Friends share stories of diving beneath the ice

Brad Grecula could not see anything in the pitch-black water. Very slowly, something came into focus before him.

Grecula was looking at the Hopkins/Minnetonka shipwreck, which was once part of a fleet of six streetcar boats that transported people around Lake Minnetonka in the early 1900s.

When her sister boats were being dismantled and sunk in 1925, Capt. George Hopkins purchased it, renamed it Minnetonka and operated it as an excursion boat until 1949. At that time, it was sunk near her sisters north of Big Island. The state recognizes it as an archeological site, according to Maritime Heritage Minnesota.

As an outline of the wreck appeared before him, Grecula was sure it was the Hopkins/Minnetonka. After all, he and his friends had a GPS location on the shipwreck as they drove through a dense fog over the frozen lake, but diving through pitch-black water can mess with your mind.

“Your imagination can run away from you when you’re down there,” Brian Dahl said.

Divers going so deep that sunlight does not reach them can attest to what Grecula and Dahl are saying. What makes their tales even more harrowing is the only way they can escape the water is through a small hole in a thick sheet of ice.

Ice diving can be a deadly recreational activity if you are not properly trained and do not take the safety precautions seriously.

MyFox Twin Cities reported a story two years ago of a pair of ice fishermen hooking a scuba diver. The story had some comical elements to it because the fishermen thought they caught a big one. The diver was unharmed and offered a couple of beers as a peace offering, the fishermen told Fox news.

Dahl of Andover, Grecula of East Bethel, Art Gullette of Andover, John Oliver of Isanti and Nate Putbrese of Cambridge know this diver and this story was no laughing matter because several safety measures were not followed, they later learned. Ice divers are a fairly tight-knit group in Minnesota because there are so few of them, Gullette said.

The Professional Association of Diving Instructors is the not the only diving certification organization, but is the largest by far, said PADI spokesperson Bridget Evans. Over the last five years, more than 1,700 PADI ice diver certifications were earned throughout the whole U.S. In 2012, only 11.3 percent of all PADI certifications earned were for ice diving.

Mitigating the dangers

There are many safety measures to check off before going on an ice dive. The obvious first step is to make sure the ice is thick enough on which to drive a vehicle. Once on the site, they usually have a chainsaw to cut a triangle hole in the ice. They can cut a square, but a triangle takes less effort to cut because it has one less side.

They must be attached to a rope so they have an easier time finding the ice hole. Another step that can be taken is to clear snow in the shape of an arrow. Sunlight will highlight the arrow and give divers a bearing.

The most ideal situation is to have one person diving and another person on the ice in their gear in case the diver has to be rescued. There should be at least one and preferably two tenders in case both are in the water.

Ice diving is such a challenge that Dahl said PADI recommends a person have at least 50 dives before they can be trained.

According to Dahl, one of the most important traits he picked up from ice diving is the ability to remain calm and problem solve in tense situations.

A saying that stuck with Oliver is, “technical diving is the only sport where you can kill yourself and have half-an-hour to think about it.”

Gullette said this can be true of any type of diving, but the more logistically challenging the dive, the more true this is. There is a large difference between recreational and technical diving, he said.

Scuba diving in a river is beyond the level of most ice divers because “the current can take you into no-man’s land where there is no exit hole,” Oliver said. A second exit hole is a must for river ice dives, Gullette said.

If anybody feels nervous, a dive is called off without question.

Each of them has a different standard for calling a dive, however. Gullette is probably the most cautious, while Putbrese is the risk taker, to the chagrin of Gullette.

“When Nate calls it, I check my pulse because I may already be dead,” Oliver said.

Dahl, Gullette, Oliver and Putbrese know what a search and rescue feels like from the other side because they used to be volunteers for the Isanti County Sheriff’s Office dive team.

Isanti County does not have the budget for all the equipment so much of it is the diver’s own gear, said Chief Deputy Bill Guenther of the Isanti County Sheriff’s Office. Two men with their own gear recently volunteered to be the county’s only two dive team members, he said.

Although they may give Gullette a hard time for being such a stickler for the rules, he is deeply respected.

“I’ve done a fair amount of training through other instructors, but Art is hands-down the most thorough,” Oliver said. “It’s not that he wants to keep you there for an extra two hours. He wants to make sure you’re absorbing what he’s trying to tell you. I’ve told him before, when my daughter gets certified, he’s the one that’s going to do it.”

