BOYD UNDER PRESSURE
B TUNNEL

Objective: Prepare EXPLORER host Boyd Matson to dive with the crew at Wakulla and capture his training on tape.

Boyd has been in wet spots before, but he has never dived to depths below 100 feet (30 meters), and never in a place where he couldn’t swim straight for the surface in a pinch. He needs to get some skills. Boyd heads to Ginnie Springs, near Gainesville, for cave dive training—Fin Camp.

It wouldn’t be school without lectures 61>>—on technique, on safety, on cave dive etiquette. Boyd drinks coffee and takes copious notes—yes, he will be quizzed on this.

Boyd’s instructor runs a cord through a jungle gym and instructs him to follow the line, like a cave diver following a guideline back to daylight. Clock running, Boyd clambers past swing sets and under a wooden fort with Simon in hot pursuit. Time: about 90 seconds.

Again, but with eyes closed 21>>. Time: about five minutes.

The take-home message: If you kick up sand on your way in the cave, you’ll obscure your vision for the trip out. There’s an excellent chance that you won’t make it. Producer Simon Boyce records a warning 98>> about the many who didn’t.

The real test is in the water. Day after day, Boyd dons a wetsuit 53>> for an escalating series of underwater challenges. With videographer Wes Skiles on hand 62>> to film it all, Boyd swims upstream through tight rock funnels with powerful currents gushing past, through narrow passageways where tanks and knees scrape against the walls, through opaque water where the guide rope disappears in a cloud of sand.

At the end, when he reaches Wakulla, Boyd is ready 76>>.

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Objective: Film a successful deep-cave mission.

Team divers Jill Heinerth and Mark Meadows prepare for an assault on B Tunnel 28>> with the digital wall mapper. Though extending the 3-D map is their first goal, Jill could set a new woman’s record for farthest underwater cave exploration. Simon wants to capture the human drama of this highly technical expedition, and his story may hinge on the success or failure of this dive.

As project leader Bill Stone explains the mission to EXPLORER host Boyd Matson 2>>, Jill answers e-mail 45>> and packs what she’ll need 7>> for long hours in the decompression chamber. Suited up for the mission 87>>, Jill resembles an astronaut, though space is a more hospitable environment than the place where she and fellow diver Mark Meadows are headed.

The shoot is as involved as the mission. Boyd will act as underwater correspondent, narrating events to videographer Wes Skiles (and the EXPLORER audience) as the exploration divers begin their mission, and again as they complete it. So Wes’s team must be in position with lights and cameras, ready for action. The team huddles 52>> to iron out the plan.

Finally, Mark steers the mapper into the abyss and the mission is on. From the edge of the diving platform, producer Simon Boyce and associate producer Kevin Krug eavesdrop 20>> on Boyd and Wes getting the shot in the waters beneath them. The mission goes as planned—five hours of “bottom time” to the end of the B Tunnel survey line and back. Bill’s crew winches up the diving bell and hoists it 16>> into position.

There follows a long night 30>> of decompression. Simon’s got his story in the can.

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