Projects > Doux de Coly 03

Push Dive: 5880 m (19291 ft)

Latest update: March 18, 2004

By Dr. Reinhard Buchaly

What is cave diving about?

Is it about being underwater surrounded by rocks? Sure, that is what you hear from someone who gives a description about a dive, reporting about preparations, the tools, the bottom part and the deco part of the dive and the results of the exploration.

But this is only the tiny part of the dive.

The important part is about people. The team is the central factor for modern cave exploration. That does not mean that everybody is equal in a team and it does not mean that it is democratic. A team needs leading, but because it is a hobby for all of us, leading is not done by a hierarchic structure, but by example.

The position of the individual in a team is founded by his engagement and the example he sets. Once in the water the team goes down to a buddy configuration.

Exploration cave diving is a riskier operation than a lot of other activities, be it playing table tennis, chess, biking or whatever.

So each individual has to find his acceptable risk level. For myself, that answer is easy, I do not want to accept any kind of risk which can be avoided through own decisions. I care about my family and my son, who needs a father. It is our own responsibility to "Do It Right" when diving.

The most difficult decision is to find the right dive partner.

That is really the number one task for all kind of diving. While I would dive with any team member on a non-exploration cave dive, there is only a small number of people you would want to have around you if there is four hours to the door on an exploration dive.

Is it luck to find the right buddy? Maybe, but the total number of people engaging in cave diving or exploration diving is not that high, so chances are good that the ways are crossing sooner or later.

The buddy does not have to be a duplicate of you, it is a plus if your skills on whatever level supplement, but you have to agree on the comfort level.

It is the essence of a long time buddy relationship never to feel sorry about a decision because there is no disagreement under the same circumstances.

Michael Waldbrenner (Micha) and I had a perfect example some time ago, where we carried our gear six hours to the cave. The conditions were not good and not bad, but somehow it felt not right, so I stopped the dive after twenty minutes to get my wetnotes out and question the continuation of the dive. Micha thought I stopped only to rearrange something, so he also got the wetnotes out and asked the same.

Within a team like the EKPP there are discussions between the members, but generally we follow the same line.

This same line allowed us again in August 2003 to accomplish a dive which guided us 5880 metres (19291 feet) in the water filled tunnels of the Doux de Coly.

This same line allowed us again in August 2003 to accomplish a dive which guided us 5880 metres (19291 feet) in the water filled tunnels of the Doux de Coly.

This year, Micha and I used some new tools. One of the central part of our equipment are the scooters. You really do not want to swim back from more than 5 kilometres in the cave.

Each of us had one scooter equipped with NiMh-batteries besides the ones equipped with lead-acid batteries. This NiMh scooter has the length of a short tube Gavin scooter, but the runtime of a magnum scooter.

When the camera or the 50 Watt HID-nose is attached to the NiMh scooter, the total length is still shorter than a magnum. This helps filming in the exploration part by avoiding a massive lengthened magnum scooter. The NiMh short tube Gavin is an experimental prototype aluminium scooter.

On one of the normal gavin scooters we had an aluminium motor compartment. Possibly this will become an option on future Gavin scooters. Needless to say, all team members are using Gavin scooters and we won't allow anything less in our projects.

Each of us used five scooters, not that we needed all of them, we could have done the planned dive even with three scooters failures total.

At the end of the dive one scooter of each of us was not used at all. We do not want to think about running out of anything on our dives, be it scooter power, gas or light.

Our 18 Watt HID light was powered by 27 Ah NiMh battery pack, giving us light for 13,3 hours.

The maintenance of these gigantic NiMh packs is important. While we do burn tests on our lead acid sets, we go further here and do computer controlled recharging in combination with checking the remaining capacity after having used the battery packs.

The rebreather has now proven itself over the use of several years. In the EKPP, nine people are currently using RB80 rebreathers with some more coming and we have not had a single failure or problem since we began using them.

Micha and I were again using a double configuration of the rebreathers.

Let me say some words about using a double rebreather configuration. A double rebreather setup is a complex configuration. Because each rebreather is totally independent from the other and each rebreather has to be powered by a drive gas all the time, the gas source to each rebreather, supplied by the two mouthpieces, have to be carefully checked. We see the double rebreather concept in an experimental stage, with all the inherent risks and think that due to its nature it should not be a mainstream configuration.

In the last year we used two depth fixed habitats.

We liked the two person habitat which we had used in the Gourneyras, but this one was not suitable to get through the entrance of the Doux de Coly and had no provisions to change the depth during deco.

I built a new two person habitat this year, which could be transported dissembled and assembled again at the shaft 300 meters from the entrance.

It would be a great improvement to get in the habitat at 27 meters depth and then ascend through the progression of the decompression.

The habitat was built from stainless steel only and about 500 kg of steel weights were attached to it to reduce the overall buoyancy.

