Jim Fishback

Little did I know that forking over 45 bucks for my first dive class back in May of 1966 would begin a lifelong passion that has seen me diving for over 40 years. The dive gear has changed, as has my hair color, but my interest and enthusiasm for the underwater world has not waned.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s most of my diving was in the stone quarries of Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. Occasionally we would head up to the Great Lakes for some wreck diving, and to see just how sea sick I could get! The boats were small, the waves were big and sometimes big freighters ran overhead which was very disturbing especially when there was fog. It was the early days of diving in the area, many of the wrecks were unknown and most were pristine which made for interesting dives, but the diving conditions were primitive. The boats were not designed for diving, often there was no shelter on them and diving in 40F degree water was cold – no drysuits then!

I became a certified YMCA and PADI instructor, and then finally in June 1974 I travelled down to Florida and took a NACD cave diving class, becoming certified cave diver number ‘069’. The class opened my eyes and I realized that I had been breaking just about every rule for safe cave diving. I was smart enough to buy a reel before my first cave dive, because of all the horror stories I heard, but I learned so much in class.

Ginnie Springs was at that time the deadliest cave in Florida and regularly took lives of unprepared recreational divers. By the late 70s I was active in the cave diving community and helped to put in the grate in Ginnie Springs Cavern which probably saved many lives. The grate meant recreational divers could enjoy the cavern area, the fresh water and great visibility but not be in harm’s way. The grate remains to this day, which means recreational divers have a chance to enjoy the spring and perhaps get the cave diving bug.

I was a diver on the Lost Sea expedition and it was by far one of the most interesting series of dives I have ever done. The Lost Sea in Tennessee was the world’s largest underground lake. When exploring the underwater parts of the lake we found a big 80 foot wide tunnel to the side. The diving itself was thrilling, if for no other reason than there was very large percolation from the ceiling, which meant man sized pieces of mud raining down on us as we dived the system - sometimes driving you into the floor of the cave!

My mates and I did some of the early cave diving and mapping of the spring cave Indiana. All of our research on the springs suggested that they would be small and would fracture out into small cracks in the bedding plane. After putting in 2000 feet of line in the first spring we figured out this clearly wasn’t the case! We also got a big surprise when diving the resurgence of the lost river in Indiana. We were told that it was only 30 feet deep. We destroyed one depth gauge, it was only good for 130 feet – and the cave went deeper still. We finally called the dive at 165 feet and the cave wasn’t letting up. It was difficult to dive the cave safely back then, the equipment just wasn’t up to scratch and the 3-5 foot vis, diving on air and the 44 degree water didn’t help either.

I loved the ocean as much as the caves and was lucky to dive off some of the earliest live-a-boards all around the world and see some extraordinary and unspoiled places. My favorite trips were those to the Red Sea where the diving and the soft corals were pristine and spectacular. Today a lot of those spots have been damaged or destroyed which is a real shame.

In the 80s I decided to make the move to South Florida, there was simply more diving to be done here and you could do it all year round. At that time the State of Florida was very active and involved in sinking new wrecks for divers and fisherman in order to attract tourism. It was fascinating to watch clean new wrecks gain fish populations and growth over time. This seemed like a good time to make a career change, so I got my skipper license and took divers out to the wrecks around Miami South Beach.

Finally in 1994 I joined Dive Rite and have worked in both sales and production since then. You can say I’m a jack of all trades. I remain an active diver and still enjoy the Florida caves as well as the occasional trip to the Keys.

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