[ad_1]

Chief underwater photographer, Randall Purdy, of Kearney, Neb., flexes his camera in preparation for a dive into Roaring River Spring Saturday morning, while teammate Gayle Orner, of Madison, Wis., looks on. Sheila Harris/Special to The Monett Times

KISS team has 10 dives planned this year

With renewed permits from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the KISS Rebreathers dive team, based in Fort Smith, Ark., returned to Roaring River State Park recently for their first dive of the season into Roaring River Spring.

At about 89 cubic feet per second (CFS), the water flow from the spring was too high to permit passage through the restriction that exists at a depth of 225 feet, so the team focused their efforts on collecting more survey data of the cavern above the restriction.

“We also shot some more underwater footage for the documentaries that are being created,” said Mike Young, KISS Rebreathers CEO and head diver.

Although winter weather does not affect the temperature of the water in the spring, which stays at about 57 degrees year-round, Young admits the surface temperatures, which were in the mid-20s on the Saturday of the dive, were miserable.

“It’s more comfortable to put on the necessary insulation and diving gear on cold days than it is on hot days,” Young said. “But since there’s a certain amount of time that needs to be spent on the surface preparing to dive, there was still plenty of time to get cold.”

The KISS Rebreathers broke a national depth-record by diving 472 feet into the spring in November 2021. Although two previous dive teams had explored the upper cavern directly below the water’s surface – one team in 1979 and another in the early 1990s — due to bulky SCUBA equipment, they were unable to pass through the restriction that exists at

a depth of 225 feet sub-surface. Because KISS (Keep It Super Simple) team members use rebreathers, a compact form of breathing equipment which scrubs the CO2 from the exhaled air of the divers and allows them to re-use the oxygen, they were able to penetrate that restriction last year.

What they initially discovered was a second cavern so large that no walls nor floor could be found. A few yards beyond the restriction, the ceiling, too, disappeared.

“It’s scary big in there,” Young said at the time of that dive.

Chief underwater photographer, Randall Purdy, of Kearney, Neb., says the cavern below the restriction could easily house a 40-story building.

After monthly weekend diving explorations made throughout 2021, no “bottom,” nor the location of the water source for the spring, has yet been found.

“Based on the narrowing and stepping down of the walls and the lack of floating silt, it looks like we might be approaching the tunnel for the water source,” Young said after a November dive. “There’s still plenty more cave down there to explore, though.”

That exploration is not solely for the purpose of attaining new depths. Mapping the caverns is also part of the team’s agenda, as well as the creation of documentaries: a shorter one for use in the Ozark Chinquapin Nature Center and a longer version to prospectively be available to the public, pending the approval of park officials.

The documentaries are being produced by Tim Bass of TL Bass Telepicture, of Bentonville, Ark.

Diver/Cartographer Jon Lillestolen, of Blacksburg, Va., is heading up efforts to remap the sub-surface area of Roaring River Cave. With the assistance of team members, Lillestolen uses an intricate system of ropes knotted at 10-foot intervals for the initial survey of the caverns. Manual notes are made below the water, then later transcribed into a computer. With the help of satellite technology, mapped replicas of the cave’s underwater footprint can then be created.

While the water flow remains high – typical with spring rains – Young said the KISS team will continue to focus on mapping efforts above the restriction.

“We’ll start measuring beyond the simple plot lines we started with and measure upward, downward and diagonally from those lines to create a more three-dimensional image or model of the cave,” he said.

With added data Lillestolen hopes to soon have a 3-D map available for the park’s use.

This year, with permission from the DNR, the divers are welcoming two underwater habitats to their dives. While not quite a second home, the habitats will provide sub-surface rest stops for the divers.

“They’re made of hard plastic,” Young said. “We place them against a ceiling of the cave, then inflate them. There’s room inside for our upper bodies, and we’re able to eat, drink, communicate and quit using tanked air for a bit.”

Young says the habitats will come in handy during required decompression time, Young’s least favorite part of diving. “Boring,” he calls it.

“We decompress for one minute at a depth of 190 feet, for one minute at 180 feet and for another minute at 170 feet,” Young said. “When we get up to just 10 feet below the surface, we have to spend one hour and ten minutes decompressing. That’s when an underwater habitat will come in handy.”

Young says the KISS Rebreathers keep a full diving schedule every year, with dives planned in many locations worldwide.

Because individual divers hail from many different parts of the country, even the world, scheduling dates for dives is challenging.

“We schedule dives way ahead of time every year,” Young said. “That’s why we’ll stick to the 2022 dates we have planned for Roaring River dives, no matter what the weather’s doing. It’s too complicated to change dates at the last minute.”

Dives into Roaring River Spring in 2022 are scheduled for Feb. 10-13; March 10-13; April 7-10; May 19-22; June 9-12; July 7-10; Aug. 18-21; Sept. 15-18; Oct. 13-16; and Nov. 10-13.

Joel Topham, Roaring River State Park natural resources manager, is excited to see the KISS Rebreathers returning for another season.

“With everything they accomplished last year, I look forward to seeing what more they can do this year,” Topham said.

Topham is excited about the mapping work the divers are doing, but also looks forward to learning what lies below the 472-foot depth they descended to last year.

“I’m in awe of what they do,” Topham said. “I don’t know how the human body can tolerate it. When I think of ‘deep diving,’ I always think of people diving from tankers in the middle of the ocean, so I’m really honored that this team is able to do a different style of depth-diving right here in our park.”

According to Missouri State Park statistics, Roaring River — with 1.9 million visitors — was the most-visited state park in 2021. Topham attributes part of that popularity to the presence of the KISS Rebreathers.

Adblock test (Why?)

[ad_2]

Source link