Now you might see there is a slight gap in my posts. This does not mean I have been sitting around doing nothing, more like the opposite. I have spent a lot of time together with my American and Australian counterparts and in some of these cases I urge you to hop on over to their blogs to read about our adventures that should appear there shortly. Now, lets carry on.

After the “experience” of Las Vegas and DEMA with the OW-USS family for a few days it was time to gather up the pieces and get myself on a plane across the country again. Flying out of Vegas on an early Sunday morning is an experience in itself and I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who had some catching up on sleep to do. I was asleep before the plane even made it to the runway. A few hours later I was in Orlando and met up with Phil Short, we got a car and made our way north towards cave country and to the home of Jill Heinerth and her husband Robert.

The mission of the week was to film the skills DVD for the new Prism 2 rebreather just launched by Hollis. The clear spring water of Florida is ideal for filming and these two definitely know what they are doing. The efficiency in shooting the skills was astonishing while I tried frantically to keep to one side and help with lighting. Phil delivered all the skills without hesitation and Jill was there to capture all the details from every angle, pros at work.

With such efficiency we had time to do a few dives in the various caves around. This was my first experience with the Florida caves and their lively conditions. The cave systems here are vast and very much a work in progress, the water constantly flowing and carving out tunnels for the underground rivers. This means that you are usually trying to swim into a hole in the ground where a river is trying to get the other way…

They say conditions were mild in terms of flow this week, at least at Ginnie springs and Little River. To be the little baby cave diver in the diveteam with explorers like Jill and Phil is a privilege few will experience and I just tried to soak up as much knowledge as possible and not screw up. Thankfully Cristina had trained me well and I don’t think I disappointed.

During the last day of filming for the DVD I was transferred from lighting to being in front of the camera as the buddy in some of the exercises. It was nice to be back on CCR again and even if it was a different unit from the Sentinel I was trained on I could manage with help of the two instructors present. So if you ever end up taking a class on the Prism 2 and think one of the divers in the video seem a bit wobbly, remember that this was my first dive with this unit.

This week presented me with my very first thanksgiving day which we celebrated in style. Cave style.
Early in the morning we took a kayak and a canoe down to the Suwanee river where the cold morning air meeting the warmer river water gave rise to a beautiful mist over the surface. After a short paddle tour we reached a smaller side passage where the Rock Bluff spring came forth from the ground. In sidemount configuration we could descend and enter this slightly smaller passage with a considerably higher flow in the entrance than what I had experienced before. Once inside it was no problem as the flow lessened and we enjoyed a wonderful dive. Once back outside all we had to do was lazily float downriver in our canoe back to the car and get ready for some serious turkey eating. I probably ingested something like my own bodyweight in food and felt that this was a good way to celebrate any holiday, epic diving with nice people followed by more food than is healthy for you.

But my American experience wasn’t over yet, the weekend I was there it was time for the yearly gear swap at Amigos dive center coupled with bluegrass music and barbecue. If you are ever in the area, go there just to meet the charismatic owner Wayne and experience a 24hour help yourself diveshop.

My time was about to run out but I managed to do one more day of diving before it was time to fly out. I met up with Renee who I had met the day before at the gear swap to dive the devils system in Ginnie springs. Sunday of the thanksgiving weekend there was a lot of divers present but by some magic happenstance we were slightly before everyone else in our dives so that all the others went in just about the same time as we got out of the cave. We had two really nice dives and it left me with the sense that I need to come back.

After a final night with Jill and Robert it was time for me to board a plane and go a not so long distance north for new adventures and meeting new people.