We are the Shirleys, and there are two loves in our lives – technical diving and travel. Join us in our adventures here.
Don and I were discussing drysuits the other day, and the fact that Don has been an Otter drysuit fan most of his dive career.
So I thought I would put together a montage of photos from 2000 to 2023..
It also points out the relentless marching of time we humans endure! Hasn’t Don aged well?
A short description of some of the dives we did to find HMS Pheasant.
On the 12th May we aimed to dive to find whatever was on the bottom. Tony and I were dropped off on the buoy as it surfaced. Our job was to assess the current and see if the rest could follow. At 30m we called the dive; the current was just getting stronger. We had shotted it the previous day – and the drum had just bobbed up and then back down within 30 seconds (if I remember correctly).
On the 13th we tried again. This time the current was not quite as bad, and we pushed through to the bottom. There she was! The anchor of the buoy was hooked on the wreckage. This part of the ship appeared to be only about 1m from the sea bed – the mid ships were truly flat. But there – right there was the deck mounted torpedoes! We had studied the wreck’s drawings beforehand and knew it could be nothing else but the Pheasant. It was pitch black; illuminated only by my cave light. We did not have much time to look around as we had a 17 minute bottom runtime and were running on dive timers. Those days there was not the luxury of mixed gas computers. I can’t remember exactly – there was a lot of superstructure debris, but really a “flat wreck” at that point. I did not write a story in the log book, just the run table.
Extract from my dive log:
17th May – Pheasant 11:17
Last of the wave to go in followed line down. Changes in drills went well. Major excitement not present on this dive, mainly as the others were already on the wreck. Very dark again, no current. Shot in Midships no more than 1m above the seabed. Many battery plates. Brass and large turbine. Distribution panels in English. No Major structure.
We took a plate up. Afterwards, Tony and I went to Woolwich Arsenal and literally looked at the plans for HMS Pheasant – the actual blueprints, all faded. We pinpointed a place where the panel that we had – it matched the circuitry on the ship – It was a very basic electrics, but hey, it was 1916.
I will do a more detailed article as soon as I can.
I thought I would show what happens at our gas station on an average weekend. This is in fast motion otherwise it would become very boring for the watcher. It spanned 3 hard working days. Some gas fills were not captured as I did not set up the camera for all the small quick fills. And twice on the busier times, I did not set the camera to time-lapse so got very long videos instead. Those were omitted from this video clip. I filled air, nitrox (partial pressure blending) and trimix. Haskel pumps, compressors and generators were used.
Our dive centre is totally off the local power grid, so we rely on solar and batteries for general use, and a 3-phase 10kVA generator to run the 300-bar compressor. We do ask clients to be energy efficient when they visit Komati Springs.
The horses keep me company and tend to gravitate towards where I am to be near me. I take that as a compliment. There are 4 horses in total, but most are out of camera shot. They look fat because of the camera angle but, they are just right.
On the 1st of April my “Field Workshop” has just changed role. And was now part of the Air Mobile rapid response Brigade. We had a “march past” to mark this and had spent some months in preparation for it.
We knew of the action on South Georgia. And Played “Don’t Cry for me Argentina” on the parade. The night of the 1st April. We were called in to clear our shelves of repairs and pack up workload – prep for war.
My daughter was 20 months old and waved bye as we sailed on the 12th of May. Not one picture of that. But memories firmly engraved. The sounds and the smells, the ships around us, the brass bands playing, the flags and the hoots from boats big and small. The National pride was so strong.
Truly amazing time, and full of optimism and energy – wow is the only word. If I was given a couple of options to revisit myself in time – this would be one of them!
Nothing glorious about war. But the spirt that comes because of it should not be understated. A motivated soldier who firmly believes his cause is a major force!!! Many do not understand the focus, strength, and motivation you feel in these times. Combine many such soldiers and you have a machine of note.
Having said all that and spending 24 years of my life as a soldier. I strongly disagree with war as a solution. War mongering and manipulation should be criminal activity. Just think how much money is wasted on arming. Yes, it boosts technology, but we could do so much more as a human race.
