Yay, the annual Spring France trip could not have come at a better time, as I was getting bored of the usual quarries and cold water, and last years ocean diving was laughable. This year there were five of us on the trip, Bob, Andy, Owen, Matt, and of course, me. I drove down to Bobs on the Friday night ready to pack the van for the long drive to Gramat the following morning. The trip was uneventful, except for Bob’s new toll transponder thing which enables us to bypass the collecting of toll tickets and paying toll charges. It took a few times to get it right, but overall it was easy enough. Arriving at Gramat for around 9pm French time, we were greeted with a beer as Matt, Owen and Andy had already arrived, so we sat around and had a chat about what to do on Sunday.
Ressel is kind of the usual first dive, as it is relatively easy to get the gear to the cave, and as we had planned to do some more chunky dives later in the week, it is good just to check the conditions and get into the cave diving mindset again. We took short body scooters and a stage of 32% and went round the shallow circuit a few times, taking a look down the shaft to the shallow circuit, whilst the other guys did a couple of dives going first one route and then the other. The conditions looked good, although the river was very high, and we reckoned that a couple of days it would be perfect, so after a pleasant enough day we went back to the dive centre to prepare for Monday and Trou madame.
Andy, Owen, and me at Ressel
Trou Madame is my favourite cave really, as it is just so hard to get the gear up and down the rockfall/river that the prettyness of the cave is really a sight for sore eyes! We arrived first and started to get our gear together when we were joined by four vans full of czech cave trainees and instructors, so this looked like it might be a challenging day. If we had arrived ten minutes later we would have probably decided to go somewhere else but we were committed now so we decided to dive. We wanted to go to the end of the line which is 1.8 KM or so, but at a shallow depth, ranging from 2mtrs to 22mtrs deep. Our plan was three stages and a magnum scooter each, towing a standard body for a backup. Needless to say this took quite some time getting all the gear up to the cave and after all the lifting and carrying we had a bite to eat. Andy, Owen and Matt went in first and we started to get ready ourselves. In the meanwhile three Austrian/Swiss divers had turned up and they also went in. The water level was the highest I had ever seen it and this provided an extra challenge when it was time for us to go in. As we were just about to get in the czechs started exiting, closely followed by Andy and co as Andy had suffered a primary light failure so they exited early. Bob and I managed to fight our way through all the divers, collecting our scooters, stages etc. whilst underwater. There was no space above the water to chat or plan or confirm anything. We basically needed to sort everything out with divers coming to and fro. After a little while we got underway and settled down. The magnums are slow to turn (understatement of the year) and combined with three nitrox stage bottles it was taking a little longer than normal to settle in and get comfortable. the depth changes are all between 2 and 6 mtrs for the first part of the dive which tends to complicate things even further. Anyway we got to around 250 mtrs or so in the cave and we came across the Austrians coming the other way. Bob went through and I was following, when BAM! One of my valves explodes and all I hear is bubbles. My first reaction is to flash Bob, as I immediately close my right valve and go to the line. It doesn’t look like Bob has seen my flashing, and the bubbles are still going, so I go to isolate and find a hand already turning my isolator, as one of the Austrians has jumped in to help (nice guy
) ) Then the bubbles stopped and the guy asks if I am OK. I am unconcerned really as I was breathing a stage bottle so just signalled an OK, and then Bob appeared, as it seems he had seen my flashing but had thought it was the guys we were passing, before turning around and coming to see what was up (turning round with a magnum and towing a standard isn’t easy ) Bob got the Austrians to continue their exit and then passed me my scooter thinking I was just tangled in the line. I told him that my valves were shagged (technical term) and he checked, turning my posts back on, or so I thought. After a quick check I got him to check the left post and then he found the problem was that my back up reg hose had burst, something I had never experienced before, and called the dive. We headed back for the 8 minutes or so it takes to travel 250 mtrs on a scooter and I got out to check my gear. I had spare hoses with me but the failure had cost me around 50 bar of backgas so we decided to call it a day and do the dive tomorrow, leaving as much of the gear as possible at the cave entrance so we didn’t have to carry it back again. Interesting day, and it just shows that turning your right post off first is a load of bollox! (just kidding
) although I have to say that when experienced for real, I didn’t find it easy to identify the post, but whilst visualising the incident after the occasion, I ‘knew’ it was the left post, but still went to close the right, so that is something to be aware of should it ever happen again.
