E065 - Daniele Pontis

This episode is brought to you with the support of our sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both :)!!

Late last year I was honoured to be invited to speak at the FLOW Sidemount event in Cala Gonone, Sardinia. The event was originally slated for June this year but moved to October due to COVID. Conceived and organised by Stratis Kas my guest way back in episode #38 along with Daniele Pontis and Mariona Yepes Daviu from Bluforia Diving Centre, this event will be a must-attend for sidemount divers based in Europe and the UK and definitely also for anyone wishing and able to attend from other parts of the world given COVID travel restrictions.

You may remember, I travelled to Sardinia back in 2019 and caught up with Thorsten Toddy Waelde and Brian Starnes for some brilliant cave diving so I can recommend Cala Gonone from personal experience as a top cave diving destination and an awesome place to stay.

To our knowledge, this is the first Sidemount specialist event in Europe and it's intended to cover the full gambit of sidemount from recreational diving open water through to tech diving in open water, wrecks and of course caves. Cala Gonone, Sardinia is an absolutely ideal location for such an event and it is no surprise that XDEEP is onboard to support the show. Speakers include and I am sorry if I miss anyone but I can't wait to meet and learn from the former guests on Speaking Sidemount including Garry Dallas, Mikko Paasi, and Christina Zenato add to that amazing list... the man who coined the term Technical Diving, Michael Menduno, and TV personality, author and explorer, Andy Torbet.

So with all FLOW Sardinia in front of me, I thought it would be a great opportunity to catch up with Daniele Pontis to learn more about his diving, Bluforia dive centre, how he set it up and the diving they do, his philosophy teaching sidemount diving... And then given Daniele is an Instructor Trainer on the KISS Sidewinder, I asked him more about this amazing Sidemount CCR including somewhat selfishly for me, the transition from Open Water Air diluent level to Cave CCR and Normoxic trimix.

Daniele and I both feature in Stratis Kas' book Close Calls so I asked Daniele to relive his near-miss, share what he learned, and how he applies this in his own diving and interactions with his students on courses.

And of course, we talk about FLOW and what you can expect if you come to meet us and attend this event... Cheers Steve