DR. ANN KRISTOVICH
Cave Explorer
Austin, Texas USA
Dr Ann Kristovich is the co-leader of the Proyecto de Buceo Espeleologico Mexico y America Central, and has been involved in cave exploration in Mexico, Belize and Central America since 1988. Kristovich participated in the exploration and survey of the Nacimiento Santa Clara, the upstream sumps of the Sotano de Las Calenturas, the Nacimiento Rio Choy and the Inland Blue Hole – Boiling Hole connection in Belize. She is a push diver for the Project and contributes as the team’s survey map/sketch artist and photographer. In 1989 at the completion of the Santa Clara Project, Project co-leader Jim Bowden “discovered” Zacaton and her adjacent cenotes, Caracol, Poza Verde, La Pilita and Azufrosa. Three months later the exploration of the cenotes began and continues to this time. After nearly 17 years of continuous work, this world-class sight continues to inspire and surprise Kristovich and the team. In September 1993, Ann’s dive to 554 feet in Zacaton set a new women’s world depth record and she became one of only six individuals in the world to have dived deeper than 500 feet in a cave on open circuit scuba. For a time, she also held the woman’s deep air record with a 370ft. dive in Poza La Pilita in Mexico. She has completed hundreds of dives exceeding 300 feet and an equal number of sump, sidemount and technical dives.

Trained as an Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon, Kristovich has practiced in Austin, Texas for twenty-five years. She made an intense study of hyperbaric medicine in preparation for her and Bowden’s world record dives and has been a popular speaker at technical conferences here and abroad on the Project’s methods of in water recompression and techniques for managing medical emergencies in the remote sites of wilderness cave exploration. Recently she was a featured speaker at the Journee Toulonnaise de Medecine de Plongee 2004 in Toulon, France (FFESSM). Desiring to give something back for her good fortune and life opportunities, she has traveled to Honduras, Guyana, and Brazil to participate in medical missions.

In recognition of her work in the field of cave exploration, Ann was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame. She has been a popular speaker, a prolific writer and photographer and her work has been published in national and international journals. Kristovich has participated actively in diving education teaching with Jim Bowden at all levels of training, from open water to full cave to trimix.

Organized and designed by Advanced Diver Magazine © WET 2006 All rights reserved

www.AdvancedDiverMagazine.com