In Memoriam: Cave Explorer & Engineer Bill Gavin

From Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP). Photos courtesy of the WKPP and GUE archives.

Today, sadly, we learned that Bill Gavin, a founding member of the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP) and its second Project Director, has passed away. He was 65 years old. Bill Gavin was trained by Tex Chalkley in 1978 and was cave certified in May 1979, through the National Speleological Society-Cave Diving section (NSS-CDS). 

He was active in the Woodville Karst Plain area, exploring caves such as upstream Sullivan Sink and discovering the Big Rooms along with Bill Main in the early 1980s. He and Main made the connection between Sullivan Sink and Cheryl Sink in January 1988. Bill Gavin, Parker Turner, Bill Main, and Lamar English did the traverse dive between Sullivan and Cheryl in June of 1988, a world record at the time, and went on to form the WKPP. “He was one of the most aggressive explorers I knew,” explained Main. “Sheck Exley was another.”

Bill received a Bachelor of Science degree in Ocean Engineering from Florida Atlantic University in 1982.  He spent his professional career as a civilian mechanical engineer at the U.S. Naval Coastal Systems Station in Panama City, Florida. He was the last engineer to work on the US Navy’s ill-fated EX-19, the Navy’s first fully digital closed circuit rebreather in the late 1980s, which was planned to be used for deep saturation diving missions.

Bill was a world-class innovator working diligently to help Bill Main perfect the Hogarthian gear configuration which gave birth to DIR, modified early Tekna scooters for depth and later went on to develop the Gavin scooter. He also implemented gas blending standards for the WKPP’s early trimix use, and devised the original decompression tables the team would use throughout the late 1980s before Dr. RW Bill Hamilton began working with Parker Turner. 

He went on to explore downstream Innisfree Sink pushing it toward Turner Sink in the early 1990s. His dives in Wakulla Spring in the early 1990s pushed A-tunnel out to nearly 6,000 ft penetration. Bill was a pioneer in deep underwater cave exploration, was well respected in the diving community, and implemented many of the early standards that the WKPP still utilize to this day. 

Divers everywhere are immeasurably grateful for Bill’s many contributions to our diving longevity. Our hearts go out to his family and friends. ###

The Accident Report from Indian Springs by Bill Gavin (1991)

Bill was an inspiration to the emerging technical diving community. When the National Association of Cave Diving (NACD) published his 1991 account of the freak accident at Indian Springs that resulted in the death of WKPP co-founder, Parker Turner, it caused all of us to reexamine our experience and capacity as divers. We republished the article with permission in aquaCORPS’ technicalDIVER, and Capt. Billy Deans added it to the tech training manual at Key West Diver, Key West, Florida—the first tech diving training center on the planet. Here is Bill Gavin’s report. How would you have fared in a similar situation?

DIVE DEEPER

InDEPTH: The First Helium-based Mix Dives Conducted by Pre-Tech Explorers (1967-1988) by Dr. Christopher Werner. More than 20 years before the emergence of technical diving, a handful of intrepid cave divers who were perilously pushing the limits of air diving, began experimenting with helium mixes for deep diving. Some succeeded, several were injured, one drowned.

GUE: EXPLORATION HISTORY OF THE WKP By Michael Wisenbaker.          A Capsule History Of Cave Exploration In The Woodville Karst Plain And The WKPP.

Divernet: Influential cave-diver Bill Gavin dies by Steve Weinman