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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8 am: “Spaghetti del Mare” for breakfast, spaghetti for carbohydrates and “del Mare” to swim better.
8:30 am “The Unexpected Stress”
All the team made their way to the spring ... well, tried: the 6 km off road track to access the spring goes over some private land, and that morning one owner got scared about the assortment of cars with English, German, Swiss and French licence plates. Maybe he thought it was the war again and decided to block the road with his tractor ! Jerome had to negotiate with a lot of diplomacy.
Arriving over there Jerome tried to stay in his corner and started concentrating for the Big Push.
That turned out to be a big mistake. By doing so, he let some of the support divers take the Silent Sub scooter to the source with the video housing attached on top. Unfortunately, they put it in the water without realising that the o-ring of the video housing was not installed. As a result, the housing had completely flooded. Ultimately, this was the worst nightmare that could have happened. All the hope of the expedition was based on taking back some deep image … "we were not interested just by a push for a push, but by a filmed exploration" …
Then followed 20 minutes of stress where Jerome was at a point of cancelling the expedition. As he thought about all the months of training, the time, the effort invested … “I was reminded of Bill Stone's 1994 expedition in Mexico and all the problems he had to face, but he still kept faith and explored forward”. “I tried to dry the inside of the housing as much as possible, everybody being silent around me not daring saying a word”.
10 am "Let's Rock'n roll"
The decision was taken "Jerome will do the dive", everybody praying that the video housing didn't suffer too much. Stephane, the Dive Manager, gave the final briefing to all the team about “Who was doing what, and when”:
10:40 am “Flying in Paradise”
Sump one: 362m long, 33 m deep, in 20 minutes.
“I’m the first to go through in a crystal clear visibility; we did well leaving the spring in peace over the last two days ! I’m very concentrated (trimix 35/35, CCR set point 1.0 of PpO2) and I flew through sump one at speed 9 of the Silent Submersion scooter, in less than 6 minutes for the deep section”. Thomas followed Jerome and even overtook him at speed 4 of his Aquazepp !
11 am “Another Quick Fly”
Sump two: 126m long, 8m deep, in 3 minutes !!! Same very good visibility and a very quick fly.
11:03 am “The Long Crossing”
Partially (between 1 m and 0.2m deep) flooded long (250m) river in a superb gallery with stalactite hanging from the ceiling, in 27 minutes.
Thomas and Jerome abandoned their stage tanks that will be used on there return later on through the day.
They started a long swim on the river pulling the scooter; Jerome still breathing through the CCR on O2 at a ppo2 of 1.0.
The infamous "Sand Dune" with only 20 cm of water became the more strenuous passage, fortunately Thomas was there to give Jerome a hand to carry the 42kg scooter out of the water over the sand dune.
Arriving at the beginning of sump three we had to re-attach our stage tanks left over the past week “some silt had dried on the regulators and the Swagelock connectors but I was not too much concern at that point”. Unknown to Jerome, this would lead to later problems.
Domi and Stephane arrived to give Thomas and Jerome a hand to finish kitting all the gear, then Stephane as the "Underground Manager" gave Thomas the green light to go.
Thomas mission of the day was to attach a new line at –57m, install it, and pull it to the –80m area, also staging one tank for Jerome at –80m. By then, if he was still into his safety margin of gas consumption: he was to wait for Jerome to follow.
11:50 am “Unpredictable Mother Nature”
Sump three: 350m long, 121m deep (Jerome's terminus of last year); out 4:50 pm
“I started through the narrow hall (diaclase) between surface and –25m feeling very bulky with my twin 20 litres staged tanks, and having to pay careful attention to carrying the scooter without banging too much the video housing against the walls".
"At –25m I dropped into the tunnel and I switched on the Silent Submersion Scooter, having a much more comfy ride for 60m of gallery with a proper large tunnel shape. Then the big mouth of the shaft opened to me, I dropped quickly to –57m and entered the narrow (1m wide) passage leading to the deep gallery (5 to 10 m wide)".
Thomas had already attached the line and did a fantastic job placing it properly.
"But something was wrong; the visibility was really getting bad, maximum 1 meters (in a 10m wide on 10m high gallery). I could see vaguely in a silty cloud the HID lamp of Thomas, when I came to him, he attached on me a 20 litres stage tank 11/70 (11% O2 70% He) and gave me the line reel. I left him still very concentrated but already very disappointed by the visibility. Where had the crystal clear gallery of last year with quartz sand dunes gone?"
