Projects > Gourneyras 2003 (July)
Overview
Latest update: March 18, 2004
The team for that week-end. From left to right: Johannes, Reinhard, Robert, Ralph, Jiles, Michael, Wido, Brus, Micha, Christoph , Hervé, Chaled, Joerg, Ward and behind the camera: Jutta. Thanks Brus for the nice EKPP T-Shirt! We are all very proud to wear it.
From Thursday evening until early Friday morning, 15 divers from the EKPP gathered for another exploration and survey project at the Gourneyras.
Friday morning at 7.00 some of us started the day with a short workout, a 30-minute run along the trail of the Gourneyras, others preferred to sleep in to recover from the long journey they had. For most of us the drive to the G is one over 1000 km. Upon return most team members started to wake-up and made breakfast and got ready from today's work.
After a good breakfast we started to build-up the cable car, which has become a smooth operation under supervision of Ralph. No more than 1.5 hours were needed to complete this task.
Once the cable car was in working order the team was split in two groups, one group who loaded the cable car at the roadside, and the other team down at the poolside unloading all gear. To give an impression of the amount of gear lowered ... One two person Habitat, 4 rebreather frames with D20 mounted, 4 tables for the rebreather rigs, 9 scooters, 3 heating tubes, 4 doubles for support divers over 40 Alu 80's and numerous bags with all different content, suits, undergarment, fins masks, regulators, wings, backplates etc.
Michael, Johannes and Chaled operating the cable car that we use to get all the gear down to the water (70m drop) and back up. Tough work when the temperature is above 30 deg. C.
In the meanwhile Reinhard, Michael, Brus and Hervé prepared their rebreather units, to be transported down and assembled later at the poolside.
Around 16.00 the first support divers went in the water to check the vis and find a spot to place the habitat on the ceiling. Very good news, visibility around 15 meters despite the fact that the French divers reported 5 meters of vis a week earlier. All ingredients for a successful weekend were present.
Around 21.00 the last support diver surfaced and the whole cave was setup with gear for tomorrows' survey and exploration team. The necessary preparation on the surface where also finalized. The 4 rebreather rigs were completely rigged on their tables, anxiously waiting for the next day.
In the evening we all had BBQ and went to sleep around 23.00; tomorrow the day would start at 06.00.
The next day we woke-up and had breakfast together and walked down to the cave entrance. Reinhard and Michael started to suit-up while and Jiles and Robert assisted them. After double-checking everything they started their dive at 8.30, followed by Ralph and Johannes who would take some pictures of the explorations team and survey team. The survey team, Hervé and Brus started to prepare themselves for their dive too with assistance of the Jiles and Robert. Brus and Hervé descended at 9.10.
This is one task that nobody likes to do: set the habitat or bring it back up. But as usual with this talented team, it went very smoothly.
Wido, surface manager on this project made the schedule for the support/check dives according to what had been agreed the evening before. The first check dive was scheduled two hours after the exploration team had left the surface. (see schedule). From that point onwards every hour a support team would go down to check if the exploration or survey divers returned and need support and then release them from the gear not needed anymore... Depending on the time of return of the divers the schedule would be adapted to suit the needs...
Hervé and Brus reached the surface around 13.00 and had a very successful dive; they managed to survey the cave up to the point where it goes deep: the first 1050 meters of survey was complete. After 30 min rest in the pool they started to disassemble their gear and make it ready for transporting it up.
As the hours passed by, more and more gear was transported out of the cave to the surface, and we started to haul gear up again, in order keep the pool area clean and to use our time as efficiently as possible.
At 13.45 a support team met Reinhard and Michael at 45 meters were they had just arrived, more gear to be brought out of the cave to the surface and transported up. The next support team brought them tea, and checked with them how the rest of the deco schedule would look like.
Special thanks to Ralph who took some very good underwater pictures.
Regular support dives where executed during their deco, helping them in and out of the habitat, bringing more gear out, and finally escorted them to the surface, where they arrived at 20.15. Again a very successful dive, with 400 meters of new cave explored and surveyed! With the tunnel still going, and the scooter that was abandoned last month rescued.
The last support dives of the day where done, bringing the oxygen bottles and the habitat out, in the meanwhile all other gear was already up again. After the last ride up the cable car was disassembled. Another very efficient project with excellent teamwork has come to an end.
During the evening everybody was gathered around the BBQ listening to each other's stories and experiences during the day.
Next morning we packed our cars and drove off. Till next time ... soon I hope!