Some wild tales

Gullette first tried ice diving in 1975 and he swore he would never do it again, but he decided to give it a try when he met Putbrese in 2004.

“Nate and I have an interesting relationship. I keep Nate alive. He keeps pushing my comfort zone and envelope and keeping it fun,” Gullette said.

While they gave Putbrese some grief, Dahl was quick to note that Putbrese is very experienced and “dive smart.”

Dahl met Gullette through work at the Minnesota Department of Corrections and started diving around 2005. Oliver started ice diving in 2008 or 2009 just a year or two after celebrating his 40th birthday.

The four of them soon connected with Grecula, who began diving shortly after he graduated from high school in 2008. “Shortly after high school in 2008? Why do we let him hang out with us?” Dahl said while they all chuckled.

Their schedules do not always allow the five of them time to get together when they are not diving, but when they got together for an interview at Gullette’s Andover home, there was a lot of reminiscing, laughs and some head shaking.

One story Gullette really wanted to tell was the first time that Oliver was the unexpected rope tender on the surface. Oliver was still new to ice diving, so Gullette was training him on rope tending. Gullette was diving and Putbrese was supervising him on the ice.

Gullette suddenly came up to the surface all excited, telling them he found a wreck and giving them the coordinates so they knew where he was going. When he was surveying the wrecked boat, he looked to his left to see Putbrese swimming up to him. It turns out that Oliver was tending them both, which really made Gullette mad at Putbrese.

Another interesting tale was about a fisherman throwing his wedding ring down his ice hole on Mille Lacs Lake. The Isanti County dive team happened to be training in the area and Putbrese volunteered to recover the ring and, of course, document it.

Putbrese taped his descent and recovery of the ring and posted it on YouTube. Search “Nate Putbrese” to find his YouTube channel and the video. When he sees the ring, you hear him gurgling “my precious” in homage to the character Gollum from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Then there are the stories of Putbrese pushing the envelope. One time Gullette got out of the truck and walked to shore with his cell phone in hand and watched as Putbrese gunned the truck across the ice.

Oliver said Putbrese has graduated from “rock, paper scissors” to flipping a coin to determine if they should walk or drive across the ice. He will often throw these coins in the water to make a sacrifice to “the lake gods” and to see how long the coins are visible.

Thanks to ABC Newspapers

Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com

What It's Like...To Dive as a Double Amputee

Army Chief Warrant Officer Scott Schroeder was wounded a year and a half ago during a patrol mission while serving in the Zabul province of Afghanistan. He sustained injuries from a roadside bomb that exploded under the vehicle he was riding in, the extent of which required that both legs be amputated above the knee and he lost much of the use of his right arm. Learning to approach life differently following such an injury takes courage and a lot of support. Groups like Task Force Dagger, a non-profit founded in 2009 to support injured Special Forces soldiers, provide opportunities for the whole family to heal. One of their projects brings together recovering soldiers and their families for a week of diving and recreation in Key West, Florida.

“I learned to dive in Egypt, in the Red Sea, back in 1988 on a recreational trip with the military, but I wouldn’t consider myself an avid diver. I’ve only been on maybe 12 dives since then, but I’ve always enjoyed the trips I did take. But even though I dived before, I had to reacquaint myself once I got to the pool. The Army Special Forces Underwater Operations School in Key West opened their doors and their pool to us while divers got certified or retrained. They were great to extend such a welcome to us. There was a learning curve to all this, refitting my gear, using my swim legs, even getting on and off the boat there was something to be learned. After everyone got comfortable in the water we headed out for the first open ocean dive.

The injuries to my right arm required me to rig the hoses a little differently, so I could reach everything with my left arm. I also had special sockets for my prosthetics made so I could attach a foot that would work with my fins. Using basic prosthetic technology, they created an articulating joint that I could lock into the toes pointed position necessary for swimming. The upside to this is that finning is really easy now. I thought I’d have difficulty but I was able to fin perfectly. You just have to adapt to what you can do. It’s all part of getting back out there. The part you don’t realize is just how bottom heavy humans are. Without my legs, I had a tendency to flip over in the water, like a fishing bobber. I had to learn to compensate by using my core muscles to hold my position. The effort was exhausting. Every time I dived it completely wiped me out. We were doing two-tank dives and even though I thought I would be an air hog, I was glad to find out I wasn’t, which made me feel great.

