Projects > Gourneyras 2003 (July)

Push Dive

Latest update: March 18, 2004

By Michael Waldbrenner

A new day was dawning in a Valley near Ganges in the south of France. Reinhard and myself were getting up to do another dive in the cave called Gourneyras. It was only 15 degrees C. in the morning, but we knew it would soon reach the mid-thirties, so we targeted for a "take-off" around 8 in the morning. After the usual pasta and half a liter of water with Magnesium and Calcium we grabbed our bag with the underwear and walked down to the cave-entrance.

We started dressing and the impedance of our heating-shirt was measured to check if it would function. The planned bottom time was 4 hours and 15 minutes and around 6-7 hours of deco depending on the depth, workload, etc. Jiles helped me to gear up in the water and I often re-checked that Reinhard's and my "gear-up-speed" were the same. Around 08:15 we were ready to go and took off.

Ralph and Hannes were following us and taking some pictures. We descended on our 21 m deco gas, 80 cu ft aluminum tank with 50% oxygen and 25% helium. At 21 m we exchanged this tank against an 80 m trimix tank with 17% oxygen and 55% helium. We passed our 36 m tanks on the way down and we also saw the tanks of Hervé and Brus who will gear up now, exactly after we left. The plan was, that they should survey the cave up to just before the 100 m drop.

At 45 m we saw the rest of our gear. As usual the team had separated the stuff for each of us and so we took three more stages each, one 500 m reel and 3 scooters and a scooter-rescue device. On a previous dive last month we had deposited a 1000 m reel, 2 stages and a scooter in around 85 m of depth, almost 1000 m from the entrance.

After clipping on all the gear we left Ralph and Hannes and went to 54 m to drop the deep deco gas and our 14 cu ft argon stage there.

We continued and at 53 minutes we clipped off the first 80 m tank and a scooter. We passed the first 100 m deep section, but due to the low water level it was only around 98 m this time.

4 weeks ago we had left behind a scooter, which showed signs of flooding to get it out next time. So we also dropped 2 stages, a reel and left this scooter clipped to the line at a cliff after we just came up from 96 to around 85 m. This was near the old end of the line of the French divers.

Before arriving at the Gourneyras we met with Frederic Badier who told us, that he tried to bring the motor compartment out and therefore had taken the motor compartment away from the scooter body.

Looking out for it I saw the tube and the battery of the previous deposited scooter at 96m depth, but we had not seen the motor compartment. Scootering upwards to the stages we left on our trip in June we immediately saw that one stage was completely empty because it was pulling upwards on the cave line. Reinhard checked the stages and noticed that the DIN first stage was unscrewed. Strange, we had checked them and pressurized them on our last trip. The second-stages had the free-flow stoppers closed and there was no rain at all between our dive last month and this dive. How could this have happened? We left these stages behind. Reinhard just picked up our reel, which was also left here in June.

Continuing our dive we easily reached our old end of the line after we deposited the 110 m tank with 15/75 and switched to the other 80 m stage. My Vyper showed 93 minutes and 45 m of depth.

Reinhard switched on the camera and I turned on the 50W HID light on my scooter. The cave now showed its absolute beauty. To me, again the Gourneyras proved to be on of the nicest caves in Europe.

I was filming Reinhard tie-off on our old end of the line and heading along the tunnel. The tunnel was now dropping deep again and after passing the 80m point we went on the backgas because we had left behind the 110 m stage. Going on backgas was not the best option and would limit our exploration time, even with the rebreather. We checked our gauges and decided to use only a few bars out of the backgas (15/75).

So from minute 107 on we were on backgas laying line and filming. At minute 128 we tied of in a room with a lot of collapsed material from top. We were now in 75 m of water and looking up in a big shaft where the cave might continue. Reinhard made the final tie-off and I saw on the tape-flag that we had added 400 m of new line.

Filming Reinhard surveying, we made our way back. Now were slower due to the survey and so after 169 minutes we again picked up our 110 m stage.

