The death has been reported of US cave-diver Bill Gavin at the age of 65. He was co-founder of the prominent Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP), set up in the mid-1980s to explore beneath the north Florida karst area between Tallahassee and the Gulf of Mexico.
“Bill was a world-class innovator working diligently to help Bill Main perfect the Hogarthian gear configuration, utilise Tekna scooters with a tow-leash for exploration, implement gas-blending standards for the WKPP’s use of trimix, and devise early decompression tables the team would use throughout the late 1980s,” said the WKPP in a statement.
Gavin, a US Navy engineer, was cave-certified in 1979 and, with his friend Main, discovered the Big Rooms feature in the Woodville Karst Plain area in the early 1980s.
The two divers, soon joined by others such as Parker Turner, Lamar English and Bill McFaden, wanted their research and exploration group to focus on linking flooded cave systems in the region, and Gavin consulted gas expert Dr Bill Hamilton about using helium to facilitate more ambitious dives.
The divers had already been moving towards standardising their equipment configuration and techniques, and Gavin and Main coined the term ‘Hogarthian’ for the system (based on Main’s middle name). The approach would later develop into the DIR (‘Doing It Right’) philosophy.
Gavin Scooter
The two men established a connection between the Sullivan and Cheryl sinks in January 1988 and, with Turner and English, carried out the traverse dive between those two sinks that June, setting a world record at the time.
Gavin had “gone on to explore downstream Innisfree sink and pushed on towards Turner sink in the early 1990s,” says the WKPP. He also penetrated some 1.8km into Wakulla Spring’s A-tunnel.
In 1991 Gavin developed a prototype for the “Gavin Scooter“, a DPV designed for negotiating cave passages. This long continued to be used, with various modifications, by WKPP divers.
That same year Gavin had been mapping caves in a narrow passageway in Indian Springs with Turner when the water level and visibility suddenly fell sharply and they found their exit blocked. Gavin was able to force his way out, with little gas remaining, but Turner drowned in the incident.
The experience inspired scientific research that concluded that the divers’ expelled gas bubbles had been capable of bringing down the loose limestone that had blocked their exit route.
Tedium of politics
In 1995 the controversial diver George Irvine took charge of the WKKP, and by the end of that year Gavin had stopped cave-diving.
Years later he explained that he had stopped enjoying the pastime because of the “tedium of politics, issues of site-access, the irritation of email name-calling and criticism etc. It had ceased to be worth the considerable time, effort and risk.”
“Bill was a pioneer in deep underwater cave exploration. He was well-respected in the diving community and he implemented many of the early standards that the WKPP still utilises to this day,” stated the WKPP. “Thank you for your contributions to our diving longevity. Our hearts go out to his family and friends.”
Also on Divernet: The Technical Diving Revolution – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