These general thoughts and the preparations disappear in the background when it is time to play.

Most of the team members had arrived on Saturday, August 2nd. We installed the habitat and placed the necessary equipment in the cave until the following Monday.

Have a look at the other pages for detailed information about these days.

The push dive started on Wednesday, August 6th, in the early morning, after we had the luxury of a resting day before.

We got up at five in the morning, had the usual pasta and a cool morning for dressing up for the dive.

Day temperatures were around 40 degrees Celsius, so it was nice not be sweating in the morning.

Micha and I descended in the pool at 7:05 am, daylight was just showing up. We used a trimix 50/25 for the short run of the first 300 meters to the shaft.

By the way, nobody in the team is using any gas which is not trimix, except the oxygen and air is only used for inflating the habitat.

A long tube Gavin scooter was used for this ride, which we left at the top of the shaft. We changed to the other rebreather and connected to our deep trimix. A magnum scooter waited at the bottom of the shaft. Several deep support teams had placed our other scooter and trimix cylinder 400 meters in the deep part. There waited eight scooters and four trimix cylinders for the two of us. From there on we were traveling with three stages and five scooters. We dropped the first scooter at 2500 meters and the first cylinder at 3200 meters, when we hit 130 bar.

The plan was to proceed from 4500 meter only with one stage and two scooters each, to be less loaded when reaching the end of the line at 5675 meters.

We were well prepared for this dive, had loaded our reels, had more than enough scooter power, enough light and gas to do ten hours of bottom time. Knowing that we could enter the habitat at 27 meters, everything looked reasonable with a water temperature of 13 degrees Celsius.

Seeing the end of the line from our previous dive last year, Micha took my second scooter, towing now two scooters and I attached the line. After going only another 15 meters we hit our own line. I checked the distance marker to get an idea where we were. We had run in a circle. I felt frustrated, because this was not what I had expected. Micha told me later, he had the same feelings. We had seen a side tunnel already last year and this was the place where we came out now. We turned around and started to search. Micha stayed on the line and I went up a silty wall. It looked like I could continue. Ok, I turned around and attached to the mainline. Together we went up the wall, then continued horizontally until we had to go down again.

Above us we could see cracks which did not allow further cave penetration for us.

After 75 meters we hit our line again. No success. Then there was a small narrow tunnel on the way back to be right, inside the circle.

Micha stayed again on the line and I checked whether it was only a hole in the wall. After about 50 meters I could still see Micha's light, but reached now a point, where we could loose light contact. The small tunnel was still going on. I turned back to get to Micha again, attached the reel and on we go. These small tunnels look like the beauty of death, silt on the bottom and to the left and right, clear and silent, but merciless on the way out. One careless movement and it will silt out. But that wouldn't happen.

After 115 meters we hit the main line again. Did we oversee something or did we finish the Doux de Coly?

We searched in the area for about 50 minutes but we could not find a continuation.

On the way back we kept an open eye for other tunnels.

Are we sure that we did not miss anything? Well, I would say 95 % sure. After having thought and discussed the situation, we think we should have another look at some places.

Are we sure that we did not miss anything? Well, I would say 95 % sure. After having thought and discussed the situation, we think we should have another look at some places.

After 8 hours and 24 minutes we got back to the bottom of the shaft. The return was uneventful, each of us using less than two aluminium 80 cu ft cylinders for the whole bottom part of the dive.

I wonder why people use electronic rebreathers which mix on the fly and rely on sensitive sensors in a wet environment. For sure, it cannot be justified with the efficiency of the machine of the length of the dive.

After getting rid of all the stuff, we had only the heating tubes and one deco stage on each of us. We enjoyed some gel food and drank a little bit. It did not take long until the first support team showed up.

We had arranged a schedule so that a team would look for us every two hours after the dive started, then every hour. We got some hot tea. Then we reached the habitat. Micha and I thought that we should lift it up three meters to get better clearance from some rocks in the shaft. Two support teams helped us out of the rebreathers and we entered the habitat.

From there on the pleasure started.

The following teams lifted us up to the next deco stops and supplied us with excellent food.

The first course was pasta, followed by lamp chops, later we got scampi and finally carpaccio.

Overall the deco quality was excellent and we felt great, only some neck muscle pain due to lifting the head during scootering.

We surfaced after gearing on with the rebreathers at the top of the shaft at 0:35 the next day, that was 17:30 hours in the cave. That was shorter than least year despite the longer bottom time, but we felt that we could have shortened the deco even more.

What now? The EKPP team members still have to survey parts of the cave and will install safety cylinders up to 4000 meters, to have multiple teams do the survey and check for maybe overlooked tunnels.

It is good to see the team and its members improve and move forward.

Thanks to everybody who was involved.