The sage continues

[peter k]

(Lifted from the Decostop)


From Bill Gavin…

I'd like to thank everyone on The Deco Stop for allowing Lamar and me to post our side of the story. The response has been very positive and I guess the story needed to be told. I'm just sorry for the circumstances that forced us to do it. BTW, you seem to have a very civil and useful list. It's a lot better than the ones I recall from a decade ago.

I'll respond briefly to George's latest posts. Also, I just finished reading George's account of Parker's death, which I never knew he had written. This guy has a rich fantasy life. Half of what is there is pure fabrication. If I told you what I think of this piece of work right now, well you probably wouldn't post it. I'll leave it at this. George has a severe personality disorder. His history is well known. His behavior is clear enough indication of someone whose cookies are either not quite done in the center or way burnt.

The person I remember spending the most time in that deco trough with was Lamar. I can remember the joke he told me to try to cheer me up, but good taste prevents me from sharing it with you here. All that stuff George said about how he found me, tied a line to me, couldn't get me to move, etc., is pure fiction designed to make him look like a hero. I was on the line, headed to the deco trough, trying to ascend as slowly as possible since I had no idea what deco schedule to follow. He did run a spider web of lines through the cavern, which were useless and hazardous. Anyone that wanted to find Parker's body had only to look directly above his tanks. How far from them could he be in a dry suit with no weights?

George and I made several trips to Mexico together and they were great fun. It was not however, the first time I had been. My first trip to Mexico and the first time I met Parker was when we were flown there, along with Steve Gerrard, on a private jet to assist with a double body recovery. That was some of the nastiest cave diving I have ever done, with the ceiling falling on us regularly, the halocline making visibility awful and the eerie nature of what we were doing. I had to recover the body of a 12-year-old boy who was wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. I got off the line in zero vis trying to bring that kid out and had to just sit there and wait for Gerrard to come back and find me. I couldn't let go of the body for fear of losing it and I couldn't find the line though it was only five feet away. Absolutely grim. The best thing about that trip was that it began a friendship with Parker that remains one of the most special I have ever had. Sometimes you just click with someone.

There are a few more things I want to address regarding the latest from George. First, I never told him "Main will leave you". There must have been some huge miscommunication for him to think I said that. George obviously hates Main (and all of us) because we don't worship at his altar. This guy is trying harder for a legacy than Bill Clinton, but the only one he'll ever get will be tainted by his attacks on former friends. I'll take friends like Main and English any day versus someone who will stab you in the back to push his own agenda. Second, he implies I am lying (or senile) about the distance I went in Wakulla. Lamar and I agree that the last dive he and I and George did in Wakulla ended at about 6500 feet from the entrance. Sheck died in Mexico soon after this and Lamar quit. He and I both agree that I made a few more dives in Wakulla. I recall the last dive ending at around 7700 feet from the entrance. I never exaggerated a dive - I never had to. George then says that we went 9000 feet into upstream Cheryl instead of the 8000 feet that I stated. Geez, first I'm adding a thousand feet, then I'm subtracting a thousand feet? Whatever. I stand by my first statements.

Regarding his passing mention of the fact that we were all diving air the day that Bill McFaden died - remember this was 1988 and we had just begun to use Trimix for some dives. Prior to this there had been only a couple mixed gas cave dives in Florida that I was aware of. One was Court Smith and Lewis Holtzendorff in 1975 using heliox. Holtentzendorff died on this dive from oxygen toxicity during decompression. The second was Dale Sweet on heliox in downstream DiePolder #2 (1980). He ended that line at a depth of around 350 feet and put a laminated American flag there. In those days the expression was, "If you think you're a real man, go salute the flag". Years later we would add a few hundred feet to that line, but at the time Sweet did his dive, it was unparalleled. In 1988, no one else was doing mixed gas cave dives and no one had done any on Trimix, at least not to our knowledge. Every dive that we did required custom mix and custom tables, which were not cheap. We were developing new rules for ourselves, literally making it up as we went along. I don't know that McFaden's death on air was the reason we started doing more and more mixed gas dives. I think that process was already underway. Right or wrong, we at least had experience with air decompression. Trimix was the great unknown. We weren't sure if we could trust the tables for a long time. We were lucky to hook up with Dr. Bill Hamilton, whom I had met at work. However, those first several dives using unproven tables were dicey. Parker used to say he "felt like someone should be shoving lettuce at us through the cage bars". We were definitely Guinea Pigs of a sort.

