St Sauv Exped July 2005

"SAINT SAUVEUR SPRING"

INTERNATIONAL EXPEDITION JULY 2005

-182m, 810 meters from the exit

Dived by Jerome Meynie
10 hours and 10 minutes on heliox 5/95
PpO2 of 1.4 (exploration) and 1.55 (decompression)
using Silent Submersion scooters and Close Circuit Rebreathers: Ouroboros, and DDD as a back up rebreather
45 minutes to reach -182m at +/- 800m from the exit
5 hours decompression in the water and 5 hours in the decompression habitat on pure oxygen at -12m
followed by an ascent in the water on O2 open circuit from -12m to surface at 3 min/m under the control of a safety diver.

MANY THANKS to all the team for their help and support:

Laurent Rouchette for letting us use his decompression habitat and for helping us install it under the ceiling at -12m.

Mathieu Darroman (DDD) for the logistic management and his unlimited support.

Mario Marconi (Italy, Buddy Inspiration and Joki), for joining me up to -163m and his attempt to do some underwater images; and also Daniela for her Nutella tartines !

Mark Ellyott (GB, Ouroboros and Joki) for checking the line up to 600m at the ŤSabotage passage ť and his under water photos.

Jean Luc Armengaud (open circuit) for his help without measures in and out of the water ! (Many thanks also to Mani, Joris and Cedric)

Jean Pierre Stefanato (EDO 04 and Joker) for his visit at -42m and for his Ť Pasta a la Jean-Pierre in the habitatť

Christophe Richard (open circuit) for taking all the rebreathers up on surface from the habitat at -12m

Joachim et Dietke Mehldau for their visit and help at -30m

Last but not least, to my friend Xavier Meniscus, for sharing his information and parameters of his previous exploration dive at -140m (with in water decompression !!!)

Photos by: the Armengaud family, Mark Ellyott, Mathieu Darroman, Jerome Meynie, Rose Yates.

(Click on any thumbnail to view full size)

All good expeditions start by hoovering the Sofnolime dust from the outside canister after packing it

and installing (Mathieu and Laurent) the decompression habitat

and his inflation (Jean Luc)

under the ceiling at -12m

Base camp: "Chez Gaby"; at 1/4h from St Sauveur spring, very handy when kitting up near the spring the day of the push when I realised that I had forgotten my thermal underwear at the campsite

DDD mCCR used as a back up for decompression

The goal was to explore and take back some images, for that a Silent Submersion deep model scooter (double thickness body, max -250m) was equipped with the video housing on top. Unfortunately the poor visibility and the HID torch being broken two days before the push, didn't give us opportunity to film.

Mario and his personal surface assistant: Daniela !

Late morning start at 11am

After a rapid descent with the scooters in the main gallery (3-4m diameter, then 2m, then again 3-4m, depth from -72m, -68m, -75m) 150m to 370m, Mario and I went up swimming through the big rock boulders with a maximum high peak of -57m (400m).

From there it comes back down in a more easy space to a wide gallery (5-7m diameter) at around -70m where the line (electric cable in a white sheath) alternates from ground to ceiling through +/- 200m , then appears two snoopyloops attached on the main line (who go straight to a dead end at -93m) followed by a thin line at -83m (+/- 570m, 30 minutes from the exit) going in the right direction.

That thin line took us to a big rock (nice to sit on it on deco on the way back) behind it appeared the big mouth of a superb rift 1-2m large on 4-5m long, starting around -83m and finishing around -120m, the walls of the rift being nearly smooth.

At -120m we were back in a round shape galley (4-5m of diameter) going on for roughly 100m before going back up to -110m, where a right and left junction appeared. Following the indications of my friend Xavier Meniscus we turned right following the "Green Line". Then it went back down to -120m where a shaft started (3-4m diameter) on a slope (+/-70 deg).