When I was injured, it wasn’t just me who was affected — my whole family was injured. My wife gave up her job to divide her time between home and hospital to be with me. I’m here at the hospital every day doing my rehab, learning to walk again, hoping to get home soon. My son, a junior in high school is back home in Tennessee for school, so he can graduate with his friends. The separation is difficult for all of us. By the time I’m done I will have been here at Walter Reed for almost two years, going through surgeries, learning to walk and regaining as much function in my right arm as I can.

When a soldier gets injured there are a lot of people who want to help. What they really need though is someone to reach out to the whole family. Task Force Dagger does a great job at that, by including all of us. The chance to dive again and take a break from this world of hospital and rehab was huge for us as a family and a real chance to heal together. We get to go somewhere and be normal for a while. For the first time since my injury, we are doing rehab together. Now I’m looking forward to the next trip and getting back in the water.”

Thanks to Allison Olcsvay and Scuba Diving

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Diving background helps agent in travel business

Bryan Cunningham believes the scuba diving travel business is missing the dive boat when it comes to serving its customers.

After working as a scuba instructor, he is now a scuba travel specialist for Travelpath, a Burlington, Ontario-based travel agency.

With more than 10,000 dives to his credit, having run dive shops and instructed in the Caribbean for 12 years, as well as in the Middle East for six years, he brings a first-hand perspective to the job.

“I have personal contact with the owners of dive shops and I have most of them on Skype. That means I can ask for extra things,” he says, citing nitrox and larger tanks as examples. “I can ask the manager if he has this available. Although he may not have the big tanks he may have a sister operation that has them. They give better service to a travel agent than an individual. They stand to lose a lot more business if they let a travel agent down.”

The core principle of his business is customizing a dive vacation to the client’s needs and that of the diver’s family.

“Eighty per cent of people don’t want to dive for the whole holiday. Or, if the husband dives and wife doesn’t, I tailor it to what they want. You need to know what else is available. If a wife is an outdoors person, Belize has an outdoor jungle facility. If she likes shopping and casinos, then maybe Nassau is better. It depends on what the non-divers want to do.”

Bryan also books dives for cruise ship passengers, pointing out that they will pay 30 per cent more if they go through the cruise line. “We can book a dive for every (cruise ship) stop. You don’t have to worry about currency. The shops I work with are used to working with cruise ships.

For those planning on combining diving with a cruise vacation it is important to know the diving opportunities in the ports the ship will visit. Some aren’t good for diving, while others stop at all the good dive spots. Also, adds Bryan, you need to know the location of the port with respect to diving. For instance, sometimes the best diving is on the opposite side of an island from where the ship docks.

Some ports have better transportation service for cruise ships than others. In St. Lucia, says Bryan, a dive operator has a separate boat just to pick up divers travelling on cruise ships. Some have a separate bus for the same purpose.

Another problem Bryan says he can help divers avoid is choosing the wrong hotel. A hotel on an island that is distant from the port where the best diving is found could lead to a costly taxi ride every time they dive.

Choosing a dive site itself depends on the diver’s interests. That could range from diving ship wrecks, to coral reefs and marine life. Availability of the latter can vary with the time of year because some species, such as whale sharks, migrate.

In terms of coral reefs, divers may have their preferences. For instance, the hard corals of the Indian Ocean are more colourful, while the soft corals found in the waters of the Caribbean look blander. “Both are nice in their own way, but different,” says Bryan.

“I have dive destinations virtually anywhere you want to go. Tell me the type you want and I will find them. I have been to 32 Caribbean islands and haven’t seen half the Caribbean, but I’ve seen a lot more than any other travel agent.”

For more details, see this website: http://www.scubadestinationdeals.com/


Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Canada’s oldest shipwreck to be resurrected in replica of 16th-century Basque galleon

It’s the oldest shipwreck ever found in Canada and one of the most important in the world: a 16th-century Basque whaling galleon that lies at the bottom of Labrador’s Red Bay, a sunken relic from the Age of Discovery that symbolizes the early spread of European civilization — and commerce — to the New World.

