Speaking Sidemount

This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Thanks so much to both for their support that makes this podcast possible.

Tom Crisp hails from my home New Zealand and is undoubtedly one of our finest cave explorers and I'll use the term, adventurers. Tom has based himself in Alberta, Canada to allow him to discover and explore the caves of that region.

You may recall Tom and I spoke way back in Episode #15 and in this, episode #75 we catch up on what we've been up to over the past three and a half years. Tom talks about why he has based himself in Canada, his work and training with the Alberta Parks and how this supports his exploration projects.

Tom shares how he shapes his life to support his exploration, the sacrifices and the rewards that come from this "calling". We chat about the active exploration projects Tom is working on in Canada and the geology of these caves before we talk at length about what it takes to dive in 2-degree water and access caves in sub-zero surface conditions.

We cover Tom's sump diving set-up, before a fascinating exchange on knowing when to pull back when you encounter a stressful situation on a dive and we finish with Tom sharing some of the cave exploration projects he had to leave behind and pass on to other explorers here in NZ.

All this and much, much more in this episode of…. Speaking Sidemount!!

This episode is brought to you by our brilliant sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for your support.

Sanne Volja is a cave diver and ISE instructor from Belgium and if you haven't seen her social media then you've been missing out on a real treat. Sanne combines her huge passion for diving with a unique style that makes for some of the best and most compelling stories and reels anywhere on Facebook and Instagram.

 

Sanne has only been diving for a few years but diving has become a seven day a week passion allowing her to build a huge skillset and experience base in a short period of time. Despite her considerable skills and passion, however, as a young woman, it hasn’t always been easy for Sanne to be taken seriously and included by some. Sadly, barriers for women still exist in many male-dominated domains and diving is no exception.

 

In this episode Sanne shares, how she got into diving and technical diving. How she manages her business and life to allow her to dive several times per week. We talk about the importance of mentors and how she was supported into technical diving and becoming a dive instructor. Sanne has deep empathy for the students she is teaching and she shares how she takes the stress and pressure out of her courses by allowing her students time after their course to build some dives before coming back for certification.

 

Sanne and I have a pretty deep conversation about the barriers that women face as technical divers and what can be done to make things easier and more inclusive. And then she shares on the formation of the Cavettes… three women who share a passion for cave diving who met through Instagram and are now blazing a trail for women technical divers… role modelling, sharing information and creating women-only events where they can dive, share their passion and knowledge.

 

A conversation with Sanne isn’t complete without us sharing our experiences on the KISS Sidewinder.

 

We end with Sanne sharing her plans for the year ahead and I accidentally let it out of the bag that I'll be in Mexico this November. More to come on that for sure!!

 

 

This episode is brought to you by our brilliant sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for your support.

In this episode I catch up with Edmund Yiu. Edmund hails from Hong Kong and is a Tec Diving instructor to trimix levels on both open circuit and closed-circuit rebreathers. He also teaches cave diving, is Greater China Regional Head for the RAID Dive agency, and he's a Divesoft Liberty instructor and a member of their Ambassador team.

In addition to teaching diving Edmund also runs a dive equipment distribution business throughout Asia representing some of the absolute primo brands in diving such as XDEEP, Seacraft, Divesoft and Ammonite.

Pre-pandemic Edmund has travelled the world with diving and has been regular at many conferences and dive events.

In this episode, Edmund and I get into… the diving and teaching that he does and the diving scene in Asia. We talk about his involvement with dive agency RAID and some of the really cool initiatives they are implementing to shake up the dive industry.

Edmund shares with us some on the Divesoft Liberty sidemount rebreather and what in his mind makes it special. We then talk a lot about the business of diving as Edmund describes his successful dive equipment distribution business. This is Speaking Sidemount so I ask Edmund to share some tips on what it takes to be a good sidemount diver before in a similar vein, we discuss where sidemount sits in the hierarchy of dive courses and what it takes to be a good sidemount instructor.

Enjoy :)!!

This episode is brought to you with the support of our brilliant Sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support.

I'm really happy to be able to bring you another episode featuring Stratis Kas. In addition to being a stellar cave diver and instructor who in his own words, is as passionate about sidemount diving as I am… he also seems to be constantly involved in super interesting projects from his book "Close Calls" to his recently released video feature "Infinite Liquid" to co-organising the FLOW Sardinia Sidemount Event.

 Stratis is also a passionate sidemount rebreather diver who puts a massive amount of thought and work into everything that he does.

In this episode, Stratis and I catch up on what he's been doing since he last featured in Speaking Sidemount Episode #38 released in 2019. We go deep into his "must-have" book Close Calls including sharing our own experiences regarding our specific near miss but also our motivation for sharing our stories along with our favourites from other divers featured in the book.

 We can’t help but muse on how the sidemount configuration actually helped some of the divers work their way out of trouble and what would a chat with Stratis be without us talking some on the KISS Sidewinder and the recent acquisition of KISS Rebreathers by the Blackwater Group which also operates XDEEP and Seal Drysuits.