On the way out, at 206 minutes we found the motor-compartment. Now we had to go back further in the cave and again go from 78 m down to 96 m to re-assemble the scooter and so we deposited all our unneeded gear at the line for that task. At 228 minutes we had all parts in one place and started assembling the scooter. Reinhard put the motor compartment on and I attached the scooter rescue device and grabbed one o-ring we left out to let the pressure escape while getting shallower later.

It took us 10 minutes in total to assemble and lift the scooter. My Suunto Vyper showed 98,3 m when we passed the last deep section. We clipped back all our gear and now we even had 2 more stages and one scooter on the lift-device on the way out.

At 282 minutes we reached the left behind 54 m gas, but decided not to use it now and instead pull it upwards to the heating tube. We wanted to get rid of all the equipment first. Towing the rescue device and controlling its buoyancy in such a cave as the Gourneyras with all the ups and down is quite a challenge. And oh, by the way, the O-ring on my long-hose second-stage blew during the dive; so to add gas to my wing I always had to open the right valve first. So at least, it was not boring during the dive (just kidding). I never ever can understand how one could do a dive without being able to reach his valves in less than a second!

We clipped all the gear to the line at 45 m and now switched to the 54 m gas and plugged in the heating wire. After around 30 seconds I felt the heating shirt working. Now we saw the first support-team coming down and taking some of the gear. We re-thought our deco and decided to do a saturation profile for the deeper stops and our normal Gourneyras-deco from 21 m upwards. After having skipped the deeper deco-gas for some meters this might be interesting to see if it works. We exchanged some humorous phrases about using a VR3 for such a procedure.

The second team brought some tea and I asked them if Brus and Hervé were Ok. The answer was yes and so we knew they also had got the job done. I was laughing into the loop about all the work done in one weekend.

At 327 min we reached the next gas, deposited in 36 m of depth. It was a stage with 35% oxygen and 35% helium. We plugged it in, purged the loop and watched each other.

After 409 minutes into the dive we reached the gas containing 50% oxygen and 25% helium. Before switching to that gas we did our first gas break of 15 minutes. From now on we would do more regular gas breaks on our back-gas.

From 428 onwards we were at 18m and now support teams passed us with almost all of the left-behind equipment. It looked great to see them handling all the equipment without effort. I offered Reinhard some of my carbohydrate gel since I was a bit hungry and took a mouth full. We shared the package and went to the next stop.

461 minutes was the dive time showed on my Vyper when we moved to the 15 m stop. After minute 502 we reached the last stop before entering the habitat. After 40 minutes at this stop Reinhard entered the habitat first. Before entering a habitat you also do a gas break.

I followed and the support team took the rebreathers to the surface where they were immediately disassembled and brought up together with the rest of the unneeded gear. We got some more tea and some Capri-Sonne drinks. Next were the noodles and potato-cream. Since we could not figure out who should eat which meal, we shared them both. In the habitat you have other problems than in the water....

Soon the temperature in the habitat went from 13 degrees Celsius up to 21 degrees. Without hood, glove and mask is was very comfortable and so we talked about the dive and planned the next one here.

Now Reinhard also told me that the camera did no work. I was so mad, but well we will have other dives to film the exploration. Later we found out that the VCR had a "tape error" on the digital tape.

Support-divers surfaced inside the habitat talking to us and so time went by quite fast. Our break-gas was now a 17/55, which we used for 8 minutes and then switched to oxygen for 12 minutes. The habitat was at 8,5 meters of depth, due to the low water level, but that was ok for us. At 691 minutes Reinhard was the first to leave the habitat after another gas break. Never ever leave the habitat without being on trimix for at least 15 minutes before exiting. The risk of tox is too high.

Two divers accompanied us on our way to the surface. At 702 minutes we surfaced in the pool and were welcomed by the team. It was amazing that even our tables for gearing up were already brought upwards. Reinhard and myself gave a short report to the surface manager and we stayed in the water for another 30 minutes while drinking water. After 30 minutes, Wido and Chaled brought out the habitat. We undressed and stayed down another 30 minutes to complete the deco before climbing up the hill. The rest of the evening the team sat outside and had dinner and we were talking about the dives and the support and what to improve next. At 00:30 the next morning a long but fun diving day ended...