This year on 12 May 2022 it will be the 40th anniversary of me sailing on the Queen Elizabeth II to the Falklands War. A nice Birthday present. Also this year my 65th birthday present was to visit the ship again. (Thank you Meadow Walker).
The video clip of my visit is shown below. It is a juxtapose of 1982 and 2022. Most of the pictures of 1982 are scavenged online. You can see where my mind was when I was on the ship this year. I could feel to ghostly past on the ship.
The picture below is from the official war artist Linda Kitson. It shows my ship The MV Baltic, a ferry ship. She did a lot of work during the war. Here she is moored Stanley Harbour when the war was over and used as a base and accommodation.
10 Field Workshop was scattered over the island during the war. I had landed in San Carlos water aboard the bullet strafed MV Norland (after transferring from the QE II in South Georgia). And was based there for most of the war, initially with my small air portable container full of electronic test equipment. This provided a forward element of the workshop and when the main body arrived, we had full repair facilities.
After the war we all regrouped to Stanley. And began the after-war repairs of anything that we could, including civilian and captured Argentine equipment. I stayed based on the Baltic with my 3-tonne vehicle hosting the electronic repair facilities on the back and a 14Kva generator. I stayed as part of the rear party and finally flew home to UK in September 1982.
Our electronic repair vehicles were powered by the generators (14kva 1.5 tonne) that they towed. The army has rubber soled boots, and although the vehicles were earthed, we always jump to the first step, so there is no possible conduction between the ground and the steps to the container. Sailors wore conductive shoes, and they sometimes got a small shock as they went up our steps! That’s the first time I realised they had conductive shoes.
The first drawing above shows the Baltic anchored, and part of the land-based workshop. it captures the mood of the island at that time. It was the Falklands winter and there was snow on the ground.
This was the year I missed the summer and had 3 winters one after the other.
This is a short video concerning what we consider “The Big 5” in Cave Diving in our region – Southern Africa.
Notice all the preparation work we must put in before each expedition. One day we will get it together and make a specific clip concerning our hard work behind the scenes.
If you are thinking of joining one of our expeditions, you need to be SRT Rope qualified for some of these sites. We also like you to be In Water Recompression trained, because if the paw-paw hits, getting out of the sites and to the nearest chamber is not an option. As they are all caves, a Cave and Decompression qualification is also on the list. You can speak to me about prerequisites – email andre@iantd.co.za.
The biggest plus on an expedition is a team player and a good sense of humour. No egos allowed on site.
The Big 5 caves are:
Each one needs its own expedition as there are lots of pre-rigging, hauling in dive gear, diving, hauling out said dive gear and then taking the rigging out. One needs to visit each site for at least a week or longer.
There is a strong possibility of post-expedition blues once you get home. We found the best way to alleviate this is to begin organising the next trip!
On 6 August 2021, I was annoyed that a couple of divers were hooting in the campsite. This was a no-noise site, tranquil, quiet, and city dwellers love coming here for this peace. I walked over, was astonished to see a leopard in the tree, and the divers trapped in their vehicle. The leopard jumped out of the tree and headed towards me. I scrambled behind the car – I might add that the divers were not giving up their space in the car. Lady Leopard jumped onto the back of the truck in between the dive gear with not a care in the world. It was slightly surreal, and I noticed she had a collar. The game reserve collar some of their predators to keep an eye on their whereabouts. Every 12 hours, a signal gets transmitted and the game wardens check locations. We have had a break-though concerning a lion on previous occasions, and the reserve then jumps into action, lays bait and entices the big man out again.
I snuck back to the office to phone the wardens, and they started getting a team together to dart and relocate her.
Don and I went back to check up on her, and she promptly started tracking us from a few metres. When she got too close for comfort, a loud shout stopped her in her tracks. We managed to get into the ablution block, and she took up a stalk across the stoep – backwards and forwards, with the occasional jump up to check us out through the window. “Come out you cowards and play with me!” Eventually she tired of our cowardliness and moved off into the bush. We took our chance and got back to the dive centre a few hundred metres away.
