Projects > Gourneyras 02
Push Dive
Latest update: March 18, 2004
Reinhard in the rebreather with Chris Andor helping him gearing up. Hervé, Brus and Tom in the water waiting to film his and Michael's descent.
In the morning we woke up at around 6 o'clock. Reinhard and myself were having the usual noodles in the morning and we were joking about the others who were eating chili con carne for breakfast.
We climbed down the way to the entrance pool and started to gear up.
We jumped in and started our dive. During the initial descent we checked each other to see whether the rebreather was venting gas and for any unexpected bubbles. We started our dive on a trimix 50/25 (50% oxygen, 25% helium) in a 40 cu ft aluminium cylinder. This cylinder was changed at 21 m and we picked up the first deep trimix stage containing trimix 17/55 for a maximum depth of 80 m.
Michael changing from shallow mix to deep-mix stage and picking up other stuff. Off course horizontal without touching the floor.
We also picked up a trimix stage with a maximum operational depth of 130 m, because we had no idea how deep the cave would go and this was the maximum depth we planned for.
We swam down to 45 m were we picked up the scooters, the heating batteries and the deepest deco gas and continued down to 54 m. Here we left the small additional argon stage that we had used to descend with and we also left the deep deco gas and the heating tube at that depth.
Stuff is beeing picked up.
It was nice to notice that our support divers had everything arranged and sorted nicely for us, so picking everything up was fairly easy. Thanks guys!
Actually we did 2 push dives, which we report as one here due to the fact that they were almost similar and the first one was more a "test-dive".
The first was done on the 23rd of February 2002 and took 501 minutes and the second, on the 23rd of March, lasted 561 minutes.
The additional minutes for the second dive were spent entirely as bottom time: we did not change the deco schedule, besides surfacing much slower from the habitat to the surface.
The line situation was not very good during our ride to the end of the line.
When scootering along the line sometimes we could see no wall at all, which left a bit of strange feeling in my stomach. Visibility was getting worse. This cave really looks like "Small Wakulla" inside.
We stopped shortly before reaching the first 100 m point and clipped off a scooter and a stage each. We switched to the deepest trimix (12/75) and continued our journey. On the first dive we reached the end of the line shortly afterwards, so the french had added around 70-80 m of line. Too bad it was unmarked. Reinhard took out the big reel and tied to the old end and after exchanging an OK he took off.
After another 80 m we stopped and stared down a shaft. We could not see the bottom and the visibility wasn't too good so we tied off and went for the exit.
On the second dive four weeks later we tied in here and went down the shaft. It once again reached more than 90 m and we followed the tunnel. The Vyper showed 67 minutes into the dive. This time we only brought a reel with 485 m of new line and Reinhard handed me the reel at 77 minutes. So I started to make the tie-offs and Reinhard was lighting and checking the tunnel.
After 83 minutes the cave starts to rise again and so we had to slow down our speed. The cave sloped upwards from 93 m to 46 m and so we actually entered the decompression zone, but we knew that we would take the same way back and therefore get all bubbles back into solution.
We ran out of line. I heard Reinhard shouting bad words and I tied off and fixed a "goodie" to the end of the line. Reinhard took out his wetnotes and compass and at 103 minutes into the dive we turned for the exit and surveyed the way out. Too bad that the first 1300 m were unmarked lines.
The journey back was a little bit slower due to the writing down of data. We used a Suunto compass. We picked up the stages and the scooters and after 180 minutes into the dive we arrived at the first deco stop.
We had not touched our backgas besides inflating the wing and so we arrived at deco with twin 20 liters of tx12/75 backgas plus what was left in the stages. This gave us a very relaxed feeling during the dive.
The vis was really getting worse far back in the cave.
This dive was also carried out to test the new video nose for the gavin scooter at greater depths and also the new counterlungs with an optimized dump ratio. Both performed very well!
On arriving at the 54 m stop, we switched to a 30 cu ft aluminium tank of tx25/40 as our first decompression gas. The next gas at 36 m was also in small aluminium cylinders and was the standard gas of 35% oxygen and 35% helium. We left all unneeded equipment at around 45 m and a few minutes later the first support dudes showed up and asked us if we were ok and if we need anything. I just handed them the empty reel over and wrote: "More line".
They took our scooters up and the tx12/75 stages so we only had the deco gas and the tx17/55 stages. And of course each of us had a heating tube with 66 Ah capacity for our 75 W heating shirt.
The next support crew brought us warm tea and took the rest of the equipment.
From the 21 m stop upwards, the gas consumption was calculated for doing the deco on the rebreathers, but we had enough gas on the surface that could be lowered to the cave entrance. But the RB80s worked very well so we did all deco on the 'breathers.
Gavin scooter in action. Notice the asymmetrical tow-cord, 2 stages and 2 reels being carried.
We reached the 21 m stop after 267 minutes and switched to 50/25 trimix. We did our gas breaks on the tx17/55 gas. At 348 minutes we reached 12 m and we saw the habitat, which was set up during our bottom time. It was such a great thing to have a reliable and skillful team!
We made ourselved ready to get out of the rebreathers and enter the habitat. Reinhard was the first one to get in and he was helped and watched over by two guys. I think it was Brus and Tom, who helped me out of the breather. I remember Brus mumbling something in his regulator when I handed him the double rebreather rig.
While we were inside the habitat in 9 m depth and breathing oxygen for 12 minutes and trimix for 8 minutes, all our gear was brought to the surface, disassembled and brought up to the cars using the cablecar system. The only equipment we kept near the entrance was the stuff we would need for an in-water recompression.
The first run of food that was given to us was noodles "Chinese style" and some chocolate bars. I was thinking about ordering an espresso, just to give the dudes outside a hard time... or maybe a "latte macchiato". We definitely need that for the next trip!
Once you start to eat sweets you have to keep the sugar level at a higher point so we munched most of the bars during our time in the habitat from minute 382 until 538 at exactly 8,8 m.
From time to time Hervé or Tom surfaced inside the habitat for a short chat. When it was time to exit the habitat, each of us was accompanied by one dedicated support diver. So we got back into the water and made our very slow way up to the surface.
Reinhard and Michael a few minutes before surfacing.
After surfacing we waited in the pool for another 20 minutes to relax and to report our dive to the surface manager Wido and the others.
We were surprised by the fact that even our rebreathers were already gone. These guys really busted their ass in hauling all the gear upwards.
We only heard the cracking voices out of the walkie-talkies and the next barrel was pulled upwards.
Then the habitat and the stages were brought up after we gave the final OK. We walked up the hill and prepared dinner where two french dry-cavers joined us for a glass of champagne.
On the next morning we loaded everything into the car and took off for a visit to the owner of the Doux de Coly for a short talk.
Thanks again to all the guys who helped us.