While focusing on caves in Florida's Big Bend, WKPP members have explored 18 cave systems in Mexico and 25 in the Bahamas. Recently they also surveyed caves in Brazil and Turkey . Having adequate backups is critical, since the labyrinths are completely devoid of either light or air. The main exploration team recently switched from regular scuba to Halcyon rebreathers, thus giving them much more time to explore. They wear dry suits inflated with argon and don thinsulate undergarments that allow them to withstand the cool water for as long as 16 hours or more.
Special valves made into the suits permit the divers to relieve themselves.
Food and liquids are cached in waterproof tubes. The explorers employ highly streamlined and only essential gear that enables them to move through the water as easily as fish. If suitable cave diving gear is not available commercially, the team makes its own such as the super scooters used to propel them through the caves. In order for them to find their way back from where they started, cave explorers install thin nylon guidelines, just as Theseus unwound a ball of string to find his way out of the Labyrinth, that they carry on large reels. The divers also use these permanent guidelines to map the tunnels.