Jerry Murphy
Product Manager, Dive Rite
I grew up in Florida around the West Pensacola, Perdido Bay area, so it is not surprising that right from the start I was a water baby. Water is central to the culture of that whole region, so I was out on boats, water skiing, sailing and fishing from a very early age. As long as it involved water – I was ready to try it.
When I started Graduate School at the University of Florida a summer semester learning how to dive was not only an easy way to get summer credits but it also fit very nicely with my love of all water sports. We spent our time diving in the pool and local springs and then finally headed to the Keys as a reward for the semesters work. Apart from the great diving my strongest memory from that trip is a boat load of very sea sick students and instructors.
Once certified we wanted to do more diving but the closest ocean dive was a 3 hour drive away. All too often we’d arrive at our destination greeted by wild winds and a cancelled boat trip. This soon grew tiresome. Thus my attention quickly turned to the local springs, and then in 1989 after I completed my advanced course I was introduced to caves. My instructor who was completing his undergrad in geology took me down to the cavern zone to ask my opinion about various fossils and rock formations. I was hooked, here was a chance to combine both my passions diving and geology, and thus my cave/tech diving career began.
Since then I have dived in a variety of places including the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Dominica, Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, and Puerto Rico and yet I always come back to the caves here in Florida.
I am currently exploring a number of cave systems such as Old Bellamy Cave. This system is deep and big with passages that are over 100 ft wide. We have been exploring this cave since 1995 and have explored and mapped almost 50 000 ft, and yet this system still isn’t fully connected. I have also participated in the survey and mapping of both Bathtub and Suwannee Blue Springs, two caves on the Suwannee River that had line laid in them but had no decent map.
Exploring the sumps in Mammoth Cave is one of my favorite exploration dives. Mammoth Cave is a dry cave in Kentucky that to this day remains one of the biggest caves in the world as it is over 300 miles long. Jill Heinerth and I pushed a sump in the upstream Logsden River and laid 800 ft of line. This expedition was extraordinary because it involved the efforts of over 35 people to carry all the necessary dive gear a mile back into the cave before the diving could even begin. The caving here is not a walk in the park, getting to the first sump involved tackling pitches, crawling 1000 ft through thick mud, and all this while dragging the packs and heavy gear behind us. And the diving was no picnic either; the visibility in the 54 F (12 C) water was so poor we couldn’t even survey the line we laid. The whole operation took over 15 hours and we were all truly worn out at the end of it but the experience was incredible.
I have managed to combine my geology skills with my cave diving in support of the State of Florida in research of the cave hydrology at several of their parks. This work is helping to ensure that the Florida aquifer remains healthy and the public knowledge about this hidden underwater world grows. I also serve as the Head Guide at Hart Springs and Mill Creek Sink.
I am very flexible in my diving, enjoy challenges and like to experiment with dive gear. You are just as likely to find me jumping off a boat to dive a deep wreck using my O2ptima as finding me in a kayak with my sidemount gear. My role as Product Manager at Dive Rite suits me very well and provides many challenges which I thoroughly enjoy.