In 1977 I found myself in Pensacola, Florida, attending my first instructor training institute. Although I had already been cave diving for over three years and had dove with Sheck Exley, I had not met one of Sheck’s early diving partners, Rory Dickens. Rory was also attending the instructor institute in Pensacola. When he found out I worked and dove with Hal Watts we struck up a conversation which lasted for over five years. Rory lived in Jacksonville and taught high school physics. He had a masters degree in physics and was a naval officer and fighter pilot—a true sensation seeker.

Rory invited me to go diving with him and his best friend and dive partner, David Cameron, who was also a teacher in Jacksonville. David lived in the house right next to Sheck’s. Wow, I had been fortunate enough to land feet first in the middle of a cave diving education. Rory owned one of the first technical diving equipment manufacturing companies, DLS Enterprises. This was an acronym for Dickens, Lee, and Sturdivant. Rory developed some the first primary and jump reels, and lights (wet-cell and dry-cell battery canisters) both sealed beam and text tube quartz light heads. Rory also built scooters. Rory allowed me to come up every weekend. I was living in Jensen Beach, Florida, attending FIT’s Underwater Technology program. My commercial diving instructor was another NACD cave diving instructor and author, Charlie Valance. I had it made. I learned from Charlie on the weekdays and Rory and David on the weekends. I had learned to use the necessary machine shop equipment at FIT, so Rory allowed me to help make lights and reels using lathes, milling machines, and drill presses. Rory had built a pressure chamber so we could test our final product before shipment. Rory also built frictionless tables for the local schools physics labs.

Rory was not only an NACD board member, instructor, author, engineer, but a mentor to young people his whole life. He taught physics in Jacksonville for 37 years. Rory challenged everyone to do better and was encouraging to all who knew him. Thanks to Rory, I will have the title of PhD shortly. Rory taught me the sense of what is important. I can thank Rory for suggesting philosophically how dangerous cave diving can be. With his guidance, and for the sake of my children, I took off almost 20 years from diving in the overhead environment—advice well taken. I have experienced first hand losing too many friends cave diving. Today cave diving is safer than it was years ago, but it is still dangerous. If you have not lost someone close to you cave diving, it is life changing event. Rory was there to help me get through those difficult times. The last time I got to have a long conversation with Rory was after Sheck died in 1994. It was not until Christmas 2000 when I sent Rory a Christmas card and it came back that I knew something was wrong. David Cameron called me to let me know Rory had been murdered. He was only 67. I was shocked. Rory was very generous and was still mentoring young people. When he would not lend his car to a couple of kids from school they killed him.

A secondary tragedy also occurred. Rory did not have any children, and after Rory’s retirement he befriended someone to look after his estate. Rory lived in the same home for almost 40 years. Not only did Rory have his personal dive gear, he had all his writings. Rory wrote two chapters in the original 1973 cave diving text and a text on the physics of diving. I was fortunate enough to be the proofreader of one of his texts. Rory also had hand drawn maps from many of the original cave diving explorers as well as many other historical items. To the best of my knowledge there was a miscommunication and when David Cameron went to retrieve Rory’s entire cave diving collection. All David found was Rory’s current cave diving equipment. Everything else was already gone. Lost forever.

This was and remains a great loss to the cave diving community. Rory was a one of a kind and all his memories are gone forever. After hearing Rory’s story the cave diving community decided to create a cave diving museum. Many of us from the 60’s and 70’s—the first cave divers—are still around. My hope is the cave diving museum is a going to be a great place to keep all the cave diving memories in a permanent location. There is going to be both a virtual and physical museum. If you are ready to donate any of your cave diving items or memorabilia please contact someone at the museum. If you are not quite ready to donate an actual item let us know and we will make arrangements to come take photos or scans of the items for the virtual museum.

Bill Oigarden