Now, the 450-year-old San Juan, a jumble of thick beams and broken barrels lying in shallow waters off the site of a 1560s-era whaling station in the Strait of Belle Isle, is to be resurrected by a team of Spanish maritime heritage experts planning to construct a full-scale, seaworthy replica of the original 16-metre, three-masted vessel.

Parks Canada underwater archeologists, who discovered the 250-tonne San Juan in 1978 after following documented clues about a lost galleon traced by federal archivist Selma Barkham, will meet this week with Spanish officials to begin sharing decades of amassed research on the ship’s design and construction, Postmedia News has learned.

Then, to mark the Basque city of San Sebastian’s year as Europe’s “cultural capital” in 2016, Spain expects to christen its floating tribute to the whaling crews that — for several decades during the 16th century — transported millions of barrels of whale oil to Europe from the future Canada, a treasure every bit as valuable at the time as the gold taken by Spanish conquistadors from more southerly parts of the Americas.

“Right from the start, we thought this was a really, really great idea,” said Marc-André Bernier, Parks Canada’s chief of underwater archeology. “For archeologists, this is basically the ultimate final product. You’re taking all of the research from a site that’s been excavated, then you take it to the maximum in experimental archeology,” physically recreating “what is lost.”

For Robert Grenier, Bernier’s predecessor as Canada’s top marine archeologist and the leader of the Red Bay discoveries more than three decades ago, the planned construction of a San Juan replica is “like a dream.”

The 75-year-old Grenier, whose work at Red Bay was featured in a National Geographic cover story in 1985, is now retired but has agreed to serve as a consultant to Spanish shipbuilders on the San Juan project.

He previously collaborated with Basque heritage experts on the recreation of a chalupa — a smaller boat used by whaling crews to pursue and harpoon bowhead and right whales — that was also found at the Red Bay site.

“To the Basques, this is the Holy Grail,” he said of the planned San Juan replica on Monday, while visiting a display on Basque whaling operations at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Que.

The Canada Hall exhibit features a 20-to-one scale model of a Basque whaling galleon, as well as a full-scale reproduction of the stern of the ship.

“They are so thankful to us — Canada and Parks Canada — to have restored to them the glory of their golden age,” said Grenier.

The replica galleon to be built in the coming years is expected to travel between European cities during 2016 to mark the San Sebastian celebrations, then set sail for Labrador and other East Coast destinations in 2017 — in time for the 150th anniversary of Confederation — to help spread awareness of the deep historical connection between Canada and Spain.

“It’s their heritage,” Bernier said of the Basques, who live in the coastal region straddling the border of northeast Spain and southwest France. “But it’s also a shared heritage.”

Significantly, Bernier noted, the Red Bay wreck dates from an era before European shipbuilding had developed to the point of creating blueprints prior to construction.

“There were no ships’ plans — they were built with traditional knowledge,” he said. “Everything was in the shipbuilders’ minds. That’s why the data from the archeology is so critical.”

In the decades following the New World discoveries of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot, the expert shipbuilders, sailors, fishermen and whalers from the Basque country began making transatlantic voyages to exploit coastal Canada’s cod and whale populations.

Lamp oil from whales killed in the Strait of Belle Isle became the key commodity for Basque entrepreneurs, who developed shoreline “factories” to render hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil and organized regular shipping schedules between Canada and Europe to deliver the product.

The sinking of the San Juan, which was loaded with thousands of barrels of rendered whale blubber when it foundered close to the Red Bay shore in 1565, was essentially Canada’s first oil-tanker disaster. Much of the cargo was, however, recovered before the vessel was crushed by winter ice.

Although the presence of Basque whalers in 16th-century Canada was long known to historians, it wasn’t until Barkham presented fresh evidence at an Ottawa archeological conference in 1977 that plans were made to search for physical traces of the whalers’ activities in present-day Labrador.

Along with the wreck of the San Juan, Parks Canada archeologists eventually found traces of three other galleon-class cargo ships, as well as the well-preserved chalupa rowboat.

Land-based excavations led by Newfoundland archeologist James Tuck also yielded burial sites, clothing, tools and countless other relics that recalled a time when hundreds of Basque workers might spend a whaling season in 16th-century Canada.

