UNDERWATER POTHOLER / a Cave Diver?s Memoirs by Duncan Price 2015 185 pp, 24 colour photos. ISBN 978-184995-158-6 Whittles Publishing Ltd, Dunbeath. ?18.99
I have always regarded caver divers as having a death wish. This is confirmed by the loss of my numerous cave diving friends. But Duncan and Co must be doing something right because after 30 year of cave diving they are still alive, why goodness knows because reading this book reveals a series of near disasters.
Duncan has been almost everywhere, cave diving in New Zealand, America, France, Mendip, Yorkshire etc. Each trip was an adventure in itself, low on air, valves leaking, ropes and straps being caught up. Then there is the complication of the gases used in diving. Oxygen down to 6 metres, air down to 40 metres, then onto a mixture of air and helium. The latter would be fatal on the surface. But that is just going down. Coming back up frequent stops are made to rid the body tissues of nitrogen. Then a long stop at -6 metres on oxygen, length of time depending on depth. Would you trust a computer? I don?t. I am always surprised when mine fires up in the morning. So how about a rebreather. Runs on three mini computers and uses the caustic soda lime to scrub the exhaled air which will be used again.
But this is not an instruction book. It is an full of amusing and not so amusing anecdotes, like the time he found a tick in his willy and the cave diver who went to Wookey 24 and let the air out of a rival?s bottle so he could pirate the dive. Worth reading is the account of an escape from beneath a stately home.
The book is concluded with a glossary of cave diving terms. Some might say that Duncan shows a degree of irresponsibility in his cave diving exploits. Read this book and decided for yourself.
TO