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A
GLIMMERING IN THE DARKNESS
Graham Balcombe
Edited by: Duncan Price
Published by: The Cave Diving
Group, UK in 2007.
Printed hard covers with
273 printed pages. Dimensions: 23.5 cms tall by 16 cms wide.
Although the author is listed
as Graham Balcombe, it is a collaboration between himself and the British
Cave Diving Group. The book contains a collection from the principal
records in the “archives” of Graham Balcombe on the events leading up to
the foundation of the Cave Diving Group. Apparently all the details
were found in notebooks in Grahams home after his death in March 2000.
The notes span his life in cave diving from around 1934 to the mid 1950’s
and include the help he received from Sir Robert Davis at Siebe Gorman
& Co (there was a dive in Wookey Hole caves in the UK in standard equipment
but the hoses were too restrictive). There is a note in the front of the
book about the title, it is in appreciation to Martyn Farr’s book on the
history of cave diving – “The Darkness Beckons”. [pt] |
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BASIC
CAVE DIVING - A BLUEPRINT FOR SURVIVAL.
Sheck
Exley.
Although
small, this book contains a great deal of relevant information on safety
and survival. Fourteen accidents are reviewed. Well worth reading by all
cave divers.
Softcover,
46 pages, mono, 145x220mm. |
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BEYOND
THE DEEP
The
Deadly Descent Into the World's Most Treacherous Cave.
William
Stone and Barbara Am Enden, with Monte Paulsen.
The
Huautla cave in Mexico is probably the deepest system in the world. Shafts
rach down to enormous depths, with huge stadium-sized cvrns. The author's
44-member team entered the sinkhole at Sotano de San Augustin, the first
camp being 2328 ft below ground level. The second camp was established
at the jinction of two sunterranean rivers met. Nobody had gone further
and survived, excepot for Bill Stone and Barabara Am Ende, who forged on
for no less than eighteen days. Dr. William Stone is the engineer who invented
the Cis-Lunar rebreather, a life-support backpack that allows divers to
stay underwater for up to 24 hours. Dr Am Ende is a geologist. Paulsen
is a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Hardcover. |
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CAVERNS
MEASURELESS TO MAN.
Sheck
Exley.
Sheck
Exley has earnt his place in the history of diving the hard way. His achievements
in cave diving, particularly deep, long penertrations, earned him a well
deserved reputation as the master cave diver. Unfortunely he stretched
himself too far and lost his life in 1994 whilst attempting to reach a
thousand feet - a nice round number he stated before the dive. He made
it to 906 feet. He was forty-five years of age and had thirty years experience
behind him. It is fortunate that Exley wrote this book - like a posthumous
autobiography I suppose - as it documents some incredible and hair-raising
dives. These are beyond the skills, resources and perhaps interest of most
divers, but anyone who have dived a sinkhole or penetrated a cave, be it
in freshwater or at sea, will thoroughly enjoy this book. It would appear
that at times Exley tried too hard to be a writer, but get over the first
few paragraphs and you will be hooked. Hardcover and softcover, dustjacket,
325 pages, index, sixteen colour plates. |
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CAVES
AND CAVE DIVING.
Guy de Lavaur.
Translated by Edmund J.
Mason from the French ‘Toute la Speleologie'.
Hardcover, dust jacket,
175 pages, no photographs, several drawings and charts.
First publsihed in Great
Britain by Robert Hale (company), no date recorded. My edition Scientific
Book Club Edition, no date - probably mid to late 1950s.
Perhaps the first specialist
book on cave diving. Covers potholes and underground rivers - the Nautical
Expedition of 1929; sumps and Vauclusian Springs; the evolution of speleology.
Although I hqve dived Mount Gambier, a dedicated cave diver would be better
reviewing this specialist book, but gathering by the demand I have
had for the book, it is very popular amongst the enthusiasts.
[ps] |
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CAVE
DIVING IN AUSTRALIA
Ian Lewis and Peter Stace.
Self published, South Australia
First edition 1980, second
edition 1982. ISBN 0 9594963 0 0
A most valuable book and sadly
outof print for many years.
Provides a detailed description
of the many freshwater caves and sinkholes in the Mount Gambier district
of south-east South Australia, one of the famous freshwater caving regions
in the world.
Softcover, 174 pages, sketches
of cave and sinkhole profiles, history, level of expertise required, equipment,
access.
[ps] |
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DEEP
INTO BLUE HOLES
Rob Palmer.
Published by Unwin Hyman
Limited; copyright 1989.
Hardcover, dustjacket.
Andros is one of the largest
islands in the Bahamas and one of the least explored. Beneath the sea's
surface its rocks are riddled with caves which present the ultimate cave-diving
challenge.