Today, Red Bay is a national historic site and Parks Canada tourist centre. An image of the San Juan is used by the United Nations as its logo to promote the preservation and celebration of the world’s underwater heritage, and a five-volume, 2008 compendium of Red Bay archeology written by Grenier and Bernier has been hailed internationally as a model for scholarly research on shipwrecks.

Red Bay is a leading contender to become Canada’s next UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Thanks to Canada.com

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Making the Most of Your Day on a Dive Boat

Arrive at the boat well before departure time. If the crew says it’s okay to board, climb on and take advantage of your punctuality for an unhurried look around. Check out the boat’s layout, find a good spot for your gear that’s out of the way or close to the gate or that offers protection from the sun.

- If you don’t need it, leave it in your dive locker. On a busy dive boat there’s not much space allotted for each diver, so bring only what you’re going to need for the morning or afternoon dives. That way you can stow all your gear at your dive station without it overflowing into your neighbor’s space. If you can’t carry everything in one trip, you’ve probably got too much.

- As soon as possible, assemble you reg and BC on your tank and give them a quick test to make sure the tank is full and all systems are go. That way, if you got a short fill or if a gear failure occurs you still have a hope of getting a replacement. Also, do a final inventory check to make sure you have everything you need for your dives, like both fins, your mask, maybe a trusty pocket light for checking out the holes in the reefs, and, if the boat requires it, a safety signal tube.

- Don’t be shy about asking questions. All dive boats have their own rules and routines, so if you’re unsure about how to secure your tank, where to stow your weights, or which bucket is for mask rinsing and which is for cameras, simply ask. A good crew will always choose answering easy questions up front over scrambling to catch a tank that’s about to topple over or tripping on an errant dive bag. Knowing the proper boat procedures makes life easier for everybody.

- When you arrive at the dive site, resist the temptation to start obsessing on your gear and instead pay close attention to the pre-dive briefing. This is when you’ll learn about bottom contours, prevailing currents, depths and compass directions. Having this info tucked in your head before the dive will make all the difference in your comfort level and confidence during the dive, plus it can avoid having to be retrieved by the dive guide when you get lost, which is always embarrassing.

- Don’t forget to bring some cash for tips. A top-notch boat crew and dive guide who have both skills and sunny attitudes are instrumental in delivering to you a really enjoyable day in the water. Show your appreciation; they’ve definitely earned it.

From Sport Diver

Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com

DAN Case Study

Reprinted with permission from Chantelle Taylor-Newman of Dive Medic


DAN Case study 8

This diver was a 61-year-old male in good health, taking no medications.

He was on a liveaboard dive vessel in the South Pacific, vacationing with his son. He had completed 700 lifetime dives over 35 years. On this trip he had performed 13 dives over a five day period breathing air (two or three dives per day). His deepest dive was to 148 fsw (45 msw) and he reported having no problems with any of the dives. This was his typical style of diving.

His final day of diving started with a 148 fsw (45 msw) dive for 37 min with a customary safety stop. Upon surfacing, he became disorientated and had numbness and weakness in both legs. He required help getting back into the boat. The only oxygen immediately available was a nitrox blend. He was able to get up and walk to his cabin without assistance after breathing the blend; but his symptoms had only slightly improved. He was then taken to a medical clinic and placed on 100% oxygen. From there he was transported to a remote chamber facility.

His only improvement to this point was a slight reduction in disorientation. Six hours after initial symptom onset he received his first USN TT6. A physician’s evaluation revealed numbness, weakness and hyperreflexia in his legs. His mental clarity issues resolved, but his other symptoms progressed to lower extremity paralysis, severe pain in the abdomen and legs and loss of bowel and bladder function.

His symptoms worsened by the next morning, whereupon he received a second USN TT6 and a USN TT5 each day for two more days. He was then transported to a second hyperbaric medical clinic and received two more wound healing treatments without improvement. He was then evacuated home.

Two years from the incident; his legs remain paralyzed with minimal movement, he had limited bowel and bladder function and was medicated for his chronic pain. Further diving was not possible for this individual.

kirkscubagear published this post not to scare divers, but strickly as an informative piece.

Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com

Scott's Descending Life

For Scott Wilson, the underwater mysteries of the Solomon Islands were a highlight of 13 one-hour “Descending” documentaries he produced along with business partner Andre Dupuis for the Outdoor Life Network.

