Maine news, sports, weather from Waterville Morning Sentinel

Local dentist/cave diver explores underwater cavities

By Scott Monroe smonroe@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

WATERVILLE -- Stephen Klinker could have died several times while diving in the dark, constricted bowels of underwater caves.

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CAVE OF SWIMMERS: Waterville dentist Stephen Klinker's diving adventures recently took him with this group to a cave in Florida.

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SUITED UP: Stephen Klinker before a recent dive in Florida.

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CAVE DIVING AT A GLANCE

How is cave diving different from other forms of diving?
• Caves are fragile environments, so divers must exercise great care to protect irreplaceable cave formations from harm.
• Cave diving generally involves penetration distances vastly greater than those experienced by other divers, requiring the utmost in self-sufficiency and self-reliance.
• It’s not a suitable activity for the average diver; estimates are that only a small number of divers possesses the ability to safely dive in caves.
• Required skills include guideline and reel use; specialized buoyancy control, body position and propulsion techniques; and breathing-gas management.
• Cave diving takes place around the world. In North America, the majority of recreational cave diving and cave diver training takes place in north-central Florida and the east coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Source: www.cavediving.com

'SANCTUM'

Showtimes through Feb. 10:
• Flagship Cinemas in Waterville, 873-0033
• In 3D at Regal Cinemas in Augusta, 623-8016
• Narrow Gauge Cinemas in Farmington, 778-4877

There was the time when both of his calves cramped up and he could no longer propel himself. He filled a floatation device with air until it carried him up, where he could grab a hold of the cave's ceiling, and work his calves until his legs could function.

Or the time he got tangled in rope, flipped upside-down, and his arm sunk down into quicksand-like silt and mud. Knowing he would be sucked in deeper with the slightest movement, breath, or increase in his heartbeat, he sent a distress signal and remained completely limp until his instructor could help free him.

Despite the close calls -- and, in a way, because of them -- Klinker relishes the challenge of cave diving.

"Panic is not an option," Klinker said. "This is a mind-over-matter situation."

Cave diving may be Klinker's passion, but it's not his full-time job. He's a dentist, owner of Cornerstone Dental, in Waterville's Concourse.

Klinker, 54, of Norridgewock, is married and has four sons. The local dentist received his cave diving certification from one of the world's experts Jan. 16, after completing the last of two required "perfect" cave dives.

Cave diving is a fairly recent phenomenon, only becoming popular within the last two decades.

The activity has been prominently thrust into the public spotlight with this weekend's release of "Sanctum," an action-thriller movie from executive producer James Cameron. The film, based on the true experiences of the film's writer, is about how a storm traps a team of cave divers underground.

As it happens, the renowned cave diver who instructed Klinker, Larry Green, was an informal adviser to the makers of "Sanctum." Green has literally written a manual on cave diving.

Speaking this week from the outskirts of Gainesville, Fla., Green said he's not sure why cave diving has become so popular. He notes, however, that it can be a deadly endeavor for divers who don't train properly or use enough caution.

Even so, Green asserts -- counter-intuitively -- that cave diving is actually "a very safe sport."

"It's that mental and physical responsibility; it's up to me and nobody else," Green said. "I really believe cave diving could be considered one of the safest sports in the world. Even though it's an adverse environment, the activity itself is one where you should be in control of the variables that affect your well being -- more so than any other activity."

Still, cave diving "requires more skill and mental awareness than any other scuba activity," he added.

"It's definitely a 'Class A-type' of activity, very demanding."

'A lifelong dream'

Klinker has been a scuba diver since his college days.

In 1978, he graduated from Northern Michigan University with degrees in biology and business. He also began scuba diving in open water.

Klinker went on to graduate from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University in 1981, and from the University of Texas College of Dentistry, where he received his doctor of dental surgery degree in 1985.

While training at dental school, Klinker had his first introduction to the world of cave diving when he met Ann Kristovich, who had trained with renowned cave diver Jim Bowden. Kristovich and Bowden both set world records for their deep dives.

Klinker started a dental practice in Austin, Texas, and became involved in cross-cultural medicine, starting with the Acoma and Navajo tribes of North America. In 2000, he received board certification in Naturopathic medicine, and has studied many other forms of medicine in an effort to "treat the whole patient, rather than just teeth."

Klinker said he and his family visited Maine and were so taken with the state that they decided to move here. He opened Cornerstone Dental in 2008.

