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Ian, Ryan and Keith Thought
They Were Going Cave Diving…
Well… four years since our
cave course and we were off to France again; our second trip since
the course…
The drive down was
uneventful. Ian slept for most of the way and I’m convinced that
he believes that the caves are only one hour’s drive from
Portsmouth.
We arrived at
Labastide-Murat at 6 in the evening and did the food and wine
thing before crashing.
We were up at nine the next
day and following extensive faffage made our way to Ressel for the
first dive. The river Cele was higher than usual and a most
unpleasant dark brown colour. Yuk. While we were kitting up two
Dutch cave divers arrived too.
We got in the river and swam
up to the cave entrance. There was no point in doing bubble checks
in the river as you wouldn’t have seen anything in that brown
goo. I led into the cave; I had my left hand around the string as
the viz was so bad you couldn’t see the cave entrance like
usual. I followed the string and went into the cave, while doing
so thinking that however bad the viz was for me it was going to be
a whole lot worse for the others following.
After only 5 metres into the
cave the viz cleared and I let go of the line. I went in a bit
further to the large limestone slab and waited for the others.
Ryan soon appeared, but there was a fairly long delay before Ian
turned up. Later on he admitted he had been tidying up the cave on
the way in; refitting loose snoopy-loops.
We went in to the cave; viz
was around 15m or so. It was an uneventful dive; we took the deep
route and went as far as the top of the pit at -32m depth. We were
all fairly comfortable but this was quite far enough for a first
dive so we turned the dive and Ian led out of the cave.
The exit from the cave was
quite hard; the viz was completely zero and there was nothing for
it but to follow the string blindly for 10 metres or so. It was
only when we were well out of the cave that there was any glow
whatsoever in the water.
At the surface the two Dutch
people were preparing to enter the cave. We warned them the viz
was appalling but once inside the cave the viz was fine. They
didn’t look entirely at ease but disappeared off anyway. We
floated gently down the river in the gentle current until we could
get out. As we left the river we could see the Dutch couple had
binned the dive completely. Shame. We later found out that this
was their first ever cave dive since completing their course six
months previously in Florida. Poor buggers; they didn't find out
about the pretty cave lying just beyond all the shite.
We went home for more food
and wine.
The next day I awoke feeling
cack. I could barely breathe and it was pretty obvious that I
wasn’t going to be diving that day. Poo.
Ian and Ryan went off to
push a bit further in Ressel… they took trimix with them as they
would need it as the cave went deeper at that point. I stayed at
the gite feeling bad.
I was somewhat cheered up
though when some 15 minutes after they’d gone I spied Ian’s
weasle lying on a chair in the gite. Phoning the others didn’t
help; neither of them had signal evidently. There was nothing to
do but wait.
About an hour later I
got a call from Ryan; they would be returning for the undersuit
and Ian was just carrying the stage cylinders back from the river
to the van.
They collected the suit and
returned to the cave.
Eventually they returned
from a successful dive; they got to -48m depth. Apparently the
cave gets quite big after the chamber; I tried my best to be
pleased for them. The viz was bad long after the entrance, right
up to the first split in fact. I guess that after the rain the
Cele had back-filled into the cave. They got good viz past that
though.
The next day (Monday) Ryan
was full of snot too and binned the diving. With both he and I
broken there would be no diving that day; so we went off to find
wine instead. We’d never seen any vineyards while driving around
the area previously; it all seemed to be Fois Gras in this part of
France. We found wine a little ot the South West of Cahors. We
also had a bit of an adventure down some scarey back lanes of
France.
The following day I was
getting better but decided it was best not to push things. Ryan
was still broken. No diving again.
We went to look at Truffe.
It, in complete contrast to Ressel looked crystal clear and
actually appealing. We all got keen over again and it we planned
to give it a go on Friday.
We had lunch in Rocamadour
and then went on to look at Cabouy. It too looked very clear from
the surface.
Back to the gite to let Ian
do some work for the afternoon.
Thursday we got up and went
diving! We trimixed ourselves up and went off to Ressel. There was
no-one else there when we arrived; however as we were finishing
kitting up a German car turned up with a couple of cave divers in.
We swam up the river
weighted down by the additional baleout cylinders and then went
into the cave. Ryan led, then Ian and finally me. My entrance was
awful; the silt was obviously stirred up and viz was absolutely
zero. Proper unable to read your gauges type zero. I followed the
string and with only bumping my head once got inside the cave.
