The Good Life – September-October 2014
The areas premier men’s magazine featuring inspirational men in our community. Covering a variety of topics including local heroes, fathers, sports and advice for men.
The areas premier men’s magazine featuring inspirational men in our community. Covering a variety of topics including local heroes, fathers, sports and advice for men.
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divers’ all have ear and mouthpieces<br />
to communicate, technology is not<br />
100 percent fool proof, and the<br />
tether line is their back up in case<br />
the first method fails.<br />
<strong>The</strong> lightheartedness and<br />
bantering of the group takes a<br />
more serious tone as everyone gets<br />
into place. Anyone having anything<br />
to do with VWR’s rescue team must<br />
have an inflatable life jacket on. No<br />
life jacket, no passing through.<br />
I watched as one diver who has<br />
been checked out thoroughly by<br />
his Tender, and has his tether line<br />
hooked up, is now sitting patiently<br />
on a bolder. It is above 85 degrees<br />
outside and I can only imagine<br />
how horribly uncomfortable this<br />
man wearing thermal underwear,<br />
a dry suit and about 65 pounds of<br />
gear must feel. This is the back-up<br />
diver for the two who are already in<br />
the water scouring around for the<br />
pieces of rebar they are challenged<br />
to find. <strong>The</strong>re are always three<br />
divers prepared to hit the water at<br />
all times. In the event one diver<br />
runs into a tangled line, or any<br />
one of a hundred things that could<br />
possibly mess up a diver, there will<br />
always be another on land to help<br />
pull him out. Imagine diving five<br />
or ten feet in the dark — yes, in the<br />
dark, because while it is light above<br />
the water, the Red River is filled<br />
with clay silt and is anything but<br />
transparent. Contrary to popular<br />
lore, the Red River really is not<br />
filthy or even polluted; it just has<br />
tons of clay in it. Duane Kashmark,<br />
a long-time member of the VWR<br />
team and current owner of Mick’s<br />
Scuba, described diving in the Red<br />
River to me, “diving in the Red<br />
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