"Scootering down from –80m to –121m was not too enjoyable. In front the vis was 5 meters but behind me the vis was nil, I knew the return was going to be fun !"
"At around –90m the back screen of the video housing went off. The flooding earlier probably damaged the batteries. Being on the move I decided to continue even in a worst visibility than last year. I Finished pulling the line to 350m long at –121m and attached another reel. I then went inside the smallest gallery (5m wide on 2m high) where the walls were covered in silt, ready to jump on me".
"After 25m of swimming at -122m on a SW direction, the first shaft took me to –125m then another to –128m. Then the direction changed to SE and a bed of big rocks seemed to lead the way to a window going slightly up. Following that it was again going down, I decided then to attached the Silent Submersion scooter (being perfectly neutral) on the line and continued to swim to have more time placing the line properly and finding my way".
"After 12 minutes (between -121m and -132m) exploring that new gallery and reaching –132m at 450m in sump three 1550m from surface, a new window going up in the gallery appeared, the vis still quite bad and disappointing. I decided to turn back very carefully in a nil visibility, taking back the scooter in one hand. Ascending with the CCR, as expected, it made bubbles (expanding counterlung) unfortunately moving to the ceiling and detaching even more silt".
"At –121m I switched (using Swagelock QC6 connectors) from my in-board gas 7/90 (7% O2 90%He) to a first off-board decompression gas 11/70 (11% O2 70% He). Going up slowly following the line, I reached my first two minutes deep decompression stop at –93m, then every 3 meters I stopped for ½ min. I really appreciated the positioning of the line by Thomas between –80 and –54m, because the vis being nil I couldn’t see the walls and there was plenty of risk of being trapped in a narrowness like last year".
"At –54m I was again switching to a different decompression gas a 25/50 (25% O2 50% He), but then for some unexpected reason I couldn’t breath anything, even when trying to do some manual flushes. Cautiously I switched back to my in-board gas 7/90 and dropping a little bit down I had to flush the rebreather counterlung with the in-board gas 7/90, unfortunately loosing some of the 11/70 breathed since -121m. The past few month of training in cold muddy English caves repeating again and again skills and emergency situations proved very useful !"
"I decided to take some time to think. That’s the beauty of a Rebreather, whatever happens you have time to think ! Whatever I did with the switching connectors (Swagelock QC6) and the 3 way valve (Swagelock SS-41-XS2) I still couldn’t used any off-board decompression gas".
"But finishing all the dive with some 7/90 (7% O2, 90% He) was not the best solution: I was going to have a minimum of 8 or 10 hours of deco, even at Ppo2 of 1.0 or more, due to the high percentage of Helium. On the other hand, switching to open circuit and optimising my deco would give me 4 or 5 hours. Having staged a big amount of gas I choose the open circuit option. Again in a case like this the VR3 is a fantastic tool enabling the switch between CCR and open circuit and giving an instant live recalculation of the deco".
"Again at –36m I tried to plug an off board 35/35 (35% O2, 35% He) decompression gas without success, I used it open circuit. My first support diver Claude was late to arrive so I decided to scooter back through the -25m tunnel. Just before reaching the end of it I passed rather quickly a diver making bubbles; but that couldn’t be Claude as he was using a SCR rebreather. Being late on my schedule Claude had to make his way out. Stephane the surface manager had the good idea to send me Xavier. I wrote him a few notes on a slate and he took back the scooter to go and pick up some deep safety tanks left behind in the shaft".
"At –21m I tried again to plug in the CCR via the Swagelock connectors the 50/25 (50% O2, 25% He) decompression mix, but with the same results, only the in board diluent 7/90 was going through. No problem I had a 18 litres tank at 250b of 50/25, that was plenty enough up to the –6m stop. Not moving anymore and just relaxing through the decompression, I was still feeling quite warm, the combination of Fourth Element Xerotherm underwear (leggings, top and socks) and the Otter Artic Deluxe 300 undersuit was perfect".
"David came to see me at –12m with my 'goody bag' containing : Isotonic energetic drinks and food, a book, and a Gameboy Color (Attack of the Clones) in a transparent waterproof bag. David went down and came back with Xavier having recovered every tank left behind. At –9m I did 10 minutes on air gas to lower the ppo2 as much as possible and giving a rest to my lungs alveoli before going at –6m on pure oxygen. Doing so was not a problem at all and I was feeling very good, warm and re-hydrated, my only problem was still being stuck on Level 2 of the Gameboy! Domi and then Stephane came to spend a bit of time with me, mainly when I was switching gas every 20 minutes after a 5 minutes Air break. Even at 270 minutes time was passing by smoothly. Xavier came by my side for the last half an hour, chatting with me via the underwater slate. He was a very good psychological support before exiting to the surface of sump 3, because I still had in mind the muscle pain of last year, but this time I took 15 minutes to go up between –6m and the surface, and I exited (4:50 pm) feeling good after 300 minutes underwater in sump three".
