Projects > Gourneyras 2004 (July)
RB Dive to 1km
Latest update: July 24, 2004
Viktor and Silvia found a small flat area to assemble their scooters. That little piece of wood is now a common equipment item in the team for Gourneyras.
One and a half week before the project started, Reinhard called us up and asked if we wanted to do a RB dive in the Gourneyras. We said yes of course and we really appreciated that he gave us the chance to do such a great dive in this cave. I guess most of the readers here know how difficult it is to bring all the gear down to the pool and set it up for a long, deep dive. Without the great team it would be impossible to do such a dive. Here at that point we have to say "thank you" again to the whole team for the perfect support before, during and after our dive!
When we started to prepare our gear and do the planning for the dive profile, we calculated with the following details: one hour bottom time at an average depth of 65 m with the usual gases. Our goal was to scooter to the point where the cave is dropping down to 110 m at approx. 1 km distance. Our task for the dive was to check the line situation after the flooding in February. So we took an exploration reel with us to fix the line if necessary. On Friday, the first project day, a few team members started early in the morning to build up the cable car. Then the other ones stepped in and the whole team together brought down equipment for us, the push diver and the support divers.
Reinhard is helping out Silvia to gear up and is checking that all is fine before her 1km dive in Gourneyras. She will return the favor when he gets ready for his push dive on Saturday.
As soon as our tables and RB frames were down at the pool we started to assemble our rig and got ready for the dive. At noon, we had a short briefing, so that everybody in the team knew exactly where to place our equipment and when they should keep an eye of us during deco. Then the support divers placed our stages and scooters at the planned points: oxygen at 6 m, trimix 17/55 at 21 m, trimix 35/35 and heating tube at 36 m and the four scooters (two magnum and two long tube Gavins) at 45 m. Then it was time for us to get going.
We went down with a trimix 50/25 to 21 m. There, we changed to our trimix 17/55 gas. At 45 m we picked up our scooters and hit the trigger. This was to be the best dive of our diving career. We did a scooter ride through the biggest caves we have ever seen. The tunnel is that huge that everybody who has not seen it cannot imagine. Most of the time we did our ride in the middle of this power cave. The vis was great (15 to 20 m), so we were able to see both walls from the middle of the cave.
The only confusing thing in this cave is the line situation. There are a lot of lines in there, so you had to concentrate all the time. After 24 minutes of bottom time, and no broken line to repair, we reached the section where the cave is going down to about 110 m of depth. It is a big, big room (I should say hall). First we inspected the room a little bit then we had a look at the deep part. Silvia and I reached 72 m and from there on we could see to about 90 m depth. There was a gravel field and it continued deeper.
Viktor is ready to rock and roll and waits for Silvia to start this great dive.
This was the point were we thumbed the dive and headed on towards daylight. During the relaxed ride out we enjoyed the grandeur and beauty of the cave. Due to the fact that everything worked perfectly, we arrived after nearly one hour of bottom time at the first deep deco stops. The deco went without any problems. The support divers checked on us and they took out the four scooters, which we left at 36 m and our all unneeded stages.
We surfaced after a total dive time of 195 minutes and had a nice barbeque after that.