The reserve people arrived and we showed them where she was. We found out her mother was killed, she was taken while here eyes was not even open yet and they tried to sell on the back market. Luckily the Parks Board got wind of the fact, found and confiscated her. She was rehomed in the game reserve in a boma (camp), taught to hunt and once deemed ready, let loose in the greater reserve. Shortly thereafter, she found the most ideal spot with huge trees and convenient limbs to snooze on, but this happened to be our camp site. Also because it is winter and divers are hibernating, the camp site was not used for a month. Poor girl probably thought it was a hostile takeover when the campers arrived. I am pretty sure the campers arrived, set up tents, had dinner, went to bed, and only discovered her the next morning.
Lady leopard jumped into the tree close to the vet, was promptly darted and whizzed further up the tree. Not a good plan as she would soon lose conciseness and fall out. But the guys were ready for this and had a catch-tarpaulin ready. When she let go and fell, she was easily caught. A health check was done and she was deemed fit and healthy. She was loaded into the truck and taken off Komati Springs site. Divers could get back out of vehicles and do what they came for – go diving.
Divers mitigate all possible failure scenarios before their dive, but none of them thought of the possible scenario of injury (or death) by a land-bound Apex predator! Maybe if it was a sea dive the Apex shark would come to mind but who would have thought about a Leopard on a dive trip?
Don was invited to speak at the Tech 2020 show in Holland and we gladly accepted the offer. Pim van der Horst accommodated us and Dennis Blom drove us to places. A very nice drive I might add – in his electric Jaguar – what a pleasure!
With Pim’s help we rented bicycles and saw a lot of the area around his house, Dr. Heijebrug, windmills and all. A very short and sweet ferry ride to an island called ?? for lunch. The weird thing was it was a Sunday afternoon and the only open restaurant we found was only open for a function, but they graciously let us have a bite too. It was also nice to exercise, and I found out that I was definitely not bicycle-fit.
Don did a rebreather crossover to the Liberty, and had to dive in the lake at Zandeiland in ?? degrees Celsius cold water. Kees gave him a thicker hoodie because his was totally inadequate.
The 2020 Tech talk was a sounding success. The organisers did an astounding job and the speakers were first class. There was an audience of over 300 people. Don had to sing for his supper with two later workshops regarding the Boesmansgat expedition and that too was well received by the attendees.
Then we were off the Das Boot show in Dusseldorf, chauffeured by Dennis again, but sadly not in his Jag – apparently it was too far for an electric motor. The parking lot was usper-impressive. Not space to wiggle around in with all the cars asked to park head to tail. Glad I did not have to get my car out of the parking space. The show was just as impressive and it was good to catch up on some of our suppliers from all over the world. Catching up on new technology was also great. But quite strangely, we could not find a decent pair of dive gloves with white or light palms. Light palms make for better signalling as opposed to dark ones. I loved the fact that at the end of the day you jumped on a train and it took you to the city. I really enjoy public transports that work!
Our “hotel” – booked though bookings.com was weird. Turned out to be in what looked like private flats – you then walk to the first floor and there’s a make-shift office where we got our keys. The room was clean and had all the usual amenities so all’s well… except there were empty beer bottles in the cupboard. I guess housekeeping do not check cupboards. Upon departure, there was no one in the office but there was a key drop-box. Before we could get to it, a man stopped us and enquired if he could help and I mentioned that we were just checking out and looking for the staff. He said to hand him the key as he’s the owner. Well as I told him – anyone could say they’re the owner.
Sight-seeing in Dusseldorf is maximum a day’s worth. We had 2 days, and we were freezing. We ended up going into various stores along the route just to warm up a bit. True window-shoppers. Of course a visit to Dusseldorf is not complete without “Bratwurst” so we ordered two in one of the restaurants. We chose the indoors seating, but there were plenty outdoorsy people enjoying their meal in the cold with full-blast heaters everywhere.
Back to Holland in a train, and then off to the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Ohh-weee.. Lots of young blokes all round of course. It was difficult finding space in a restaurant in the area. The next day we did a hop-on-hop-off boat/bus thing. It being Amsterdam the boat was of course a necessary adaption to the hop-on-hop-off busses. As we were out of season, there was space a-plenty on the tours. It’s so nice to see Amsterdam for real. When we wanted a plain old cappuccino, we had to look hard to get a plain coffee shop.. some of them were smoked out..