Fortunately there the viz wasn’t too bad; evidently the cave had
flushed out the bad viz of a couple of days previous. There was
still much silt on the ground though. Ian left the baleout 80% on
the line inside the cave and we progressed in.
It didn’t take long to
cover the ground that we’d done many times before and reach the
large chamber that went from -30m down to -45. We followed the
string down and went into the deep section of the cave. The tunnel
turned a sharp left and started to get larger. It was still
definitely a passageway rather than a chamber; but it got a lot
bigger. Maybe 3m wide and 5 or 6m wide. This was my first trip
into this section and I was well happy.
The rock formations here
were different. The rock was a rusty colour rather than the white
limestone further out; and while the rock was still scalloped the
scalloping was much smaller and more intricate. The tunnel was
very very pretty. We took no cameras in so sorry you’ll never
see this unless you go look for yourself :o)
We were at a depth of -46m
or so and we crossed an area where there was a big bowl beneath
us. Even here I could not resist and dropped down off the line
until the magic 50.0 appeared on the VR3. We continued in on the
deep section for 8 minutes (36 minutes dive time) before Ryan
turned the dive. We were 700m from the entrance.
Coooooooooooooooooooool :o)
I now led everyone out. I
deliberately took it at a very gentle pace; after all we were well
into stops at this point and there would be no bolting for the
surface! The tunnel was no only lit for me by my torch and it was
very very impressive in the relative dark. The first stops were at
30m; we were nearly but not quite at the top of the large chamber.
It was now that it was really good to be on the rebreather; after
all we were still 400 metres from the entrance and could not, for
the moment, go any further. Gas pressure was the last thing we
wanted to be worrying about!
This stop complete we
continued back out, taking it very gently indeed. There was no
rush whatsoever; it was better to complete the stops swimming than
rush on and then have to wait for the stops.
The viz steadily worsened as
we got closer and closer to the entrance. Eventually we got to the
place where Ian had left the baleout 80% and while Ian was faffing
with it taking it off the line I thought I could see the glow from
the entrance. However it soon became obvious that it was the
German couple entering the cave. We still had 10 minutes of stops
to do so hung off the line to allow them past. They thought we
were exiting though so they to hung off the line to allow us past
until they realised that we weren’t moving and they then came in
past us.
Our stops cleared and we
made our way out. As we exited I could see the glow of daylight
and so came off the line in order to not stir things up
unnecessarily for the other two. It has to be said that the
Germans hadn’t stirred up the entrance much at all when they
came in.
Back in the river we gently
floated back downstream before getting out feeling very pleased
with ourselves. A very very cool dive.
None of us could be arsed to
cook that evening so we went into Labastide-Murat and had pizza.
That evening Ian was in a
reflective mood: “The three of us will never dive in Ressel
again, you realise”. Ryan (naturally) took the piss (and I
suspect I probably did, too)... but you have to wonder. We’ve
only managed cave diving once every other year so far and none of
us are getting any younger. If we go to Mexico in two year’s
time then it’d be four years before we returned to France. Maybe
Ian’s right.
Having said that; please
don’t get rid of your 10s yet Dez, there’s always the chance
that I’ll be borrowing them again for baleout one day :o)
One thing we can probably
say: we’ll never go further into Ressel than we did today. Even
going to twin 15s as baleout would only extend the dive by a few
minutes; at that depth the stops are ticking up way too quickly.
Anyway; back to the diving.
It was Friday and our last day’s diving. We were off to Truffe!
In order to get into Truffe
there was some kit re-arrangement necessary. We were ditching the
rebreathers; there was no way they were going to get through the
squeezes. We had brought wings with us and were going to go
open-circuit with sidemounted cylinders. There was a bit of faff
involved with sorting this; in fact it took Ryan and Ian all
morning to faff and I ended up reading my book for most of the
time.
Finally we left the gite at
midday and headed off to Truffe. This in itself was a bit of an
ordeal; Kate (Ryan’s GPS) had a bit of a flid and took us the
scenic route. Eventually we arrived at Truffe and got kitted up in
our sidemounts. This was quite funny; none of us had dived
sidemount before and it was weird to not have anything on your
back.