George callously implies that Sherwood was an alcoholic and/or drug addict. Though Sherwood had a past history of problems with alcohol, there was no indication of any abuse at the time of his death. In fact, we recently checked with Major Donnie Crum of the Wakulla County Sheriff's Department. He was the chief investigating officer in the case of Sherwood's death. He remembers it and told us that the toxicology tests from Sherwood's autopsy were negative. In fact, with his permission, he said, “In Sherwood’s case, like any other drowning, an autopsy was performed. His toxicology screen showed no indication of ANY drugs or alcohol in his body. If there had been, you wouldn’t be asking this now, because our investigation would have focused more on that information and I can assure you that you both would have remembered our interrogation.” And, we wouldn’t have let Sherwood dive with us if we believed that he had a substance abuse problem.

George said he made a mistake by diving with me for so long. Well, as recently as 1998, he was trying to get me to come back and dive Wakulla with him. There are plenty of witnesses to that. One day you're this guy’s best friend and the next day you aren't worth a shit and never were worth a shit. Loyalty is not in this guy’s vocabulary. How many people that he used to dive with and profess to admire has he slammed lately? Once he doesn’t need you for something you are absolutely unimportant to him. Anyone who puts his or her trust in him above or below water does so at their own risk.

George acts like he invented all this DIR stuff, but he's still diving the scooter I designed, still diving the same basic light design that Lamar and I came up with (which in itself was based on Bob Goodman's design) and still using a gear configuration that is 90% or more derived from Hogarthian techniques that Bill Main and I came up with, along with help from folks like English and Flanagan (who invented the back plate almost everyone uses today). We pioneered the use of Trimix, the use of Argon for inflating our dry suits, the methods for surveying using DPVs and the use of Nitrox and Oxygen for decompression (a thank you to Bill Hamilton). George’s only innovation has been to force everyone to dive HID lights with expensive and fragile bulbs. The only reason he has been able to go so far in Wakulla is the use of rebreathers and ridiculous quantities of stage bottles. I designed rebreathers for over ten years and I know a little too much about what happens when they fail. I have the dubious distinction of being the only Navy qualified civilian diver to be dragged from the bottom of the NEDU test pool unconscious after a rebreather failure. CPR and several hours in a recompression chamber followed that event and made me reluctant to pursue their use in caves. I'm not saying anyone shouldn't use them, but that was my choice. When an open circuit regulator fails you switch to a back-up. When a rebreather fails you pass out from lack of oxygen or convulse from too much of it – generally fatal if you are cave diving at the time.

Given the willingness to use rebreathers and to subject our bodies to the extreme exposures of many hours at 300 FSW we could easily duplicate any dive George has ever done. They've done some impressive dives in Wakulla, but George would have never gotten access to Wakulla without me. I wrote the proposal that got us in the door and believe me, if I had used the kind of language George was throwing around in his e-mail posts at the time we would have been thrown off the property.

I would apologize for venting, but this guy just won’t quit. He is trying to rewrite cave diving history but, senile or not, a lot of us remember a different version than he would like to peddle.

Maybe we will write that book some day, but for now this will address the issues at hand.

Thanks again for all the support.

Sincerely,
Bill Gavin

[Mark Chase]

If GI3 is trying to make his mark in history he is doing it the wrong way. My hero Jacuse Caustow (god knows how to spell it) was the perfict gentlman in public and a humble speeker. It was years before I discovered what an arogent SOB he was and some of the stunts he pulled were awful. (Including using human blood to atract sharks aledgedly)

With JC you had to dig below the surface to find out he was a bit of a git but with GI3 you have to dig below the surface to find out he is not.

