Projects > Source de Vis 2007 (October)

Setup Day

Latest update: October 31, 2007

By JP Bresser

“Of course” was my enthusiastic reply when Reinhard and Markus asked Jörg and myself if we would like to do the in-water setup again for this project. “Of course” because the Source de Vis is an amazing cave and any chance to have a long “water” time should be cherished. “Of course” because in my opinion, doing the setup is one of the most fun and also challenging tasks during a project. “Of course” because the setup is a responsible job and a big part of the success of the project. I can also remember a phrase from Jörg when we surfaced after last project’s setup, “I have looked better underwater, but I have also looked worse….” I can also remember myself nodding in agreement. So this was an new chance. A chance to spend more time in this beautiful cave, a chance to do what we like to do most and a chance to look better whilst doing it.

While getting into our gear in the narrow space of the pool and trying to locate all the gear in the dimmed light I re-run the setup in my head, memorizing the exact amount of stages and specific depths to place them. When I am done gearing up, I start collecting the stages and order them in separate packages. This is the first difference from the way we did it last time when we hauled all the gear to and trough the restriction and sorted it out on the other side.

When we both descend with our bouquets of stages I take the time to look around. Every time I notice new details of the cave and I enjoy the familiar profile of Jörg swimming in front of me. When arriving at the restriction I light Jörg when he passes through. When he is on the other side and he signals me a ok I pass him the clusters of stages through the restriction. It is a bit of a fiddle but it works remarkable well. This is the second big difference from last setup and saves a lot of hassle and time.

We head back to the surface to collect the scooters and heating tubes and work them all through the restriction in the same manner. When on the other side we collect the stages and start descending the rocky wall until we reach the pebble slope, following it until the point were the cave closes into a smaller crack at around 40 meters depth. This is the point were we clip all the stages to the line and check the valves for leaks and eventually open valves. It is always a pleasure to dive with Jörg. We did our cave2 together some time ago in Mexico but it still feels like a solid team and makes the whole process of the setup so much more enjoyable.

We do the same run again with the scooters and heating tubes, clip them to the allocated positions, do a last check and head back to the surface. On the way up we make a gas switch to our second stage and make a final check at the 21 meter stages. The last part of the dive is used to place the oxygen at 6 meters before we finally surface.

Compared to last project we gained 30 minutes in setup time by using some different methods and above all, we looked good doing it!!!!

JP