Hi from San Diego

[andrewgeorgitsis]

My name is Andrew Georgitsis, I am the owner of a Scuba Diving Training agency called Unified Team Diving. Our website is unifiedteamdiving.com. We do education and training for exploration of Wrecks and Caves throughout the world. I have dove and explored many caves throughout Mexico and Florida and am always looking to dive something new. I personally am interested in Mines as they seem to be a combination of man made history (same as wrecks) and caves. I am looking for some "local" flooded mines in Southern Western USA, (CA, UT, NV and so on) and would be interested in exploring and diving them.

Andrew

[Mike]

Welcome to the site Andrew,
There are MANY flooded mines around the western US. I can think of a few here in Utah, a few in Cali, and a few in Arizona - all of which are VERY large mines. I've always wanted to dive mines myself. Its dangerous and extremely technical, but if you have the experience and the nerve for it, I think it would be amazing.

[KDT1970]

The room above the Blue Room in Ophir Hill Would be very cool to see photoed and possible recorded.

[rhartill]

I agree that the Ophir Hill flooded incline off the Blue Room would be a nice dive. Have you ever heard of a group called the International Association of Gold Divers? It existed in the early 1970s and was a small group that dove in old mines in CA. I have lost contact with them, and have an honorary membership card with them. Welcome to MU!

[ExpUt]

Welcome to MU.

Would love to hear more about your mine/cave diving pursuits. My instructor here in Utah is a professional cave/mine diver and has done some mines for government agencies, water tanks, pipelines, etc. He had some neat stories to tell of his diving adventures. My wife and I did some cenote diving in the Yucatan area, amazing.

[andrewgeorgitsis]

Guys

Thanks a lot for the welcome. We, UTD would be very interested in putting together a small "beta" project on the Ophir Hill flooded incline off the Blue Room. This sounds like a great start to a collaboration. I have a team that consist of many members from all over, but specifically I was thinking we could bring 1 from Colorado, GKW and then myself and one form LA. We are all fully cave certified and have explored many cave systems throughout Mexico (http://www.unifiedteamdiving.com/group/thepitproject?). We are also all rebreather and side-mount and no mount certified. Again this would allow us to access passageways that require no tanks on you. Simply being able to crawl through the smallest areas. We also would have full underwater HD video and lightning as well as Nikon 200 photo abilities.

So, I would be very interested in putting a date on the books and get it solidified.

Andrew
BTW IS you dive instructor Randy Thornton?

[Mike]

Unfortunately the Ophir Hill is not accessible at this time. I could put in a request for accesses, but the chances of having the request approved are very slim.

[ExpUt]

...BTW IS you dive instructor Randy Thornton?

No, though I know who Randy is. He owns a dive shop in Draper (Dive Addicts) where my wife and I have purchased some of our gear. I've never done any training with Dive Addicts but my FIL and BIL did all their training with them and have since been on some of their planned trips too.

The gentleman I was referring to is named 'Lindsey' and I can't for the life of me remember his last name. He was teaching the community college course through a company called Sport Cove that has since gone out of business. He did our open water classes and we certified at the Homestead resort in Midway, UT in 04 or 05?, I'll have to dig out my dive book. My wife and I have since taken a couple of other classes, receiving our Deep Diver and Boat Diver certs. Our instructor for that was Darrell Noorda, he is a commercial diver that works in the Gulf of Mexico but maintains a residence here in Utah. While we don't get too many opportunities to dive we have been able to dive in Mexico, Hawaii and Australia.

[mike660]

Hi. I also live near San Diego and have caved and explored mines sence the mid 1960s. I am a life member of the NSS and love old mines. A word of caution about diving in flooded mines. I am sure you already know of this, but it is never bad to talk about what may be a over looked danger. In flooded mines or any mine that has a high water content, timbers and other organic material rot and give off CO2. Over time this gas displaces oxygen and is refered to as bad air. A while ago, a cave/mine diver entered a mine north of us which was sumped to the roof and came out on the other side into what seemed a clear and air filled tunnel. The problem was that air only contained about 4% oxygen. I understand that with oxygen levels that low, one breath can cause almost instanious blackout. This is what happened. He removed his regulator and blacked out and died. I always carry a O2 monitor for all mine exploration. Like I said, you most likely already know of that danger, but I wanted to add my 2 cents.

Mike

[Joanne]

Andrew,

Welcome to the forum! I used to be a very active diver, but it's now been a few years. I worked up through Dive Master and did a lot of warm and cold water diving. I really wanted to get trained up for technical diving but I just couldn't justify the time and money. By the time I could do it, I was well past my physical prime.

Still I spent years following the exploits of the Wakulla Springs and Dos Ojos exploration, deep wreck diving off Jersey, and the exploits of Exley and Bowden. It's a bit ironic that many of those "outlaws" developed the techniques that are standard procedures today. I remember all of the certifying agencies loudly condemning the activities of "non recreational" divers...now they offer classes in it.

Your project sounds like a very interesting undertaking. I hope that you will be shooting video when you go. I would love to see footage of your dives.

For those who have never seen a video of underwater mine exploring, here's an interesting video from Germany: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToS0-I2dPUg

Anyway, welcome to the forum! Hope to hear more of your exploits.

Joanne

[miner49r]

@Joanne: That is an incredible video. The clarity of the water and video is amazing. What a mine - and the plastic skeleton is an interesting touch!