The plan was for Ian to go
in first; then Ryan and finally me. There was a problem though;
Ian’s torch wouldn’t spark up. It was the classic Custom
Divers umbilical torch failure; there was a break in the umbilical
and contact was only intermittent.
There was nothing else to
do; Ian had to bin the dive.
We quickly changed the plan;
I would go in first and Ryan would follow. I swam over to the
entrance and sank down to the hole. The buoyancy with the
sidemounts was odd; but nothing that couldn’t be managed. I was
just pleased I could sink!
I took hold of the string,
pushed the sidemounts to either side and slid in through the first
squeeze. As the first in I could clearly see the chamber between
the two squeezes. It looked much bigger than I remembered it from
my previous entry. Maybe a metre square; with a vertical drop down
to the second squeeze at the far side. I only got a brief glimpse
though; soon my silt overtook me and the viz went down to zero.
I followed the string
down to the second squeeze; adjusted the sidemounts and pushed
into the slot. However I got in through here with back-mounted 12s
(as I had done four years previous) I do not know; even with just
the sidemounts I scraped front and back as I squirmed into the
cave. I swam clear of the bad viz and turned to wait for Ryan;
illuminating the silt behind me as I did so in the hope that it
would help him.
As agreed I waited for five
minutes. No sign of Ryan. I had to assume he couldn’t make it
in. I couldn’t get this far without a quick look at the cave so
I turned in and swam into the cave.
It was not the cave I
remembered from my previous dive. Then it had been brightly lit
and a pretty place. Now there was just me and this fairly silty
cave. Any mis-fin would stir up the mung from the bottom. The cave
was dark and cold and dead. I wasn’t happy there at all. I
turned round and headed out.
Almost straight away I was
on the string; the viz was not good enough to rely on seeing it. I
was acutely aware that every single breath was using up my gas
supply; hooray for rebreathers! I swam into the first squeeze and
forced my way in and through; again scraping front and back. No
wonder poor Ryan hadn’t made it in here.
In the void I followed the
string up the rock and to the last squeeze. The string was leading
me to a crack that there was no way I could get through; I felt
around and felt the larger slit to the right of the string. I put
my head down and forced myself into the slot. I was scraping
against rock top and bottom; as when I dived this four years
previous it suddenly seemed this crack was much much smaller going
out than going in. I forced my way through; a fin on the roof of
the cave to help me out.
The was no lightening of the
silt to tell me I was out. The first I knew was when I hit my head
on the log in the header pool. I let go of the string and
surfaced. Ryan and Ian were there waiting; Ryan had got through
the first squeeze but had been utterly unable to get through the
second.
Having done this; Ian
borrowed Ryan’s torch to have a go at getting on. He was on a
bit of a mission having been defeated by the entrance four years
previous when he’d tried to get in with his rebreather. We
agreed that he’d get in and then come out again. We thought
that’d mean a five minute dive.
We sat in the header pool
and waited. His bubbles disappeared and we waited. Five minutes
came and went. So did ten minutes. This didn’t bother us too
much; he was bound to have a little look at the cave after all.
After fifteen minutes we
started to get a bit worried. I started to think out the telephone
call in French “Nous avons un speleo-plonger qui est perdu en
Truffe, a vingt minutes”. Then there would be a stream of French
of which I would only understand about two words. I was not
looking forward to the call.
I also started to wonder if
I should go in after him. I had stayed kitted up deliberately…
but what would I be able to do? Would I be able to get an
unconscious Ian back out of the cave? Quite definitely not.
We waited until twenty
minutes and were discussing just what action to take when some
bubbles appeared at the far side of the pool. Phew.
Ian had of course decided to
go exploring after finally managing to get in the cave after all
these years. Not surprising really; but it would have been nice to
know this before hand. Oh well.
That was it. No more cave
diving in France this year. We went out to a very nice restaurant
in Labastide-Murat that evening to celebrate the week which was
lovely.
Observations…
We overpacked hugely.
Admittedly we missed a load of dives due to illness; but even so
we had way more kit that we needed. We all took back untouched
Inspiration oxygen cylinders; let alone the 3 large cylinders of
o2 we’d brought and not touched. In future we need one more set
of Inspiration cylinders each instead.
Despite the illness it was
an excellent week. Just one fantastic dive made the week.
Solo cave diving is rubbish.
I will never be a Phill Short character. Fair enough; at least I
know my limits.
Cave diving is brilliant :o)
Cheerio,
Keith.
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