It was not until the late
1960s that a diving team, led by George Benjamin and filmed by Jacques
Cousteau, ventured into these caves for the first time. They explored passages
and discovered that, owing to the presence of stalactites and stalagmites,
these caves must have once stood above the level of the sea. In 1981 British
cave-divers returned to Andros to launch an ambitious expedition to set
the wheels of exploration turning once more. Their work was continued in
1987 by the setting up of the Andros Project which, using new underwater
technology, made stunning discoveries. It is the spectacular Blue Holes
they found, with their unique collections of creatures and beautiful corals,
on which this book focuses. Rob Palmer describes how, over a succession
of dives, he and his team explored this maze of caves reaching subaquatic
depths of over 300 feet (90m). He reveals not only the excitement and magic
of diving long and deep into the unknown but also the danger, drama and
fear which must inevitably be a part of pushing through one of the last
true frontiers of exploration.
Palmer is one of the world's
foremost underwater explorers, a director of the Andros Project. A freelance
writer, diver and photographer, he has also helped produce three films
on Blue Holes for the BBC and National Geographic television. He is a Fellow
of the Royal Geographical Society and Explorers' Club, and was awarded
the first Colin McLeod Prize for outstanding contributions to international
diving activities by the British Sub Aqua Club. (Ebay description). |
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DIVING
IN DARKNESS.
Beneath
Rock, Under Ice, Into Wrecks.
Martyn
Farr.
Softcover,
many exceptional colour photographs throughout, 126 pages, index, glossary.
Oh
dear! Whatever happened to the quiet dive off the end of the jetty in twenty
feet of calm warm waters. Thats about all I can handle, but as long as
there is a place for my zimmer frame, then I'll give it a go. Is Martin
Farr crazy? All this equipment, just to dive some of the most exciting
and challenging sites in the world. Well, I guess I've answered my own
question. Farr is no stranger to exotic and technical diving at its most
competent, and his latest book continues his reputation as a top author.
And its good to see Aussie divers and dive sites mentioned. It is difficult
to categorise this book as it covers so much - part equipment and technique,
part dive location, part adventure- and a very sensible ‘final comment'
from such an experienced diver - covered in twelve chapters. The book is
predominantly "under rock", ie cave and sinkhole diving, with a section
on ice and wrecks. Superbly produced, with full colour throughout, Diving
in Darkness will educate and encourage the diver in a very specialist and
most rewarding aspect of diving. The stress is always on safety - indeed,
there is a valuable chapter just on ‘Stress' - and will no doubt lie next
to Farr's The Darkness Beckons as one of the finest books on specialist
diving. A must for all cave and wreck divers, and anyone interested in
something different and challenging in a dive. Oh well, back to the jetty
for me. |
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DIVING INTO DARKNESS
- A True Story of Death and Survival. See
Raising the Dead below. |
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RAISING
THE DEAD - A True Story of Death and Survival
Phillip Finch.
Several editions: Hardcover
published by Harper Sport, an imprint of Harper Collins, London, 2008.
Hardcover, dustjacket, 310 pages, 28 colour plates, index, appendix. (left
top image)
Softcover, also published
by Harper Sport, 2008. (left bottom image)
A true story of death and
survival in the world's most dangerous sport, cave diving. Two friends
plunge 900 ft deep into a water-filled crater in the Kalahari Desert to
raise the body of a diver who had perished there a decade before. Only
one returns. Unquenchable heroism and complex human relationships amid
the perils of extreme sport. On New Year's Day, 2005, Australian diver
David Shaw travelled halfway around the world on a journey that took him
to the Kalahari Desert of South Africa, to a site known locally as Boesmansgat:
Bushman's Hole. His destination was nearly 900 feet below the surface.
On 8 January, he stepped into the water. He wore and carried on him some
of the most advanced diving equipment ever developed. Mounted to a helmet
on his head was a video camera. David Shaw was about to attempt what had
never been done before, and he wanted the world to see. He descended. About
fifteen feet below the surface was a fissure in the dolomite bottom of
the basin, barely wide enough to admit him and his equipment and the aluminum
tanks slung under his shoulders. He slipped through the opening, and disappeared
from sight, leaving behind the world of light and life. Then, a second
diver descended through the same crack in the stone. This was Don Shirley,
Shaw's friend and frequent dive partner, one of the few people in the world
qualified to follow where Shaw was about to go. In the community of extreme
diving, Don Shirley was a master among masters. Twenty-five minutes later,
one of the men was dead. The other was in mortal peril, and would spend
the next 10 hours struggling to survive, existing literally from breath
to breath. What happened that day at Bushman's Hole is the stuff of nightmarish
drama, juxtaposing classic elements of suspense with an extreme environment
beyond most people's comprehension. But it's also a compelling human story
of friendship, heroism, unswerving ambition and of coming to terms with
loss and tragedy. (From fishpond.com.au sales blurb, similar to book fly.
[ps]
USA edition: Published as
DIVING INTO DARKNESS - A True Story of Death and Survival.
Hardcover and paperback
published by St. Martins Press, New York, 2008. Hardcover image left below;
USA softcover on right. The British and USA editions are identical
in content.
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THE
CAVE DIVERS.