"Xavier and then Thomas dragged me to the underground camp established by the team at the Sand Dune. There I spent 1h20 minutes resting, chatting with the team and drinking some hot Ovomaltine carried in a thermos in the “Brian Jopling” waterproof underwater tube. That tube also contained everything to treat any emergency decompression accident: fluid perfusion and catheter, AINS, a full set of Fourth Element Xerotherm clothing in case of hypothermia, food, etc ... "
By the time Jerome was resting, Xavier, David, and Domi did the fantastic job of carrying back all the tanks from sump three to the sump two, swimming many times the 250m underground long river downstream and upstream. The only negative point was that a lot of silt was moved and dragged downstream in sump two.
After 80 minutes of rest Jerome swam gently back on the surface of the river to the sump two, it took him 15 minutes.
6: 17 pm “Swim in 0 visibility”
Sump Two way back 126m long, 8m deep, in 18 minutes ! out 6:35pm.
"The idea was to let me go first on the way back to have the better vis, minimising then the time in the deep section of sump one and so minimising the risk of saturation. But the vis of sump two was nil, carrying the scooter in one hand I followed the line with the other one, happy to have a helmet protecting my head in such a difficult passage ! At some point I was even shutting my eyes, to feel the cave with my other sense, the vision not being anymore here of use ! It took me 18 minutes to complete undoubtedly the slowest crossing of sump two ever recorded !!!
6:40 pm “So much better”
Sump one way back: 362m long, 33 m deep, in 60 minutes, out 7:40 pm.
"I’ve been very grateful to all the team to let me go through sump one first, the vis was amazingly clear, the 6 hour interval without divers, seemed to do the job !
I scootered it full speed in less than 5 minutes, better than the morning. Still on open circuit 35/35 trimix, the VR3 didn’t give me any decompression due to my limited exposure time in the deep section. But feeling neither cold or tired I decided to spend more time at –6m on pure oxygen to give enough chance to my different tissue compartments to desaturate as much as possible. Again, completing air breaks every 20 minutes, another good feature of the VR3 is that you can see underwater your desaturation curve and observe the different tissue compartments".
"Thomas joined me a few minutes after at –6m and like me decided to spend time desaturating. The rest of the support divers made there way back without incident and carrying out some decompression tanks from sump three. Xavier even succeed to carry through the narrow shaft: a scooter and 6 tanks plus his twin 20 on his back, all of that with a big smile on his face".
"I finally made my way out after 10 hours underground, happy that everything went well for everybody, happy of the 100m of gallery discovered in the deep area of sump 3, but a bit disappointed of the poor visibility".
A great barbecue at the spring was waiting for us prepared by Nico, Alex, and Alexia.
Xavier poured the Champagne, oops... I meant the Pepsi ... after all we don't drink and dive! ; )
Xavier, David and Domi armed with two Aquazepps and one Silent Submersion, retrieved all stage tanks from sump two in poor visibility. The rest of the team carried back the tanks on the surface from the spring to the cars.
EPILOGUE
A few years will probably be needed for the “Marnade spring” to clear herself of the silt carried from last autumn's flooding, maybe giving us better conditions to continue its deep exploration whilst taking back some proper images.
Taking apart the Swagelock connectors and the 3 way valve of the Mk15.5, some silt and sand was found inside probably rendering the gas unable to flow from the off board tanks, some filters will be installed, and a stage (SCR passive) second rebreather will be used for the next expeditions.
EXPEDITION STATISTICS
World Deepest Dived Multi Sumps Cave
Deepest dive: -132m
Longest distance: 1550m
Longest time underground: 10 hours
Longest time underwater in one dive: 5 hours
Tanks carried in sump three: > 20
Number of diving days: 18 days
Total dives logged by underwater team: 73
Total number of CCR/SCR dives: 32 hours
Total number of trimix dives: 12
Total number of 8mm blue line installed: 700m
Longest time used of Spherasorb sodalime in 13 deg water: 12 hours
Amount of Spherasorb sodalime used: 50 kg
Sponsored by:
Copyright 2003 by Dr Jerome Meynie. All rights reserved. Revised: 26 Sep 2003 22:07:57 +0100.