Walt Stearns

One of my favorites from latest summer's Goliath grouper spawning aggregation off Jupiter Florida.

As a SDI/TDI Instructor, all I have to say is that Self Reliant Diver Course is for better words the appropriate description/title for what the course entails be it SDI/TDI, SSI or now PADI. No matter whether you are in the water alone, with a buddy, or even surrounded by 20 other divers, you are still better off with the knowledge gained through proper training in how to be more self reliant.

Day in, day out, the first person you can rely most on is yourself.

I am glad to hear you made it out O.K., but am also shocked about your decision to venture into a cave at Vortex Spring as you did.
This is not a question about solo diving, or that much on carrying the type of redundancy outlined for solo diving. This is an issue of diving in a overhead environment.

The majority of divers who die in the cave systems are not certified cave divers, but recreational divers venturing beyond what they are trained for.

Most recreational divers, as you have I am sure, like to go into the cavern portion of a cave. To clarify, a cavern is typically a larger, more open portion of a cave passage where the exit point is clearly visible - due to ambient light coming in through the entrance. When cavern diving, at no time in the dive should the exit no longer be clearly visible from the diver. Once you reach a penetration point where that is no longer the case, you are now in a cave environment. This same rule very much applies to cavern environments when surface clarity is so badly compromised from silt, mud or tannin in the water that sunlight penetration is blocked out (as I was able to see in your video), meaning you where well beyond a point you should have been.

Count your self very lucky my friend, for doing something very stupid.

I apologize for being coarse in my statement, but want to be sure that my point is understood.

I had a look at the Nauticam prototype housing for the RED, looks very interesting. My one concern, is there may not be enough air space inside the housing for the camera's cooling fan to do its job efficiently, as this camera can generate heat even in standby mode.

Max, what is the story on the grey reef sharks there. I could not help but notice that there were hardly any about. When visited Ragiroa in the very early 1990's they were the most prevalent thing in schools more numrous than barracuda you have in the video, which by the way had good stuff.