At this point Don had come down with something and I think he did well to tolerate running around Amsterdam. It was clearly not as much fun for him. All too soon we had to depart back home and we made it just in time for the first round of “flatten the curve”. At home I came down with the same something Don had, but. I had the luxury of being able to be at home in bed. Mine was not as bad as Don’s. We are both sure we had “C0v1d”. But a year and a bit later I don’t know… It’s still not isolated.. !?! That is a conversation for another day.
Traffic is sometimes a challenge getting off site. If it’s not Zebra’s crossing, then it is Wildebees frolicking. This is just a glimpse of what we have to endure. I hope to get your sympathy for this hardship.
This was a wow trip. In the past there was a whole lot of guessing going on concerning the sizes and dimensions of the underground and submerged caves in Namibia. As they are so vast and deep, ordinary humans/divers could not adequately map the terrain.
Enter Sunfish, “a user friendly and person-portable Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with field proven Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM).”
Years ago, Don mentioned to Bill Stone, the founder of Stone Aerospace, that we have some big caves in Southern Africa that needed exploration, and a couple of years ago an expedition was launched to visit three of the sites. Lake Guinas was an open sinkhole explored to (I stand corrected) 150 metres by divers. Harasib was a semi enclosed site explored to 162 metres. And Dragon’s Breath was a completely enclosed underground lake explored to 132 metres. Each site reconnaissance is worth its own story as each site had its own unique challenges, but this write-up only covers the trip briefly. We endeavour to write more about each site separately.
In a nutshell, the Sunfish gets programmed to go map a specific area using multi-beam sonar and come back to base station once the mission is completed. It can also be told to map another area while underwater. On this trip it was tethered with fibre-optic to transfer data back to the programmers in real time. It can also be and was on occasion driven with joystick controls.
Guinas was the first choice for a set-up site as the Sunfish had to travel to Africa disassembled. So, reassembling it and testing it where the surface was open and accessible to the support team was the way to go. A few programming glitches were sorted, the hole was mapped, and we pulled all the gear.
We went to what we deemed to be the second hardest site – Harasib. This was over a hundred meters drop to the water, so all equipment has to be lowered via a pulley system, and of course once done, brought back out again. Divers and surface support had to also go down the same route so SRT skills was a requirement. The Sunfish went to work. The first chamber went flawless, but then the tether got stuck between some stalactites in the shallow end. Don had some recovery work to do to free the Sunfish and at the same time not get entangled in the loops of fibre-optic cable that he was pulling form the stalactites.
Once freed, it went off to map the deep end, lost communications at just over 250 metres which was out of reach for even technical divers. There were quite a few worried programmers on the surface. This was a true test to see if the Sunfish could now come back from the deepest part of a cave on its own reconnaissance. That’s why the Stone Aerospace was out here – to test these scenarios, but I believe they would have preferred testing this scenario at a depth where Don could jump in and help if necessary. But at over 250 metres it was out of reach. It performed very well indeed, and a few breaths were let out when it surfaced.
The next site was deemed the most difficult. Mainly because of the many pitches and narrow openings to get into and back out of the cave. It took a lot of huffing and puffing to get Sunfish through some very tricky spaces to the underground lake. The subterranean lake is deemed the biggest non sub-glacial underground lake in the world. The surface part is a couple of football fields big, but the underwater part is so much more!
By this time the Sunfish was as happy as a fish in water and it did not take long to map the cave. What took most of the time though, were the photographers asking divers, top-surface lighting crew, and the Sunfish to go through their paces and pose for the cameras. Chilling work for the divers and reasonably boring for the lighting crew that had to hold lights at various angles. The shots they got was worth all the trouble though.
The short video I made gives you an idea of the trip. Don and I try and make the journey to and from our destination part of the experience. Gone are the marathon drives to get there and back again. We add stops and overnights in order to enjoy life and smell the roses along the way. I hope you enjoy the video.
Stone Aerospace is an aerospace engineering firm founded by engineer and explorer Bill Stone, located in Austin, Texas.
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