INTERNATIONAL DEEP CAVE DIVING FILM
Project leader and Deep cave diver:
Dr Jerome Meynie (UK) (-132m)
Deep cave divers:
Thomas Baum (Germany) (-80m)
Xavier Meniscus (France) (Fils d'Ariane team) (-80m)
Safety and support cave divers:
Andrew Barn (Ireland)
Stephane Friedli (Switzerland)
Dominique Victorin (France)
Frank Walter (France)
David Bianzani (France) (Fils d'Ariane team)
Laurent Yllare (France) (Fils d'Ariane team)
Claude Martins (France) (Doc Aventure team)
Nicolas Febvay (France) (Doc Aventure team)
Alexandre Pourgeoise (France) (Doc Aventure team)
The 2003 goal was to continue the exploration beyond 2002 terminus, concurrently we aimed to produced some Deep Cave Diving Film and Images using Close Circuit (ex-militaries) and Semi-Close (civilians) rebreathers and deep underwater scooters, increasing the safety margin and exploration time.
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Perfect level of water and clear water after winter :
(Click on any thumbnail to view full size)
A lot of broken lines had to be repaired in sump one; some bits of stainless steel cable lines installed by a previous team became a very dangerous trap, taking more time to be removed. Jerome using a CCR (Mk15.5 US Navy) spent more than 40 minutes at -33m fighting to remove part of that cable. Dominique installed some normal white nylon line, securing the sump.
The second mission was for Frank to put a spit at the end of sump two to attach firmly scooters and tanks throughout the expedition; in case of any sudden flooding it was important that the equipment would not spread wildly everywhere. It took 15 minutes for Frank to penetrate the rock but he did a brilliant job. Then, back on surface he couldn't resist testing the Mk15.5.
Xavier and David installed a proper 8mm polypropylene blue line in sump 3 on the first 150m through the narrow passage up to the shaft at -25m, Jerome filming them, and continuing with Xavier up to the -54m passage and down to -80m on trimix 15/60 (15% O2 60% He).
Over there they removed all the messy lines from previous expedition who seems to had melt after the autumn 2002 flooding. Again filming all those passages gave good opportunity to all the team to better understand the cave and prepare the April big expedition.
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Returning after 4 weeks, the gentle flow leaving the cave hadn't changed. There remained a good level of water, surprising after no rain since a month and a half. The deep underground reservoir was most likely still full from last year's flooding.
Day one: technical carrying day. First journey was from the car area to the spring, muscle power was mostly used, accompanied by a technical wheel-barrow!
Nico and Alex descended 15 stage tanks from the entrance room to the beginning of the tunnel at –25m. They were helped by Claude who devised a rope system to descend all tanks through the entrance shaft.
David and Laurent fully re-equipped sump two with 125m of 8mm blue rope. Xavier was behind them removing areas of old broken line.
Then everybody started carrying tanks to the end of sump 2, some of them swimming, some others using scooters (Silent Submersion, Aquazepps). Jerome won the 'most loaded diver competition' with 6 tanks (4x20s and 2x18s), Xavier trying to compete with Jerome lost one tank in sump one (it was recovered later).
Once again, all the team were working hard: carrying tanks from the end of sump two to sump three. Not an easy task through the 250m of underground river where the depth varied from 20cm to 1m of water, and all of that against a moderate current.
Jerome and Thomas were the last ones to return from sump 3 that day. Unfortunately, the visibility in sump 2 (125m –6m) had turned into 0 meters ; scootering was out of the question so they just followed the newly installed blue 8mm line from the previous day. Never mind Jerome succeed to lost the line looking too closely to some interesting fossils on the wall of the cave, in 0m visibility and completely lost into the sump 2 the use of a CCR reveal his strength: he had more than 6 hours of gas to find his way out !!! the line was found after 5 minutes using another skill: attaching his reel to a rock on the bottom of the gallery and following all the contour of the passage searching for the line
Thomas and Jerome swapped scooters on their way back through sump one to keep their skills sharpened. Whilst Jerome used the Aquazepp he remember how nice the Silent Submersion was: very quiet in compare with the noisy zepp ! Whilst using the silent sub and being on CCR he could hear the solenoid firing, impossible on the zepp !
The exit of S1 has been made more easy by the installation on the last 80m of a 8mm blue rope by David and Laurent, no risk of entrapment even in nil vis !
Claude successfully used his homemade SCR; even weighing 40 kg he succeed to carry tanks to sump three.
Jerome, Thomas and Dominique went staging tanks in sump three whilst continuing to repair and reinstall new blue lines to make the underwater path safer. They also made some video footage.
Time passed, dealing with the daily strike of both Junior II compressors, first stages Cyclon Poseidon seat failures, pee-valve detached through the dive, forgotten helmet at the house, lost fin in the entry shaft of sump one, and finally a 120 km/h south of France strong wind trying to remove the roof of the rented house !
Jerome and Thomas had some rest off diving, concentrating on revising their equipment. The last tanks and spheres were filled out of the village.
Stephane, Thomas and Dominique went exploring local caves in their spare time, just to relax :
Stephane revealed his last home-made weapon (passive SCR). The tanks have some old sponsors Sec... stickers, own by another famous Swiss diver Oli... I..., SCR and twin 20s a mix of two generations !
Sponsored by:
Copyright 2003 by Dr Jerome Meynie. All rights reserved. Revised: 26 Sep 2003 22:06:00 +0100.