Ouroboros and Sentinel Instructor - July 2009

I am pleased to announce that as of now I am able to conduct rebreather training on both the Ouroboros and Sentinel Closed Circuit Rebreathers. Having just completed my Instructor evaluations with factory trainer Phil Short. Phil flew out to Pro-Tech and spent two weeks putting me through my paces on these fantastic units. Anyone interested to test dive or take a class should contact me at info@tech-ccr.com

NEW Pro-Tech Dive College

The last six months has been very hectic here in Phuket, as we have been working hard to build our new state of the art technical diving facility based in the south of Phuket in Chalong the area for all diving departures here in Phuket. The purpose built center boasts multi media classrooms full nitrox/trimix blending system, fully stocked showroom and dedicated rebreather centre with booster pump, consumable and units to learn on. The last 6 years has seen Pro-Tech establish itself as Phuket premier Technical Diving facility and having trained over 1000 technical students we are able to take our training to the next level with the new centre aiding support. We would like to thank all of you, who visited us in the last six years and look forward to welcoming you to our new centre,

Southern Cave Exploration with Pim Van Der Horst.

Having just returned from another great week of cave diving I am happy to report condition in both Song Hong and Sra keaw caves were fantastic. We headed of first to explore some dry systems on route to the infamous deep sink visiting Temple cave and Tam saryaung cave close to Krabi. Initial build up dives were conducted in Sra keaw, to ensure our equipment was all functioning, as it should. Both Pim and I were using ISC Megalodon Rebreathers diving profiles generated by the new Liqavision X1 V-Planner software. It was also our first opportunity to test out the Vcam video system.

All equipment functioning and divers in top form we journeyed 2 hrs south of Krabi to execute a series of deep dive to further explore the sink dives were conducted to a maximum depth of 100m with dives being conducted in new passages. All dives went according to plan I cannot wait to get back to dive in this amazing system some more.

Song Hong Cave, Expedition Oct 2008

Song Hong Cave, Trang, Thailand.


Technical Divers Mathew Partridge and Dr Michael Gadd have successfully located and dived the Song Hong Sink located in the Trang region of southern Thailand. The expedition started on Sunday 7th October with blending, logistics and dive planning taking up the first part of the day. We then took a further two days to locate the sink, The location is somewhat remote and not on any maps locally found locally or on the internet, We visited several areas over a 48 hrs period were we believed the site maybe but to no avail. Finally on our last day of this planned trip we gained knowledge from a local source who provided us with rough directions. Having already searched around in this area we had high hopes that we would find the site and we did. The pool is located in a very remote part of Trang around 2hrs from Krabi were nobody speaks English, No English road signs but lots of Police boxes, schools and yellow bus stops (a personal joke to remind me of the struggle to locate this place). On arriving at the destination we were greeted by locals who described as best they could through mixed communication were the caves entrances were. The main entrance is located directly in font of were we managed to park the pickup enabling us to enter without to much difficulty. A second entrance is believed to be only a short distance away leading into the main cave entrance. Locals spoke of a river around 2 km away being the source so linear penetration of the cave could be extensive


Our dive plans were to 130m with a bottom time of 26min including decent. Mike
was the first to dive the cave as I provided support and then we switched roles. Our goal for this trip was to locate and gain an orientation of the cave for a future Expedition sometime early 2008. Mike descended to the bottom of the pool at the caves entrance to a maximum depth of 105m using his Ouroborous Rebreather, Mathew penetrated the cave to a maximum depth of 74m using an ISC Megalodon Rebreather. The visibility all the way down and inside the entrance is excellent and conditions are good, the passage way leading into the cave started around 26m and is extremely wide. Water temperature is an excellent 26 degrees in the deep and 29 degrees in the shallows. Our dives finished just as it started to get dark on the last day of our trip so all round a successful, stressful and eventful few days leaving us craving for more.

We plan to return to this site equipped with scooters a support team, and extensive logistics early 2008 with a view to survey the cave and its second entrance.

We would like to thank One- stop- dive, Krabi Thailand and the staff at Pro-Tech Dive College in Phuket for all their help with blending and logistics.

Khao Sok Tech Safari

I have just returned from an exploratory trip to the National Park of Khao Sok Thailand. During the 4 day trip we dived several virgin caves and deep dive sites. For the first time I dived in woods a truly strange experience. The national park was once a village and is now a flooded Dam that is virtually unexplored by divers. There are many caves and dive sites waiting to be explored. We dived 4 cave systems and 3 different deep locations on this trip. Logistics in this area were an issue. We had to take a compressor , boosters, gas and supplies all on small Thai style long-tails and spend our time living over one hr into the park on floating bamboo bungalows. It was truly a tranquil place and some great diving to boot. We are already planning g our next visit.

Cave Diving May 2007

Hi All

I have just returned from another trip to the caves located in the Krabi province of Thailand. The conditions where the best I have seen with visibility at the surface and under water extremely clear. The three dives I conducted over the two days allowed me to dive two other entrances I had not dived before. It is clear these entrances run extremely deep, I will return soon with the view to extend my push into this system.

I will also be visiting some sites 4hrs from Chang Mai. Having been informed there is over 100 dry cave systems and some unexplored flooded ones. I plan to run an expedition this coming season Logistics will be a problem due to their remote location. If anyone is interested to dive the caves of Thailand please contact me at Info@tech-ccr.com