International Expedition

Part II: Font de Lussac 18-22 August 2004

Project Manager and surface manager: Frank Walter (France)

Deep divers: Jerome Meynie CCR Biomarine Mk15.5 (England), Matthieu Darroman Open Circuit (France)  Stéphane Girardin SCR EDO04 (Switzerland) Jean-Pierre Stefanato SCR EDO04 (France) 

Safety divers: Michel Delage , Philippe Tisseuil, Agnès Olivier , Jean-Christophe Dubois, Daniel Guinouard, Jean Luc Armengaud, Pascal Poingt, Thierry Benoist, Yves-Maurice Allongé O.C. (France)

Many thanks for the big financial support to the Crédit Agricole Caisse Locale de Ruelle-sur-Touvre, the Conseil Général de la Charente, the Mairie de la Ville de Touvre, the CIAS from the  CNPS of the FFESSM; and to the president Pascal Giraud of the GESMA for there daily help and logisitic support.

Photos (c) 2004  Matthieu Darromon, Jérôme Meynié , Michel Delage   (Click on any thumbnail to view full size) 

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Day 1:    -160 meters deep, 260 meters from the entrance

Starting under a heavy cloudy sky but without any risk of flooding or storm said the french national forecast.

Philippe, Daniel, Michel, Agnes, Matthieu installed the day before some safety tanks at different depth in the cave in case the CCR would be out of use and I would be obliged to come back on open circuit, I had some heliox 50/50 (-22m) 30/70 (-42m) 15/85 (-72m)

      

Jean Luc on surface helped me attaching my two 20 litres safety stage tanks of heliox 7/93 and 12/88, than off I was descending at 20 m/min with the Silent Submersion scooter Deep Version UV27 NiMh, visibility was still correct 10 meters even with the traffic of the divers the previous day. At -45m I left my 2 litres camel pack of isotonic drinks and the Li-Ion battery of the heating jacket.

 At -75m I turned to the left in the horizontal gallery and full speed with the scooter for 30 meters, then the big shaft nearly vertical, I had to move away from the wall a few times to avoid moving the silt. At -125m I had to abandon the 5mm blue rope left by my friend Domi Victorin in 2002, he went horizontally sideways to make the ling with the -125m gallery of  Frank Walter; then going down (shunt line 3mm) for 4-5 meters I joined again the 5mm blue rope left in place 2 weeks ago by Frank Walter at -130m. At that depth attach on the rope I left a back up 20 litres heliox 12/88.

Then following directions left by the explorations of Ludovic Giordano (end of the 90's) I followed the wall on the left hand (when going head down in the shaft) following in fact two old 3mm lines, who after a few meters went in different directions: the bottom one finished on an old (a la parisienne) reel at -143m (210m) left on a silty floor, and the top one attached on a wall protusion at -140m. Not attracted by the silty floor I decided to attach my line at the terminus of Ludo and started the exploration scootering from there descending very slowly (to avoid any HPNS) but still following on my left hand the wall. In fact I didn't have the choice because even with a 66w HID (+/- 250w halogen) it was pitch black above me or on my right, that gallery was gigantic.

 After pulling 50m of line at -150m I found another protusion from the wall, I attached the line and descended a bit more vertically, but still no ceilling or floor or right wall at -160m!

 Return in 3 minutes 20 secondes to the first decompression stop at -129m at the bottom of the big shaft. Then followed uneventfull deco stops every 3 meters.

At -54m looking around between rocks and fossiles, I found the old fake grenade of  2002 who was used as a weight on the line at -115m, I filmed it at that time:

A bad boy named Patrick M. removed it from the line a few years before but lost it on his way up ... it proved that you should never removed things in a cave.

-45m I plugged my Typhoon  Icebreaker heating jacket, pure joy, heat spreading all over.

 The good thing of the "Font de Lussac" is that you never get bored on your way up through decompression because there is always something to discover on a geological or archeological point of view:

Only a little problem happened on the way up between -18m and -12m: no more air to insuflate my drysuit, and a flat battery for the heating jacket; psychologically the -15m deco stop was a bit hard, I had only one thought going asap in the -11 -12m deco habitat !!! but I've been a good boy and didn't shunt that stop !

Once in the habitat, communication with the surface was quite easy via a very cheap Intercom and very easy to use, it have been transported underwater in a Snoopyloop (inner tube). Matthieu Darroman and Frank Walter stayed in contact with me for the 3 hours.

   

Food and drinks was sent to me, and I found back my book from the previous dive, two weeks old, soaked but still reedable. My planned dive tables was giving me 2h30 at -11m but I decided for safety reasons and to help to desaturate for the next dive to add 30 minutes . Daniel after many times going up and down (carrying food and soup) from the surface to the habitat helped me to go out of the habitat and kept an eye on me on my way up at 4 minutes / metres.

           

 

Exiting very happy without any pain or tiredness, I had only one thought in mind: going back there to explore deeper and further on !

9 hours (out at 11 PM) dive with a CCR Mk15.5 and a scooter Silent Submersion Deep Version NiMh, PpO2 1.2, heliox 7/93, decompression on pure oxygen in a habitat at -11m, CNS total 20.000%, all dive planned on V-Planner coef +4 VPM-B

        

 

The national newspaper: "La Charente Libre" published the next day an article about the deep dive and a photo of me handling the grenade, unfortunately without any explanations, I can't imagine what the readers of the papers thought (cave divers blowing up underwater caves?), on the friday I was expecting an investigation of the anti terrorist squad of Angouleme city.