Robert
F. Burgess.
"Cave
divers are a breed apart - and this is their story - of pushing the limits
of technology and human endurance, a journey from pioneering descents into
submerged prehistoric caves to the most recent record-setting expeditions.
Locations covered include the Bahamas Blue Holes, and deep penetrations
in Florida and Mexico. Although no mention of Australian caves, this is
nevertheless a most interesting book for those interested in "pushing to
the inner and outer limits" of diving.
Softcover,
290 pages, mono and colour photographs, bibliography, index. |
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THE
DARKNESS BECKONS
Subtitle: The History and
Development of Cave Diving
Martin Farr.
Forward written by: Bill
Stone.
Published by: Diodem Books,
London; first published in 1980. This reviewed second-edition 1991.
Hard cover, black boards
with dust jacket; 280 printed pages. Dimensions: 25 cms tall by 20.5 cms
wide.
This book tells the history
of cave diving and its development from the first know cave dive in France
in 1878 thrugh to the development of the Cave Diving Group in the UK when
Graham Balcombe, Jack Shepherd and others started cave diving in primitive
equipment in 1936. It goes on to show the spread of cave diving through
the world but the book is written from a British perspective. It
is divided into three sections: “Origing”, “Cave Diving in Britain and
Ireland” and “International Diving. The three sections are subdivided:
1-1 The Challenge
of Cave Diving. 1-2 The Beginnings of Cave Diving. 2-1
Pre-War Cave Diving in Britain. 2-2 The Oxygen Phase. 2-3 The
Cave Diving Group. 2-4 Aqualung or Mixture Set. 2-5 The Transition
to Air. 2-6 The Current Approach. 3-1 Mainland Europe.
3-2 North and Central America. 3-3 Southern Hemisphere. 3-4 Future Possibilities.
Extremely well illustrated
throughout with old photographs (some in colour) and diagrams. [pt]
'The
History and Development of Cave Diving'. This is the second edition of
the acclaimed book published in 1980. It covers the international scene
with quite a bit on Britain and Ireland. Australia gets a good mention
with the Nullarbor caves (Pannikin Plains and Weebubbie), and Mount Gambier.
Other fascinating systems in Zimbabwe, New Zealand, USA, Mexico, Southern
Africa and Europe are also described. The equipment used is mind-boggling.
Are these guys (and girls) brave or just crazy? Excellent reading, even
for one who thinks Pics is just fine.
Hardcover,
dustwrapper, 208 pages. With colour planes and mono photos. |
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THE
ESSENTIALS OF CAVE DIVING
Jill Heinerth
(Adapted from the blurb:)
Cave diving has been called the "most dangerous participatory sport" in
the world. It doesn't have to be. With proper training, experience, and
guidance, you can be a skilled cave diver, and enjoy this challenging and
rewarding activity, for a lifetime. With decades of technical diving experience,
including world record cave dives, and paradigm changing underwater exploration,
Woman Divers Hall of Fame member Jill Heinerth has prepared this
contemporary guidebook. Generously illustrated, "The Essentials of Cave
Diving" contains practical, twenty-first century underwater knowledge,
including side mount techniques and the latest rebreather technology. Encompassing
all levels of cave diving, from entry level to expert,this manual is an
essential tool; appropriate and relevant to all cave training disciplines.Chaptes
include: What is Cave Diving; Training; Accident Analysis; Geology and
Hydrology; Conservation and Landowner Realtions; Equipment Configuration;
Techniques; Planning; Special Issues. Includes also a glossary of terms.Although
written by an experienced USA based cave diver, the book is still rfelevant
to Australian techniques and issues. Softcover, perfect bound, 7
x 10 inches, full colour throughout, 200 pages. |
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THE
GREAT CAVING ADVENTURE
Martyn Farr
Subtitle: The Story of His
Major Caving and Diving Expeditions
Published by: The Oxford
Illustrated Press, UK in 1984.
Hard back, black covers
with DJ – 229 printed pages. Dimensions: 22.5 cms tall by 14.5 cms wide
Martyn Farr is one of the
most experienced cave divers in the UK, if not the world. This book
tells some of the stories behind some of his major diving expeditions in
the UK and the rest of the world including the Bahamas where he achieved
a world record dive for the time. A book of exciting pioneering exploration,
tinted with hardships, disasters and tragedy, it is divided into 12 chapters:
“A Near Disaster”, “The
Luck of the Irish”, “Success and Tragedy”, “The American Odyssey”, “A Free
Trip to Iran”, “”The Ramshackle Expedition to Iran”, “Explorations in the
Peak District”, “The Mysterious Blue Holes of the Andros Island” and “A
World Record at Conch Blue Hole”.
Martyn was famous for his
other book “The Darkness Beckons” which he wrote in 1980 and this is described
as being in the “Great Adventure Series”, book number 2. Other books
issued in this Oxford Illustrated Press series are “The Great Railway Adventure”,
“The Great Travelling Adventure”, “The Great Walking Adventure” and “The
Great Climbing Adventure”. [pt]
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