E085 Robbie Schmittner - Understanding the Caves of Yucatan

Marissa Eckert and James Draker are the owners of Hidden Worlds, Fort White Florida and extraordinary sidemount/cave divers and instructors. In this episode, they share their passion for cave diving and instructing and their love of dive travel. We talk about their backgrounds, philosophies around teaching sidemount and cave diving, why it is important to streamline stages, deco cylinders and bailout, and about their recent dive travel to Abaco in the Bahamas, Mexico, Little Cayman and Orda Cave in Russia... plus we talk sidemount rebreathers and much more...  Featured: Hidden Worlds - https://www.dive-caves.com/ Sidemount Fundamentals eBook - https://www.sidemountpros.com/store Truk 2020 - https://www.sidemountpros.com/calendar

30 Jun 20191h 6min

Cristina Zenato has dedicated her life to the protection and conservation of Caribbean Reef Sharks. From her home in the Bahamas, she has spent over 25 years interacting and learning about these amazing animals, to the point where she has real relationships with individual sharks demonstrated by their interactions with her in the water.   Cristina is world renown for her work with Sharks but she is also a Sidemount and Cave Instructor and a dedicated explorer of the caves of the Bahamas.   In this week's episode we meet and talk about Cristina's work with Sharks, we share our perspectives on why they are so misunderstood, about what we can do to educate others on sharks, about the issues with and value of shark feeding and shark tourism, and then we talk cave exploration on Grand Bahama Island, about Cristina's use of the KISS Sidewinder CCR, and what I can expect, when I head to Florida to train with Edd Sorenson later this year... All this and much more in this episode.   Featured: Sidemount Fundamentals eBook - https://www.sidemountpros.com/store Cristina Zenato - https://cristinazenato.com KISS Rebreathers - https://www.kissrebreathers.com/

8 Jun 20191h 4min

Finally... in this episode sponsored by XDEEP, I got the chance to meet one of the world's great photographers... Becky Kagan Schott.   We had a great time discussing; how Becky got into diving and photography, about Liquid Productions and their award winning features. We discuss diving the wrecks of the Great Lakes in North America, what it takes to be a great photographer or videographer, some tips from Becky on how to improve your images and then we learn of Becky's use of OC sidemount and her recent transition to sidemount CCR.   Featured: https://www.xdeep.eu/ http://liquidproductions.com/ https://www.sidemountpros.com/

20 Mai 201956min

This episode is very close to my heart!! I had the great pleasure to catch up with Yvonne Press an awesome sidemount and tech diving instructor based in Bali, Indonesia. We had a great time discussing; sidemount for open water dives, what it takes to be a good sidemount diver, how she teaches sidemount, CCR and sidemount CCR, and much more... Featured: https://www.xdeep.eu/ https://www.facebook.com/yvonnepresstechnicaldiving/ https://www.sidemountpros.com/   Join me in Truk 2020 - https://www.sidemountpros.com/calendar/2020/5/29/truk-lagoon-sidemount-group-june-2020

7 Mai 20191h 5min

In this episode, I speak with Tom Steiner of Gozo Technical Diving. I was fortunate to get to know Tom very well during my two seasons training and working at Gozo Technical. Tom is an instructor trainer for a number of agencies and an absolute consummate instructor and diver both in sidemount and backmount diving. In this episode, Tom and I discuss his background in diving, how he got into sidemount diving, his work supporting deep diving world record attempts, he is an absolute decompression diving expert... so I get his thoughts on decompression diving, I asked him how to establish a world class destination tech diving centre, his approach to training divers, and we discuss Truk 2020 with Pete Mesley's Lust4Rust... Featured in this episode: https://www.gozotechnicaldiving.com/ Truk 2020 - https://www.sidemountpros.com/calendar

24 Apr 201946min

In this episode sponsored by XDEEP, I speak with cave diving legend, Edd Sorenson. In addition, to his exploration of the caves of the Florida Panhandle, Edd was one of the original members of the International Underwater Cave Rescue and Recovery team. He has been involved in several successful cave rescues and sadly a number of cave recoveries. In particular Edd is renown as having the temperament and skill set to be able to undertake cave recoveries that are at the very limits of what is possible. In this episode we'll learn more about Edd's background in diving, what it takes to make a successful cave rescue, the skill sets that he employs to undertake recoveries that are beyond the scope or ability of other cave rescue teams and then we go into some detail regarding the recent recovery of the two divers who perished in the caves of the Dominican Republic. A word of warning... Edd goes into detail as he describes the recovery. If you have been affected by this loss or the loss of a friend or loved one in similar circumstances, you may wish to skip this section of the podcast which is between 10:15 - 18.15 We also talk about the KISS Sidewinder Rebreather, about Edd's approach to CCR, cave and DPV training and lastly, we discuss the importance of fitness for divers... and much more! Featured in this episode: Sponsor - XDEEP https://www.xdeep.eu www.caveadventurers.com www.kissrebreathers.com

9 Apr 201953min

In this episode sponsored by XDEEP, I catch up with Dharshana Jayawardena or DJ. DJ is a pioneering underwater explorer in Sri Lanka. In addition to being an author, he is the founder of DiveSriLanka.com and is also a field editor for Asian Diver magazine. DJ has identified the origins of several mystery wrecks; among them the World War I SS Worcestershire and a World War II Catalina patrol bomber. Recently he has ventured into cave diving and discovered Sri Lanka’s first major underwater cave system among its scenic mountains. In this episode DJ and I talk about his background in diving and sidemount, his exploration of Sri Lanka's many shipwrecks, his recent cave exploration project in the Sri Lankan mountains and his upcoming presentation on shipwreck exploration at ADEX Singapore, and much more... Featured in this episode: Sponsor - XDEEP https://www.xdeep.eu/  https://www.divesrilanka.com/ The Canterbury Wreck - A Diver's Guide - www.sidemountpros.com/store/the-canterbury-wreck-a-divers-guide Sidemount Pros YouTube Channel - www.youtube.com/sidemountpros

31 Mar 201937min

In this episode, I catch up with Matteo Varenna. Matteo is a terrific sidemount diver and instructor and a great guy as well. In this episode we go deep into: his background in diving and sidemount what is wrong with Sidemount Specialty Instructor training and how this can be fixed why he decided to become a Sidemount Essentials instructor the importance of video feedback in dive courses the problems with social media and forums his XDEEP presentations on set up and fixing issues and much more... Featured in this episode: Sponsor - XDEEP https://www.xdeep.eu/  Sidemount Essentials Training - https://www.sidemounting.com/in-water-training/ Sidemount Fundamentals eBook - https://goo.gl/Davqc1

21 Mar 20191h 2min