Stratis then tells us more about Project Infinite Liquid which documents the exploration of several Greek Caves and then we close by chatting about our upcoming plans… All this and much more in this episode of Speaking Sidemount…

Hey... getting through the busy summer season in NZ so here's another Special Release from the patron archive brought to you by XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount.

It's awesome to be able to share my discussion with Hayun Yung from South Australia.

Hayun is new to sidemount but is progressing extremely quickly through diligent practice and with what you'll hear, excellent attention to detail. We chat about how and why she got into diving and sidemount... her thoughts on her upcoming cave training and then we get into a Q&A where we discuss, achieving correct weighting, trim, and balance, the pros and cons of Wireless or AI Transmitters, and the benefits of video feedback and review. 

Huge thanks to Hayun and to XDEEP and all of you for your support.

Enjoy :)!

It's awesome to be able to bring you with the support of XDEEP, another great episode from the Speaking Sidemount Patreon vault. 

This episode was the first of two episodes with Steve Bogaerts I did back in 2020 and was originally released as a premium, patron-only episode. The information Steve covers is awesome, so I am pleased to now share it more widely.

In this episode, Steve and I discuss the importance of foundational skill development - buoyancy control, trim and stability, pressure test training, and ultimately how to deal with serious issues while diving.

We tie it all together as Steve shares his amazing dive to connect Dan and Ralf's Caves in Abaco Bahamas. He recounts how he dealt with having only one partially functioning (free-flowing and wet breathing) regulator as he exited a vertical, mud and clay-filled, no-mount restriction in zero visibility!! 

I then ask Steve about his cylinder management for Hypoxic trimix dives and we end with Steve sharing his future plans... Enjoy :)!

Image Credit - HP Hartmann

This episode is brought to you by XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount, huge thanks to both for their support.   Robin Cuesta hails from France but has made his home in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, Sulawesi Indonesia. Long known for its brilliant ocean diving, Robin discovered that the region's geology included massive areas of limestone and that all of the water came from underground sources. If you are into cave diving you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that there was a strong possibility of Karst or solution caves and Robin set out to discover and explore many flooded caves in Sulawesi and the surrounding islands of Indonesia.   In this episode Robin shares how he got into diving and cave diving, how he moved to Indonesia and the amazing work that he is doing exploring the caves of Sulawesi, we talk about his journey to become a cave instructor, and how cave instructing supplements and enhances his exploration work. And then we get into his collaboration with other cave divers which has helped to grow his own exploration experience and then we share the importance of working with local communities and their leaders to enable Robin's work.   Enjoy, and thanks for your support. Steve

This episode is brought to you with the awesome support of XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both, their support makes this podcast possible.   Great to give you Episode #70 Christine Tamburri - "Passion Plus". Christine is a young woman hailing from the US Northeast. She has not been diving long, but as you'll hear, she has developed an exceptional attitude to both her diving and progress as a technical and cave diver. Attitude is one thing but Christine's passion for all things diving is a thing to behold and incredibly compelling, hence my episode title... "Passion Plus"!!   Christine and I get into how she got into diving and sidemount, her cave training with Roger Williams in Mexico, how she prepared for her course and how she came to meet Tom St George resulting in some award-winning cave photographs. We talk about her work with DAN Americas and how badly she suffered from altitude sickness as a test subject for a hyperbaric research project requiring her to live for days at an altitude over 12,000ft (3,658m). We then get into Christine's plans for further diving and training and finish with some advice on how to progress your diving.   Enjoy !! Steve Davis   Thanks to: Christine Tamburri Image credit and thanks - Tom St George Our Sponsor - XDEEP

This episode is brought to you by XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support.

In part 2 of my discussion with Prof Simon Mitchell, we get into the negative impact of increased gas density, particularly at depth. We muse on the impact of gas density and CO2 retention with it likely being a factor in dive accidents such as that of David Shaw, and then I get to rant a bit and ask Simon about the benefits of streamlining with respect to work of breathing.

From there I ask Simon about the relationship between CO2 and panic relating my thoughts on the relationship between the psychological aspects of an issue in the water and the physiological responses to these stressors. Simon gives some advice for divers in a panic situation and also for rebreather divers faced with a CO2 issue.

We hit on some misconceptions or poorly understood areas such as reverse profiles, the issues with multiple deco dives in one day... We talk NDL for recreational divers and what it really means, we chat about free diving after a scuba dive and then Simon shares his extensive experience on applying human factors in the surgical operating theatre and how human factors apply to diving.

This episode has been produced with the support of XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support.   In this episode, I catch up with fellow Kiwi and world-renowned Hyperbaric Physician, Prof Simon Mitchell.   In this, the first of two special episodes with Simon, we discuss his background and how he got into diving medicine, how his service in the Royal New Zealand Navy shaped his career, we reminisce on our military service and then draw a line under the stellar work that Simon has done in synthesising the research and evidence on Deep Stops before we get into other factors that might influence our decompression including PFOs, dehydration, diver temperature, working at depth, and light physical activity while decompressing. Simon is an amazing technical diver in his own right and has a great talent for explaining complex topics in a way that can be easily understood and applied to our diving.   Enjoy Steve