Community
Faces of Diving
Canada-based commercial photographer Benoit Bruhmuller captures the intensity, anticipation and joy of the diving life as expressed in the faces of fellow aquatic souls plying Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway and surrounding waters.
Photos: Benoit Bruhmuller Text: Andreanne Lapointe-Aubert. Design & layout: Amanda White.
Why are you here? You are not like me. We have nothing much in common, really.
Overexcited brainiac. Sloth-like dreamer. Mechanic, pneumologist, beautician and veteran.
Some wanting to lead, others to follow. Each on our own secret quest.
Her, thrilled by the prospect of unearthing lost treasures.
Him, taming deep-seated fears.
Them, chasing freedom.
What a motley bunch of weirdos, yet here we are.
Out where nothing else matters but the water, the silence, the slowness.
Mentors, buddies and students becoming unlikely accomplices.
Being vulnerable, lending a hand, hyping each other up.
Boundaries melting, trust developing, some strange alchemy going on.
Smelly neoprene, water-logged shore lunches and shared adventures forming unbreakable bonds.
Snotty noses. Salty eyebrows. Mask indented foreheads. Beaming smiles and that twinkle in our eye.
Mismatched on the surface, kindred deep down. Different but the same.
We are divers.
Globe-Trotting photographer based in Quebec City Canada, Benoit Bruhmuller splits his time between creating ad campaigns and diving. Always on the hunt for unique experiences, he captures images that pique the imagination. Currently working on his GUE T1 certification, he is planning his upcoming expedition on the Empress of Ireland wreck in the cold dark waters of the St. Lawrence River.
Community
GUE 25 Anniversary Conference Round Up
Global Underwater Explorers held a conference to commemorate the organization’s 25th anniversary. Held at GUE headquarters in High Springs, Florida, where it was founded by a group of cave divers founded in 1998, the organization convened instructors and divers from all over the world to recall the people and diving technologies that shaped GUE, how they’ve changed over time, and how they’ll evolve in the future.
In addition to celebrating the occasion, GUE convened speakers to present on topics related to its three biggest priorities: Exploration, Education, Conservation.
Shipwreck explorer Mario Arena, for example, gave a presentation on the “Battle of Convoys in the Mediterranean,” his 16-year project discovering and documenting dozens of shipwrecks left behind by the three-year-long battle during World War II and how his team is bringing the wrecks back to life using new technologies.
Cave explorers Fred Devos, Julien Fortin, and Sam Meacham gave a presentation on their efforts to document Ox Bel Ha, the largest underwater cave system in Mexico, a project which is concurrently celebrating its 25th anniversary. The project started out with, as Meacham called it, “two chainsaws, a compressor, and a horse,” and has begun to resurvey 144 square miles of caves with advances in diving equipment. Advances as simple as upgrades to lightbulbs and batteries, for example, enable the explorers to see through new passages.
Bill Stone, a cave explorer and head of Stone Aerospace, discussed “Recent Advances in Machine Exploration,” chronically how he’s used machines to explore underwater caves farther than any human. Stone’s autonomous drone, called Sunfish, uses sonar mapping to produce 3D maps and models deeper than photogrammetry divers can dive.
Ulrik Juul Christensen, a founder and chairman of Bonaire’s Area9 Mastery Diving Research Center, is developing an adaptive learning education platform for GUE and has spent about as much time as the organization has been in existence building education technologies. Christensen’s talk, “Learning That Matters,” focused on how to create new systems to help educate learners at their own pace so that knowledge, and not speed, is the priority.
In a complementary presentation, Sean Talamas, a managing partner and executive coach at leadership development consulting firm, discussed “The Depth of Character: Cultivating Grit, and a Growth Mindset.” The presentation focused on research by Angela Duckworth suggesting success is not achieved through talent, but a combination of passion and persistence she called “grit.”
GUE Instructor Trainer Andrea Marassich gave a presentation on “Building Capacity for Extreme Explorations” about the Sa Conca e Locoli Cave Project in Sardinia, Italy. Learning, he suggested, happens when you go out of your comfort zone, but not all the way to what he called the “panic zone,” where you are overwhelmed to the point that you don’t learn but instead shut down and it becomes extremely dangerous.” “You need a mentor,” Marassich said. “Someone who knows you enough to push you when you need to be pushed and pull back when you need to pull back.”
These were just a few of the education- and exploration-focused presentations. Speakers also included Blue Green Expeditions Managing Partner Faith Ortins on how divers can support environmentally conscious destinations, Peter Gaertner on citizen science conducted in the Caves of Gulf of Orosei project, Daniel Ortego on the Marine Genome Project, and Neal W. Pollock on the physiological limitations of technology in diving.
Max Deco & Bubble Trouble entertained conference attendees at the Friday night social with a pre-dive playlist of classic rock. Band members: John Kendall vocals, Gary Franklin vocals, Bill Stone lead guitar, Andrew Dow guitar, Francesco Cameli bass, Michael Menduno bass, Jason Cook drums.
DIVE DEEPER
You can find the full conference photo album here.
InDEPTH: GUE’s 25th Anniversary Timeline-Picturing 25 years of Global Underwater Explorers.
InDEPTH: Twenty-five Years in the Pursuit of Excellence – The Evolution and Future of GUE