He's definatly not DIR in the self promotion steaks

Perhaps he should hire Max Clifford

Mark Chase

[MATTBIN]

So on one side of the ring we have Bil Gavin and in the other George Irvine, both slagging each other off.
They both do the DIR cause no good at all.
Just my opinion, that's all.

[Dominic]

I begin to understand why GI3 has decided to stop being an active 'net poster.. he either has to admit he's been lying or keep trying to convince everybody that Bill Main, Bill Gavin et al are ALL lying.

Smart move to leave it as "They're all talking garbage, and I'm not going to talk any more"

[TDave]

For those interested, this was George's (slightly indirect) response to that, sent to Scott Hunsucker as well as the the DIRQuest mailing list.

Scott, maybe you could post my response to this. Looks like Bill is into the "name calling" that he claims he dislikes. He still is deluding himself. Bill never did any 7700 foot dives in Wakulla. His last dive was the 6500. Casey McKinlay, Jarrod Jablonski and I added to the end of the 6500 line and it ended at 7500. Brent Scarabin, Rick Sankey and I T'd off of that line into O Tunnel and took it to 7700 on the first dive beyond that point. JJ, Brent and I took it out past 10,000 feet on the next dive , on OPEN CIRCUIT, not rebreather. We did another OC dive out there, as well as several others filling in side tunnels before we went to rebreather. Bill did design rebreathers, and was instrumental in teaching me what will not work in rebreathers so that I was able to recognize what would work, and that is why I asked Robert Carmichael to pay him to help us improve the one we had. My personal rebreather still has the mouthpiece designed by Bill - very nice work, thank you, Bill. I do appreciate and always give credit to Bill for everything he taught me.

Bill is all upset that I threw his pal Main under the bus, but the fact is his pal Main tried to go after my best friend. While Lamar English was my friend, Bill Gavin was not and I don't mind throwing him under the bus along with Main. Bill Gavin was my dive partner and I took that seriously and did my part as well as it can be done. However, I asked Bill Main privately to keep his nonsense to himself and not screw up my players, and he took it personally. Ten years later he comes out of the trailer and vents his resentment on JJ.

Gavin is really stretching the Sherwood thing to the limit. Sherwood was not drinking and diving, he was in a bad mental state due to drinking and drugging. I explained this to Bill, and Bill decided that his little dives were the most important thing, no matter who got whacked. The guy built himself a Gavin scooter and then let his "friend" Parker dive a freaking 3x Tekna. He did not want to build scooters for anyone and merely handed me the drawings and let me do it. I footed the bill to build them so all my dive partners would have them. Now he is complaining.

Bill got a short term permit for a few dives at Wakulla ( 2 each of setups, dives and cleanups). He showed for the 2 dives only.  I got us a two year permit for starters, and since then we have had ongoing permits. Bill  went to the National Forest and told them he was the famous Bill Gavin. Since that did not mean anything to them, they told him what was required. Bill told me to handle it. I got us a long term MOU and a series of 5 year permits. I got St Joe to give us access to everything. I got the Wildlife Refuge to give us access to everything. I did what Parker wanted and dreamed we could get done.

When Bill turned over the reins of the WKPP there were four members, no permits and no access to anything. It is a little different now, and what has been developed since his retirement is recognized everywhere. Bill was a great diver, and I use him as an example of certain good things all the time. I also will not hesitate to point out his mistakes so that hopefully we never make them again. If I had the things happen to me that happened to Bill diving, I guarantee I would have quite a lot sooner than he did. What Bill really hates about me is that diving is nothing but a hobby and a fun thing for me, and I have so many other things going in my life that I hardly have time for it. Like I told Bill when he got on me about my "ego" one day, "Bill, my ego has nothing to do with diving".

[Ben Harris]

<font color='#8D38C9'>I thought they were all mates, sounds worse than divernet!