Projects > Doux de Coly 02
Overview of the Week
Latest update: March 18, 2004
Saturday, August 17th
After an insipid ride of twelve hours (with a two hour sleeping break) I arrive in the town of Coly at 10:30. On the park where we have reserved three marionettes for the week, a number of team members have already arrived. First Reinhard, Michael and Hervé must pay a courtesy visit to the landowner. The group waits for their return. At last a car drives in and the happy faces say enough, we have a green light.
At noon we can start unloading the vans and the support divers can put the first equipment in the cave, starting with two safeties at 100 and 200 meters of distance.
Now all the practice pays off. Scootering with 7 stages is not a problem anymore :-)
Soon the approximately 30 bottles for the deco of Reinhard and Michael are in the cave, as well as some other loose stuff. We’re heading back to the bungalow-park, and start to prepare dinner. The dinner is followed by the briefing for the next day. Everybody then go to their sleeping rooms to get the necessary rest; one night without sleep is enough for me.
Morning briefing. It is quite cold in the morning as indicated by the jackets and the mist in the background.
Sunday, August 18th
After a breakfast consisting of pains au chocolat, we all head to the briefing at 8:00. The aim of today is to hang two ropes in the shaft, to place the deco bottles of Michael and Reinhard at the right depth on the ropes, and to setup the habitats.
We check if we can use last year’s spits to set the habitats at the right depth. Four spits must be replaced, so time to use the hammer. Of four members (Jiles, Ian, Tom and myself) only Tom has set spits before, so we have a long dive ahead of us.
After some spit setting education from Reinhard, we head for the water with two stages each. The first spit breaks immediately when tightened. After 88 minutes they are all in place, so Michael and Reinhard can get the first habitat into position. But the moment they want to turn the dive, Reinhard does a last check of Michael’s habitat (positive buoyancy of 800 kilo) and we hear a loud bang.
Gertjan and Ian setting spits under water. One hammering, the other lighting.
One of the old spits is broken and the impact also breaks the rope that holds the habitat in place. A minor setback …No worries says Reinhard, tomorrow is another day.
All the while, Paolo was filming the action in the shaft: the setting of the spits, the deco ropes and the deco bottles.
Monday, August 19th
After a fast breakfast the briefing is done by Reinhard and Michael. The activities for today are discussed and divided among the team members. I myself won’t dive today due to the fact that I volunteered for the task of surface manager. Each day a different member gets to be surface manager, whose responsibility it is to look after the tasks to be done, and to note who is in the water and for how long. Jiles and Wido asked for the task of putting the new spits in.
The habitat at the top of the shaft. The underwater work causes the visibility to decrease as the day progresses.
But first they had to bring up the habitat from the bottom of the shaft. From the impact of yesterday the habitat of Michael developed a leak and lost all gas during the night.
Now the rule of nobody entering the cave without at least a trimix 21/35 in his or her back gas becomes obvious: try to pick up a habitat at 42 meters with EAN32.
The rest of the crew go on and bring in the bottles for the deep-support teams. The plan is for two rebreather teams to place 4 stages and 4 scooters between 1.5 and 2Km from the entrance before the push-dive. This is to enable Reinhard and Michael to scooter faster the first part, in order to get further in their exploration.
At the end of the day both habitats are built by Michael and Reinhard, and as every day the briefing takes place after dinner. The deep-support divers give an affirmative answer on the question if they want an extra day for their preparations. This is not a problem, it was already planned for.
Tuesday, August 20th
Cylinders have to be placed at the correct depths. At first, they are just taken to the top of the shaft.
As became normal already, a breakfast with pains au chocolat. After breakfast came the briefing. Today the last preparations for deep-support must take place and the last checks for the dive of Michael and Reinhard must be done. We put the 10 magnum scooters for the push dive in the water and we bring them to the bottom of the shaft so that the deep support teams can pick them up. So, the first open circuit deep-support team leaves in order to place two reels and two stages.
At the end of the day, there is time for a fun dive. Jiles, Wido and myself decide to go to check out the deep part. Dive planning: with TX21/35, scooter to the bottom of the shaft; then travel with TX18/45 five minutes into the cave and turn around. At 21 meters, switch to EAN50, and with that gas scooter out of the cave.
Hervé and Brus getting ready for their long setup dive. Unfortunately, due to equipment malfunctions, they have to cancel their dive.
Wednesday, August 21st
Today the more serious work starts; two rebreather teams go in to push the scooters and stages ahead. The first RB team will start early, so the second RB team will have time to make their dive and deco without interfering with the first RB team. The first RB team takes two stages and two scooters with them (beside their own backup scooter and stage bottle). They make it to 1700 meters into the cave. Great job.
The second RB team would have brought two additional scooters and two stages beside their own equipment. Unfortunately, first a scooter malfunctioned at the top of the shaft, so the dive plan had to be adapted, then a drysuit flooded and the dive had to be called.
Pity, but as Reinhard says, it is still much better than last year when they had to take everything themselves. In the evening we finalize the support plan for the big day: have a team every hour in the water to verify if everything is ok. Then it’s time to go to bed. Tomorrow will be an early start, since Reinhard and Michael want to be at the water at 6:00
Thursday, August 22nd
The push divers are back! Wido is watching.
Early start. Four people to assist the push divers and the rest of us must keep at a distance. At 7:00 they empty their wing and descend: it will be a long day. At 9:00 I’m scheduled with Hervé as the first team to look if they’re already back at the first stop. This isn’t the case fortunately and we use the moment to clear the deep support divers’ rope and their remaining tanks from the shaft. We sort out the unnecessary deco bottles and place them at the top of the shaft. After a short surface-interval until 10:00 we head back into the cave to look again. Fortunately nobody.
This continues the whole day until the 16:00 team returns saying Reinhard and Michael are in the shaft. We have a message from them. “Everything OK. 5670 meters.” They need hot soup and hot tea. Later they give us the signal that we can get the deeper deco bottles out of the cave. The 9-meter stop takes place in the habitat breathing pure oxygen.
At 0:30 they want to leave the habitat. Jiles and I have the honor to assist them. What an effort! A double rebreather assembled between twin20s is certainly not light. After Reinhard and Michael have donned the double RB80 they scooter together out the cave, closely watched by Jiles and me. They break the water at 01:15 and give the whole team the complete story of the dive and why they turned.
Friday, August 23rd
After a good night sleep, it’s clean-up day. All equipment must leave the cave. Only today it doesn’t matter in which order; we all can take what we can carry.
Jiles with the transport tube for the habitat.
Hervé and Tom volunteer themselves to dismantle the two habitats and to take them out of the cave. Some three hours later everything is accounted for, but where are these habitats? Let’s scooter inside to take a look. They managed to dismantle one and to place it on the transport tube. If we want to push a little... So we leave the cave and discuss the situation.
Peter and Ian would drag the first habitat out while Tom and Hervé dismantle the second. After 90 minutes, one habitat is out and the other is ready for transport. It was already 19:30, and the BBQ would start at 20:00, so no one else is in the mood to enter the water again. After the social BBQ with tales and food the inevitable question comes: who bring out that habitat tomorrow? The 'kaaskoppen' team volunteers for the last habitat salvage.
Saturday, August 24th
Again an early start. To the waterfront at 7:00 and at 8:00 in the water. The habitat is fixed to the transport tube and scootered out. In passing we also remove the safeties and exactly 62 minutes later, we surface and find Michael waiting with… pains au chocolat. A beautiful end for a great week. After loading our gear, back to the bungalows, farewell to everyone and on our way to Spain; the holiday may start…