Bob checking out the water level at Trou Madame
After yesterdays Trou Madame dive we had changed our plan slightly, by using standard bodies as main scooters and a short body as backup, feeling that would get us better speed at the cost of less burn time. I also decided to only run one stage on my left at a time, the remaining two on a leash, so I wouldn’t be affected so much by the heavy stage bottles. The Austrians had turned up for another day at Trou Madame as the conditions are so good and as we had less gear to carry up the river, everything was going smoothly. Only 9 divers were diving Trou Madame today
). As before Bob and I started getting kitted up in the water. Whilst going to clip my longhose off after switching to my first stage bottle I found a reg with no clip, which turned out to be my backup reg. The necklace had decided to break. Instead of getting out I decided to see if I could fix it there and then and managed to take it off and find that one of the knots had come loose since getting in the water. Luckily I was able to retie it (3mm gloves you see ;o) ) and we could get underway. This time the going was a lot better. The standard was better to handle with the changes of direction and bouyancy shifts and the stages didn’t create so much drag on the left side so I was more comfortable and hence faster. After 40 mins we dropped the first stage and the scooter, and as it happens this was about the limit of sensible scootering anyway as there is a steep slop and a few tight spots before us which would have been a pain to scooter through. Having dropped my stage and scooter, all ready to go, Bob signals he has a problem, which turns out to be his buckle on his waste band having come undone. In the middle of my chortles of laughter I find his crotch strap for him and he gets dressed properly, before starting our swim. The two stages then last us about one hour, during which we travelled some distance, enjoying the best cave features you will ever see. There are scalloped sections, smooth sections, shallow sections where the bubbles cause ripples on the surface and reflect your light in a very cool way, even a section that looks like some great Mr Whippy cone and you seem to swim right round it only to find another section . We get to where Greg Roach and Renato left their line arrows on their long dive last year, and then continue on, until Bob calls it, at 1 hr 45 mins, just as I can see the line heading up which is what is supposed to happen at the end of the cave. I reckon we where only a few minutes away, but never mind. It just means we have to do it all again next year
) ) Swimming back was a bit quicker, as I was leading, and I always like to see that first dropped stage bottle, so that I know I am on the way home. Picking the stage bottle was done whilst we were swimming, and then we headed for the scooters. Its a bit slower here as we have to pick up the stage, switch to it, and then pick up the scooter, and then head for home. What a difference it makes with light stage bottles, we were able to relax and have a great scooter ride back, with the usual race from about 400 mtrs (which I won this year
) ) Overall, a great dive, and we learned a few more things about scootering and stages.
Today we decided to go and do a Ressel dive to check out the conditions. The plan was to swim in on a 50% bottle, go onto backgas when that reached 150 bar or when we reached the shaft, then do a short swim in the deep section for 15 mins or so, before heading back and doing a relatively short deco, with a bit of o2 at the end. We would then do a 2 stage scooter dive in the afternoon. Unfortunately this wasn’t going to happen. I forgot to mention that on Monday, it rained all day, and then continued all night. This rain had now decided to come out of ressel at a phenomenal rate. We fought our way in for about 10 minutes before deciding to give it up. I have never seen Ressel like it, it was like Ginnie but with not a lot to grab hold of, and I was swimming in with a stage of mix, a stage of 50%, and twin 18’s, which was a killer. We had a plan to go quite far in Ressel, maybe even as far as the end of the first sump, but sometimes the cave has other ideas, so we adjourned until next time.
Andy plays with himself whilst we marvel at Truffe
After fighting with Ressel we decided to go to Truffe, which was reported to be very good, and it is a cave I have never dived. I wasn’t disappointed. Whereas the time I had visited with Al and Fraser the water was very low, this time we had a full size entry pool, complete with Blue water! Entering the cave is done through a couple of restrictions, one a large rock and the other an overhang, where you need to push through the gravel with your tanks on the ceiling. On entering the cave you are greeted with a passage which looks like Ginnies gallery, indeed, you could quite easily think this is a less travelled version. The large passge then steadily gets smaller until you reach a 2 mtr section which is the first sump. crossing this section then leads to the second sump which is very squirrelly and small where sometimes you need to tuck in you elbows and fin very gently to avoid hitting anything. At the end of the second sump it goes to air and you can then walk a ways and go diving again. We didn’t do this as that seems like a bit too much like hard work, and headed back. Very nice dive and well recommended.
Today we decided to go to Landenouse. We knew Ressel was out so we decided to take the short body scooters for 20 mins and then take two stages to see where we could get to. Landenouse is a cave which eventually goes to around 80 mtrs but as we were using 32% for today we would just go to our max depth. All in all it was a pleasant dive. The scootering was easy enough and as we had decided to drop the scooters and the stages seperately it was also a bit slicker. After around 30 minutes swimming we reached 34.5 mtrs and the line was still going deeper so I called the dive and we headed for home for a total dive time of 90-100 mins. We have never really explored Landenouse much before but it is a very nice cave. There is a nice switchback and some nice features in this cave. Its on the list to explore a bit further next time, with some trimix stages.
Andy and Owen gearing up at Landenouse
Our final day was a little more leisurely with a quick trip to Truffe to play around with a camera and see if we could get anything decent, which we couldn’t (due the lack of suitably handsome models, as I was behind the lens
) ) but my aim next time is to get a better stills setup and capture some of these pretty cool environments.
The long drive back was… well…. very long.