There, they explored wrecks of vintage Second World War aircraft on the ocean floor. “The artifacts are still there,” says Scott, a pilot and aviation enthusiast. “It throws you back in time.”

While they also saw submarines and ships on the bottom, it was the aircraft that intrigued Scott. They included a B-17 (a four-engine bomber), Zeros (Japanese long-range fighters), a P-47 Thunderbolt (a single-engine fighter-bomber) and a Corsair (a carrier-based fighter).

But the wreck of a PBY Catalina, an American flying boat used during the Second World War for transporting cargo, search and rescue, convoy escorts, patrol bombing and anti-submarine missions, was special to Scott and Andre.

“The guy who took us is the only one to see it before us,” says Scott. “The flaps were down so it crashed either on takeoff or landing. The Solomon Islands (due east of Papua New Guinea) were a wonderful location for me. I was in my element, checking off these wonderful aircraft.”

Another of his favourites in the Descending series was Iceland. When it comes to diving he is ordinarily a “wreck person,” but in Iceland they were diving for geological purposes. This included the Silfra dive site in inland Iceland, where two tectonic plates – one North American and the other European – had separated and created a crevice in the Earth. It was only about 25 to 30 feet wide and 100 or more feet deep. “It is filled with glacial runoff water and the horizontal visibility is great. You can see forever. It’s a surreal dive – amazing.”

In Iceland, they also dove into the crater of a volcano that was filled with water. “Gases were coming off. You could see it bubbling.

The roots of Descending, a spinoff firm from parent company Echo Bay Media that Scott and Andre founded and own, go back to “Departures,” their first series. Departures, a travel documentary, involved 42 one-hour programs. One of them was a trip to Brazil, where they first experienced scuba diving. “Andre and I came out of that experience having fallen in love with diving.”
After training and getting their certification, the Descending series was a natural follow-up to Departures.

The two business partners became friends when they were both students in the media arts program at Sheridan College. They observed that many of the students wanted to emulate the full Hollywood movie process with enormous crews.

“We found when we were working together that it worked better with two people. If we needed a third person for lighting we would get somebody. The other side of it is we are kind of perfectionists. We want to edit it, colour correct it . . . we have a hard time letting it go. Sometimes that’s a negative.”

They started their company as a partnership in 2000 and incorporated it five years ago. As owners and creators of their shows, they have the luxury of choosing their own path. Decisions are made only after a lot of research.

“We wanted to show in Descending that diving wasn’t just seeing pretty fish in warm places,” says Scott.

It is also about sharks, diving in places such as South Africa, Iceland and, in Canada, in the Great Lakes and British Columbia.
“We wanted variety. We wanted to show there are lots of reasons to get into the water and see the other 70 per cent of planet, which is water. We would try to do it from a diver’s perspective. We would seek out local knowledge and have people take us to the best sites.”

If a dive required a greater knowledge or skill set, it was important to the two producers to make that point. On a dive to a wreck that involved risks, the film makers would go down with someone who knew the wreck. “We don’t want to send the wrong message.”
But they also wanted to illustrate there are plenty interesting dive sites to explore that don’t require someone to be a technical diver.

Ironically, the only injury Scott suffered in travelling the world for their documentaries involved an accident involving his passion – flying. They were at a marine sanctuary in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, where oceanographers have been setting records of counts for fish species and corals on a single dive. It is quickly becoming a hotspot for divers.

Andre had just completed an aerial photo shoot in a small ultra-light type float plane and suggested Scott fly with the pilot next. They were flying low over dugongs (large marine mammals similar to manatees) and decided to take another look. The pilot pulled the plane into a climb before making a 180-degree turn. The aircraft stalled in a fairly steep bank and crashed nose first into the water.

Fortunately, both survived. Scott had lots of scrapes and scars on his legs but no broken bones. There would not be a new aircraft-wreck dive site.

Their contract with Outdoor Life Network completed, Scott Wilson and Andre Dupuis will now seek markets for Descending elsewhere.
For the Hamilton-Ontario-based film makers, that job just became a little easier. In January, they learned that Descending had been nominated for four Canadian Screen Awards (formerly known as Geminis).

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com