruffian schools, hospitals, roads and pensions being cut cut cut under the rule of Bunker Grandad. The number of civil servants, however - first use today - had increased by over a million.
This Arbitration Court case was brought by Rosgvardia, the Ruffian National Guard, whose expertise lies in beating, torturing and imprisoning civilian protesters. Art!
They were due to take delivery of an anti-drone system, which seems to have been a motorised version, as it was based on a GAZ chassis.
'NO!' retorted the Gvard in horror. 'We contracted for a Ford Transit chassis and nothing else will do - we accept no substitutes!'
Rather telling, hmmm? They prefer hideous Western technology to their own.
The court told them that the supplier had no choice thanks to Western vehicle manufacturers fleeing Mordorvia and upheld the sale. Art!
They need to sue whoever they contracted to produce their small arms.
The Epstein Files
This is going back a ways, in terms of the literature it is based on, and the television series that followed.
What am I talking about? Nothing to do with incredibly seedy contemporary political and sexual shenaninguns*, but 'The Expanse', that most grounded of space operas. Art!
This is the 'space yacht' of one Solomon Epstein, which was rated to carry three crew, and which was the mode of transport for well-off Terrans, much as people today like to flaunt a Rolls Royce or Mercedes. Solly, being an adept tinkerer, had worked over the installed fusion drive, seeking to get an extra 4% efficiency out of it.
When he fired up the drive, he immediately found that the efficiency had been increased to something in the region of 400%. He was killed by the prolonged enormous acceleration as his yacht headed off into deep space. Art!
However - second use today - he had saved his extensive fusion-plant jiggery files on his wife Caitlin's computer. She realised how incredibly important these were and sold them to the nascent Martian government for dump-trucks of cash.
130 years later we arrive at the beginning of 'The Expanse', all thanks to Solly and his files.
"The War Illustrated Edition 210 22nd July 1945"
We are covering the central page montage, which has the common theme of the old D-Day beaches as they were a year after the event. Art!
Not too sharp, I'm afraid, but the original is not great either. The scene of barren devastated urban terrain here is the French town of St. Lo, which had been well and truly pulverised during the Normandy campaign. Here the process of rebuilding has just begun. Art!
Cleaned up well
Conrad Revels In His Ignorance
Normally I like to boast to the heavens about how clever and well-informed I am, a boast which collapses into complete oblivion when it comes to sport (and reality television shows). Art!
NOTHING!
I must be in a state of bliss as I'm completely ignorant of anything and everything about it.
Mark my words, the ballfoot game is going to undergo changes when I take over. O yes indeed!
Finally -
Not only no gin for Conrad, I now lack tonic water, too <sad face>.
* Like shenanigans but worse
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