During December 1987 Bill published his first underwater cave map of McBride’s Slough Cave System. It was presented at the NSS-CDS Winter Workshop in Branford, Florida, during the Christmas Holidays. I remember Mark Leonard, an NSS-CDS Cave Diving Instructor, vividly expressing his positive enthusiasm about the map as we had it on display at the NACD booth in the hallway of the Branford High School. Numerous attendees were very impressed.
Bill was raised in Bainbridge, Georgia, and had lived in Tallahassee for several years working for Allen Nobles of Nobles Consulting Group as a land surveyor. He was 32 years old, divorced and no children. His life revolved around caves.
What Happened?
It was the last survey dive for the Little Dismal cave system map. The goal was to collect the survey data for the upstream section and for a tiny downstream passageway in the sixth room. The challenge was this section of the cave system had depths of 200 – 220 feet of water. That Sunday, three different dives took place. One team was Shirley Bailey and Parker Turner collecting rock samples in the first room for the Florida Department of Natural Resources, which in 1992 became the Department of Environmental Protection. The second team was Bill Gavin diving solo with a modified deep Tekna DPV to survey the downstream small siphon passage. Because of the cave tunnel’s diminutive size, it was decided that only one person do that survey. The third team consisted of Bill Main and Bill McFaden.
This upstream section of the sixth room was low in several places and very silty. Bill Main led the team into this area laying new knotted survey line while Bill McFaden read compass readings with his Sunnto compass and recorded the information on his survey slate and drawing sketches.
While they were swimming into this area the guideline got caught in McFaden’s battery pack and Main quickly swam back to help untangle it. Shortly later, the guideline got slightly entangled into McFaden’s safety reel but was quickly corrected. Continuing swimming further ahead, Main turned around and waited as McFaden surveyed and drew sketches while slowly swimming closer to Main. At certain parts of the tunnel, the visibility dropped severely low because of the air bubble percolation, which cannot be avoided. The depth was close to 220 feet.