All the while, cave diving never quite left Klinker's mind. "I had a young family and no money to do it," he explained. "It's been a lifelong dream to become a cave diver."

Klinker started taking steps toward realizing that dream six years ago, when he began diving in cenotes -- sinkholes with exposed rocky edges containing groundwater -- in Mexico.

Two years ago, Klinker began seriously pursuing cave diving.

There are five certified levels for cave divers, Klinker explains: cavern, basic cave, introduction to cave, apprentice cave diving, and, finally, full cave certification.

Klinker said his training in martial arts required a similar temperament and patience, but cave diving "is much more difficult and demanding."

In open water environments, divers who encounter problems or emergencies have a solution: They can get to the surface. Deep inside a cave, that's not an option.

"Here, if you make a mistake, you don't come out," he said. "There's no recovery."

The perfect dives

After training in Mexico, Klinker began traveling from Maine to Florida to study under Green, who is also the training director for the National Association For Cave Diving.

Klinker soon learned that the caves of Mexico were not nearly as challenging as those in Florida, where the water was colder, the caves contained more silt and mud, the cave routes were tighter, and there were powerful water currents to contend with.

"Even though I had one year of training, it was almost like starting over," he said.

Cave Diving requires immense preparation and commitment, Klinker said. Cave divers carry much more gear than recreational divers; their equipment can weigh more than 150 pounds and includes multiple lights, a helmet, and two 120-pound air tanks with 3,000 pounds-per-square inch of oxygen.

Klinker's extensive training would include being blindfolded underwater, purposefully tangled in rope, and forced to free himself. He'd also have to dive as far as he could down narrow cave openings until he could go no farther, then back up.

"Part of the training is trying to confuse you through task-loading," Klinker said. "You find out where the panic level is, trigger it, and they teach you to get over it, or discontinue the training."

Preparing for a cave dive typically takes about two hours, involving briefings, studying cave maps, gearing up, and safety drills. Klinker also draws cave routes on arm slates and wears computer devices that monitor his vital signs.

Overall, the idea is to prepare divers to be in complete control of their minds and bodies. That's necessary in order to dive through the technically-challenging quarters of caves, where the slightest touch with anything could spell disaster. Divers must maintain balance and be able to move up, down, left and right, through the tiniest spaces that can feature the rocky stalactites and stalagmites penetrating the available space.

Divers go in one way and come out the same way, though the path inside sometimes splinters into many other optional routes.

It's not for the claustrophobic. In fact, it's not for most people on the planet.

About 95 percent of divers who want to become cave divers fail, according to most cave diving literature.

Klinker says divers who perish in the caves usually don't use a continuous line to guide them out; don't bring enough lights; don't properly watch their air consumption; or are not properly trained for problematic situations and, as a result, they panic.

There are an estimated 20 deaths worldwide each year from cave diving. The U.S. National Speleological Society, a nonprofit membership organization that studies and protects caves, has defined a successful cave dive as "one you return from."

Klinker, though, enjoys the challenge, the requisite discipline, and sense of accomplishment that comes with a successful dive.

The culmination of Klinker's training -- after several failed attempts -- was performing two dives that Green deemed "perfect," meaning Klinker had made no mistakes in the eyes of the expert.

Returning to the caves

You see some amazing things when cave diving, Klinker says.

One time Klinker saw the remains of a human skull that had also been seen by a National Geographic team and was deemed among the oldest human remains on Earth.

He's also seen a perfectly preserved Mayan pot that had been seen by only a handful of divers on the planet because of its remote location.

And: a whole skeleton of a mastodon. Yes, the large, tusked, extinct mammal.

It's that sort of experience that keeps Klinker coming back to the caves.

His Cornerstone Dental office is a monument to this love. Hanging on the wall is a sign that's common to see at the entrance of underwater caves -- "Please stop unless cave trained. We care!" -- plus shark figurines and other scuba items.

Even Klinker's necklace, which at first glance is laced through what appears to be some kind of triangle-shaped symbol, is actually a "line arrow." The arrows are attached to reels of line to point the way out of a cave.

Klinker had been invited recently to join a National Geographic team going to an unexplored cave in Mexico, but he didn't feel right about taking the needed 16 days off from his dental practice.

When he has the time, though, Klinker hopes to next be cave diving the "pristine and beautiful" caves of the Bahamas.

For most everyone, though, Klinker offers this advice about cave diving:

"I don't recommended it."

Scott Monroe -- 861-9239

smonroe@centralmaine.com