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| Overview On the first weekend of April (March 31. - April 2.) EKPP pushed the limit of the Gourneyrou cave for the second time. The scout team, Brus and Ralph signaled on Thursday morning good conditions and 15 divers and surface supporters started their trip to the valley of the rivers Vis in the Hérault mountain range near Nîmes in southern France. Day 1 (March 31st) - Setup After the cable car was assembled, two sets of doubles where lowered and Ralph and Jörg did a quick dive to check the visibility. The check showed excellent visibility even though the water level was up to the cave entrance, 5 meters higher than during the last project. As soon as the check dives surfaced the habitat was lowered and handed to them. Jörg and Ralph installed the habitat and all necessary equipment like decompression bottles, break gas, weights and belts. A second team consisting of Brus and Wido brought the second set of scooters and the deep gases further into the cave. Day 2 (April 1st) - Push Dive and dismantling The alarm rang at 6 am and after the breakfast Reinhard and Michael slowly dressed up in first daylight. Jörg, JP and Ralph got in the water in order to film the two push divers during their ascent. As soon as the two push divers disappeared into the cave the rest of the team had a little break. The first duty was a check dive into the cave two hours after Reinhard and Michael left. This dive as well as the next dive did not have any result. It was JP and Michael who found the two push divers at around 12:30. Michael signaled an OK and asked for some tea. While the two push divers slowly where decompressing their way up the support divers took away their stage bottles, scooters and the reel out of the cave. A quick glance on the reel proved that some additional meters of line were now laying in the cave. At 14:00 it was Hervé's and Ralph's task to help Micha and Reinhard out of their rebreathers and into the habitat. Taking the rebreather with them the two supporters surfaced and informed the cook of the day about the menu order. The cook of the day was Hilde from Belgium and she served a perfect meal for the push diver. So while both push divers enjoyed their meals the rest of the team started pulling equipment up. JP drove the car and the cable car only stopped when Micha and Reinhard surfaced. After a short chat about the dive Hervé and Jörg removed all bottles and sank the habitat. Stefan, Ralph and Thorsten brought the habitat out of the cave. Around 22:00 the team had everything back and sorted on the side of the road. After a long day and a quick bath in the river it was BBQ time in order to replace the calories lost during the day. Under a perfectly clear starry sky everybody then went to bed early, as the next morning everybody would head home early. Participants in alphabetic order Hervé Deschamps (F) Hilde Bogaerts (B) Jörg Schwertfeger (D) JP Breser (NL) Julian Hoekstra (NL) Michael Brusdeilins (D) Michael Reffgen (D) Michael Waldbrenner (D) Ralph Wilhelm (D) Reinhard Buchaly (D) Roland Kring (D) Stefan Gaar (D) Torsten Sommerlatt (D) Udo Schönemann (D) Wido Langenheen (D) Reproduced by permission from http://www.ekpp.de see this site for more information on teh work of the EKPP |
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