Souci 2002

Gouffre du Grand Souci

St Vincent-sur-l’Isle, Dordogne

Click to enlarge:

Many thanks to Mr Jean Claude Zacharie owner of the Gouffre, to let us dived it.

Many thanks also to Clive Steel for his technical information and his encouragements to investigate deeper than his previous dive at –103m in 2000.

MARCH 2002

Jerome Meynié (Uk)

Thomas Baum (Germany)

"Souci" in french mean "Worry" Jerome was getting quite anxious and curious about that, so after a pleasure dive at the Doux de Coly with some friends, he decided to investigate it. Arriving at 10 divers over there, only Jerome and Thomas decided to dive ... we wonder why ...

Jerome after falling in the water search for the –6m blue line and attached it to a line at the surface, then Jerome dropped to –20m where the visibility was of more than 10 meters, being on his third with his twin 3 litres he bail out. Thomas using twin 12 litres went to –43m following the blue line. There it finished to two different lines in opposite directions, the bottom visibility being < 5 meters, Thomas made is way out not without difficulty. Thomas was happy not using underwater his new DPV (Diving Propulsion Vehicule).

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APRIL 2002

Jerome Meynié (Uk)

Dominique Victorin (France)

Thierry Baritaud (France)

and surface support:

Michel, Charles-Aurel, Annick, Vincent & co

Staging Day:

Thierry and Jerome installed a 10mm 50m long rope from the surface down to –40m parallel to the existing blue rope. Domi staged tanks for the next day, and checked the departure of both lines at -43m. Jerome tried to do some video footage but due to the poor visibility the auto focus of the camera went on strike.

D-Day:

Thierry put all of his talent of caving engineering to descend Jerome heavy bulky twin 20 liters.

Domi went first staging more tanks for Jerome decompression, and investigate the beginning of the deep path, Domi came back on surface with some bad news: the visibility being < 2 meters.

Jerome decided then to change of battle-plan : at –60m due to the poor visibility following the existing line and having patch of silt falling on him (thanks Mr Helmet), he swam in open water in the opposite direction of the wall.

After ½ minute swimming in a black crystal clear space without seeing any wall or roof he dropped down; at –80m he met a shrimp (nyphargus sp. type).

At –100m he tried to look around with his twin JMD 50 w torches but without seeing any walls. At –120m he slowed down his speed of descent.

At –130m he could see a muddy 45 degree slope under him but too late to slow down properly. At -133m a big cloud of silt happened, after 21 minutes underwater with careful movement he started his ascent reeling back his descent line, the visibility had turn to nil, the LED lights becoming more useful.

Thierry came at –6m to collect some staged tanks, but Jerome couldn’t identify him properly due to the bad visibility. The decompression finished fortunately without any problem.

Gas used: 9/69, 30/35, 50/25, O2. Decompression via a VR3, total time underwater 192 minutes.

Followed, a fantastic rural "Buffet" provided very kindly be a local fishermen "Vincent" (Cahors wine and paté and saucisse), telling us varied stories of collapsing patch of fields in the surrounding, and a story of him fishing in the Gouffre pulling more than 200 meters of line ... food for thought ...

EPILOGUE

Thierry (living in the local area) will keep a weekly eye on the Gouffre to try to get some better visibility for future attempt and deep survey.

Closed Circuit Rebreather will be used in the future to avoid creating too many bubbles detaching tones of silt from the wall or from the ceiling of that GIGANTIC chamber !