Where to begin talking about TEKCamp? It really is an experience like no other – mentoring and coaching from some of the world’s truly pioneering divers, eager to pass on their knowledge and experience to divers even more eager to soak it up. I had booked B and myself onto the 9-dive package, which was incredible value for money, tho’ we didn’t actually dive together during the week, we both got loads out of it. I’ll run through a quick summary of the dives and talks according to my notes, but really, no-one can be told about TEKCamp, you have to experience it for yourself.
| Day | Session | With | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dive 1 | Rich Walker | A warmup dive, 90 minutes on the 6m platform with teammates Clare and Ben and safety diver Dave H, who we had met while doing Fundies in Malta and stayed in touch with. Propulsion, v- and s-drills, DSMB deployment, etc. |
| 1 | Talk 1 | Mark Powell | The author of Deco For Divers on various myths that surround deco diving. I asked him why Staying Alive hadn’t been called Disco for Divers 😉 |
| 1 | Talk 2 | Garry Dallas | “Sidemount Bob” on his exploration of caves in Mexico, sponsored by Apeks |
| 1 | Dive 2 | John Kendall | Practicing ascents, up and down in 1m increments from the entrance to the tunnel. Teammate Toni and safety diver Greg. |
| 1 | Talk 3 | Paul Toomer | Diving Bikini Atoll, where a fleet of warships left over from WW2 were sunk for early nuclear weapons trials. A fascinating talk about penetrating the aircraft carrier Saratoga and the treats to be found therein. £8k for the trip. Hmm… |
| 2 | Dive 1 | Mike Potts | Trydive on a Sentinel. The first thing to know is that failure at the beginning of Sanctum is actually perfectly survivable on a Sentinel, you just switch the BOV to OC, no need for trying buddy breathing in a FFM! I achieved neutral buoyancy easily enough, the benefit of GUE training, but I wasn’t comfortable, the tightness at the end of a breath running minimum loop volume, the bulk of the loop cutting off peripheral vision. I still see a Sentinel in my future, but it will take some getting used to. Teammate Giles, safety diver Tom. |
| 2 | Talk 1 | Kieran Hatton | Scapa Flow “in depth” |
| 2 | Talk 2 | Graham Blackmore | Cave diving in the Philippines and China |
| 2 | Dive 2 | Rich Walker | Stage handling and lost deco gas procedures. Teammate Heather, safety diver Greg |
| 2 | Talk 3 | Martin Robson | A mind blowing tale of deep cave exploration in Russia, the Blue Lake project. Soon to be a book but not available yet for pre-order on Amazon. He suffered a spine bend and spent 9 days in the pot being looked after personally by an Admiral in the Russian Navy! |
| 3 | Dive 1 | Ian France | Equipment failures, rescue and lost-line drills, teammates Paul and Luke (who “died” so many times it became a running joke for the rest of TEKcamp 🙂 ), safety diver Xavier. Absolutely fascinating to watch myself on the video later attempting to locate the line with a blackout mask on – what you think you are doing is often very different from what you actually do! I am looking forward to joining Ian for some mine diving after I have done C1. |
| 3 | Talk 1 | Mark Powell | A lecture on dive computers, in summary 10 years ago they weren’t very good, nowadays they’re a lot better! |
| 3 | Talk 2 | Adam Wood | Filming sharks and wrecks off the North Carolina coast with the BBC |
| 3 | Dive 2 | Paul Toomer | A dive simply entitled Brown Hawk Down based on a particularly hairy dive Paul and safety diver Alex had done on the Black Hawk. Paul mentioned in the briefing “I don’t think we’re going to have too much by way of reliable equipment on this dive” 🙂 Blackout masks, line following, stage handling, shutdowns, air-sharing all followed. At one point I had 3 stages clipped on and a spool and DSMB in each hand! A 60 minute dive that seemed like 6 minutes. Awesome fun 🙂 |
| 3 | Talk 3 | Dr Duncan Price | A visit to Wookey Hole for a guided tour and to hear a talk from the man who has dived furthest in there. |
| 4 | Dive 1 | Graham Blackmore | Trydive on Suex DPVs, excellent fun, I think GUE have successfully sold me another course, whenever I get round to it (C1 being a priority for me). Teammate Stewart, safety diver Dave H. |
| 4 | Talk 1 | John Kendall | JK talking about the St George cave survey in France |
| 4 | Talk 2 | Martin Robson | Cave survey techniques |
| 4 | Dive 2 | Martin Robson | The “practical” session from talk 2, a team of 5 of us surveyed the crushing works, depths, distances, bearings of various features to produce a 3D map. We did one pass to lay a line between the points we wanted to survey, then another pass, at each of the tie-offs, recording depth and bearing to the next, then following the line a metre at a time to record distance. It was eye-opening just how much time such a simple mission took, surveying for real is a massive undertaking for a team of divers! |
| 4 | Talk 3 | Rich Walker | Croatian wrecks. Another trip to plan… 🙂 |
| 5 | Dive 1 | Rich Walker | A simple mission to retrieve a spool and a reel, tied off “somewhere” past the aircraft. It started very well, we planned exactly what we would do – I would lead on the way in, to the end of the spool, then we would turn and I would be lineman reeling in, and Heather would lead us to the end of the reel, then we would would turn, she would be linegirl, and I would lead us out. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, and we all died 🙂 Teammates Heather and Andy, safety diver Alex. |
| 5 | Talk 1 | Gareth Lock | Learning from others, primarily the military aviation community, on safety, the creation of a “just culture” in which people can talk about accidents and mistakes without fear or stigma. |
| 5 | Talk 2 | Roz Lunn | A sales pitch for Eurotek. Don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity this year but it looks good. |
| 5 | Talk 3 | Ian France | A talk on the UK Mine and Cave team. I am really excited about joining these guys when I am ready |
| 5 | Talk 4 | Kieran Hatton | Wrecks of Norway |
All in all an incredible, action packed week in which I learnt alot and met a bunch of cool new people to dive with 🙂 I cannot wait for next year’s…
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