International Expedition 13-16 February 2002
The terminus in the sump 3 of the Marnade haven’t been explored since the Fred Badier FFESSM expedition of 1996, FB describing a narrow window of 1.5m x 1.5m at –121m, with some silt and looking like going up (Spelunca no 67 p.14).
If JM learned something the last few years in cave diving in France, it was that caves are like the equipment: it needs to be checked twice !
JM made three attempts in 2001 without success, the lack of enough water for 250m between Sump Two and Sump Three and too much carbon dioxide did not let him go through and carrying the equipment.
Thomas Baum swimming the long 250m between sump 2 and sump 3
Two weeks of rain beginning of February gave the team the perfect conditions.
Two days of staging was just enough, a few complications did happen to the different members of the team: free flow regulators, broken harness, drysuit that became wetsuit, overcharged nappies, pee-valve not functioning, lost diver in sump 3, and mainly visibility who became dreadful, scootering sump 1 in speed 4 of the Aquazepp underwater scooter became a real challenge ! but everybody kept their smile.
Dr Jerome Meynie departure on D-day
D-day: JM started with DV and pass the nice large beautiful sump 1 (362m –33m) in speed 4 of the Aquazepp in 6 minutes with a 32/30 (trimix: 32% O2, 30 % Helium) twin stages 15 liters . Then sump 2 (126m –6m) still on the Aquazepp in 2 minutes, followed by a relaxed 1/2h of fining on the lake between sump 2 and sump 3 at depth varying from 1m to 0.20m, not for big belly !. JMB, the surface manager, reach us after a while and gave JM and DV a green light to start there descent in the sump 3.
One of the difficult passage
Descending in the narrow vertical diaclase (narrow hall), the wing (safety lift jacket) of JM was scratching the walls and already moving the silt, the big BT 8mm blue line installed the previous days became a good friend.
Reaching –25m the tunnel got back to a nice round form of 5-6m of diameter, another 80m to swim at that depth and JM reached the big shaft. DV attached to JM the two 20 lit tanks relay of 9/70 (9% oxygen, 70% helium) and the 32/30 was left at –39m, JM signed ok to DV and dived away.
Descent in the big shaft was ok, but with the feeling that no housekeeper cleaned it since a while ! more and more silt seemed to follow JM, hell was on his heels. The passage at the bottom of the big shaft became again a narrow diaclase, but JM could see the opening at –60m to a big gallery.
After the hell of the silt of the big shaft, JM felt like he was in Paradise: dunes of sand in a crystal clear water in a 10m wide on 20m high big gallery, with no limit of visibility, the two JMD 50w xenon torches making it fantastic ! But no time for sight seeing, JM had to swim on a 45-60 degree slope to –121m. Arriving around –110m JM finished his first third of his first stage (relay) 20 lit of 9/70. JM passed onto the other stage, then this stage decided to free-flow from the first stage screwing into the body o-ring, JM screwed it, unscrewed it, but that didn’t seems to change anything. JM decided then to abandon it and continue only with his back twin 20s and one stage tank 20 liters.
Arriving to the end of the line of Fred Badier at –121m (350m in Sump Three) JM nearly laughed of joy (not narked being on an Equivalent Narcotic Depth of –25m) the supposed narrow window, was in fact a big laminoir (large passage but shallow ceiling) of 2m high on 4-5m large, FB maybe didn’t have good lights or was maybe low on helium in his mix !
JM attached his reel and started happily fining with a BIG smile around the mouthpiece of his regulator. After 20-25 meters of clean superb grey gallery a 4 meters diameter shaft appeared, like in his most wished dreams, JM let himself descend into it. At –128m JM faced a dead end, he couldn’t believe it finished here ! He turned on 180 degrees and another gallery appeared, this was too good ! He was in a dream, he swam a bit in it and decided to stop the exploration for that day (390m in Sump Three, 1128m in total), the gallery continued despite of what have been said the last 6 years by others, JM then will be back soon ! On his way back up on the dunes of sand some little white 5mm animals came to say “Hi”, that’s nice to feel supported!
But JM did forget that coming back on earth from Paradise means going through Hell again, and arriving at –60m, JM was in a nil vis and stuck between rocks, the line had moved JM was in a narrowness. He shut his eyes, exhale, relax, and try on the right, nothing, On a left, he could move a little bit but that was still not going through with a four 20 liters tank. JM’s cut decompression tables was rendered useless, he was glad to use a VR3 (underwater trimix decompression wrist computer) who will give at the end 30 min more than JM’s cut deco tables). After 6 minutes searching JM found his way up, "damned those 6 minutes felt like ˝ hour". Happy to see TB around –39m and giving him those bulky 20 lit stage relays; then followed the nice face of the safety divers: SF, JMB, DV. At 240 min into sump 3 it was time to go up (after using 23/40, 32/30, 50% decompression mix), when leaving –6m to go on surface JM felt some pain in both of his legs in the quadriceps muscle, that didn’t seems to make sense with a decompression accident, JM decided to came back at –6m on O2. JM started regretting swimming the days before to finish all the staging, JM should had stayed reading a book at the gite ! At 300 minutes JM felt much better and surfaced Sump Three meeting DV who had seemed to have frozen like an ice cube; JM forgot that with his heating jacket Klan and a good C-Bear under suit, that the water was cold ; )
JM and DV swam back slowly threw the lake, passed with big difficulties sump 2 in nil visibility (due to the heavy traffic of the safety divers), and said plenty of very bad French and English word in the surface gallery between sump 2 and sump 1, and then attacked sump 1 in the worst visibility condition on a speed 1 maximum of the scooters.
But another half an hour of decompression was waiting JM before getting out of Sump One:
5 minutes before the end: " my vision became very narrow and started feeling very dizzy", JM quickly recognised Oxygene toxicity (300% CNS, cold, tired …) and switch back straight away on trimix (9/70), the vision came back and the dizziness disappeared. JM was maybe playing too much on the VR3 octopus game ; )
8 hours later JM exit the sump and was glad to met outside of the cave all of the team; without them, all of that would have been impossible ! JM’s only regret was not to be able to share those bits of paradise with the team !
But he will be back soon with a video camera, and the little white animals better smile.
Published in:
Cave Diving Group Newsletter No144
Le Fil (French cave diving federation) No10
http://www.keimes.de/tauchen/tour/marnade/m-i.html