Mario stopped at -163m, and I continued to find the end of Rick Stanton's line at -177m, attaching my line I continued down to the end of the shaft/slope around -179m, then a gallery started on the left end under the slope of the shaft, looking like stairs of rocks and very thin sand (same type encountered in Lussac spring at -180m). I broke (torn cable) my HID torch two days before the push, so Mario lend me his halogen torch with +/- 40 minutes of burn time, and just after I attached my line at -177m the torch decided to die, fortunately the two LEDS (7 and 14) on my helmet were still giving good lights to continue the exploration !

After scootering and pulling 15 meters of line (+/- 810m at 45 minutes from the entry of the spring) at -182m in the gallery I decided to stop and check the rebreather primary display, and I had the bad surprise to see some black column (flooded screen) instead of the normal figures !

Turning back I thought: is it all the electronic POD who is flooded or just the primary display ?

Going up I saw that the HUD was working well (blue V solenoid working and steady green for a steady maintained PpO2) and that the passive display was showing me the good figures as 1,4 PpO2. Conclusion - just the primary display was dead.

One of the ongoing problems was the next 10-12 hours of decompression (indicated by my back up VR3-VPM ): maintaining the actual PpO2 of 1,4 ? or optimising it to 1,55 ? gaining like this a good hour of deco; that seems not much regarding 10 or 11 hours of deco, but as we will see later on through the report it had his importance !

The challenge was to increase the PpO2 to 1.55:

I could have done it manually, but for 5 hours (decompression expected in the water, the other 5 being in the habitat on OC) that would have been boring and annoying, even if I was trained for it.

Being in none salty water, I thought that the electronic even flooded should maybe be operational, so like on a VR3, I did blind the sequence of pushing buttons to go from the main screen to the PpO2/diluent screen (long left push), then pushing three times the left button to increase the PpO2 to 1,55 and confirming with the right button. And you know what ? it worked !!! the PpO2 raised to 1,55 on the three cells shown by the passive display !

The return was nearly uneventful, sitting at -83m on the Big rock hiding the rift, then going back up to -60m on the rock piles, before going back down quickly to -75m where I ran out of diluent; I had a lot of nasal discharge on the way in so I had to clear my mask too often and below a 100m it use a lot of gas ! I plugged my 7 lit off-board back up of 15/85 and finished the trip through the deep gallery before starting the long way up.

Jean-Pierre came to see me at -42m, equipped with his two SCRs

Joachim Mehldau and his wife came at -30m and took back on surface the scooter

-21m and -18m decompression stops were very difficult physically and psychologically due to a leak of cold (13 celcius deg) water in the right latex wrist seal (cut by rusty piece of metal in the sand, when I was passing the time searching for war artefact in the sand at -24m)

The -15m decompression stop gave 45 minutes, but after10 minutes being too cold (even with the heating jacket ON) I decided to reach the habitat at -12m and to finish the time of the -15m deco stop inside.

Jerome and Mario on decompression in the habitat on oxygen at -12m (with food, drinks, MP3 player: AC-DC, Mozart, and Bob Marley ; - )

Mark viewed from the inside of the habitat; the home made port hole giving an opportunity for support divers to check up the divers inside on hyperbaric oxygen decompression

Fantastic support divers: Christophe and Jean Luc

Exit around 11pm without any problems, lucky to have the chance to investigate such a gorgeous cave with his diversity of colours and shapes (galelry, forced tubes, tremie, rift, shaft...) more explorations will be done through the year with the hope of taking back some images to share.

Ouroboros Epilogue:

The lateral plug (red arrow) from the primary display of the Ouroboros rebreather wasn't fully closed, the o-ring of the plug at -182m squeezed, letting the water going in the primary display, then going up it expanded putting back the primary display under pressure. Opening the display the next day gave us a lot of gas associated with green-white fluids.

That unfortunate experience showed the strength of the Ouroboros rebreather: even if one organ is dead you still have three others available (HUD, vibrator, passive display) to fly the unit controlling the ppo2, and then to stay on CCR mode. On the worse case, if you're diving with a buddy (unusual at that depth) a fourth display exist on the back of the unit, non readable by the main diver but by his buddy who could communicate the reading.

"If you close all the doors to the mistakes, the truth will stay outside" Rabindranŕth Tagore

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