IRAP Administrator
08-03-2007, 09:56 PM
My buddy and I were making a single stage dive, using 80cf tanks in a fairly unexplored cave system known as Jacob's Well, which is part of the Edward's Aquifer in the Texas hill country. I had dived in this cave on six different occasions, but this was to be his first jump here. It was to be a no-deco dive, with a very straight forward approach: enter the opening, which was actually the source of a stream called Cypress Creek, and head to a max. depth of 130 ft, look around and then come back up.
We checked our dive gear, and made sure our dive lights and back ups were operational and we hit the water. The entrance is a chimney about 12 ft in diameter and 25 ft straight down. It comes to a bottom which is covered by loose rock and gravel. It then has a tunnel opening about 5 ft across and 3 ft tall that goes down to a depth of 90 ft, and leads to a room about 12 ft x 15 ft, that has a modest sized boulder in the middle of it. This is where we planned to spend most of the dive observing the fresh water eel and many large catfish that inhabit the area. The last part of the dive was to be spent in the infamous 4th chamber that requires a bit of squeezing to enter, but is well worth the effort because of it's large size and nice formations. Because this was a no-deco dive, and the chamber was at 130 ft. we were going to spend a limited amount of time there. Usually this well produces several cfm of flow and visibility is no problem, but due to low rainfall, the well was not flowing as predicted and visibility was greatly reduced. We decided that we would go ahead and make the dive, and because the area we were going to be in was almost a straight shot, with no offshoots, we would not use a line. This would turn out to be a bad decision.
Red flags should have gone off as soon as we hit the loose gravel bottom at 25 ft, the water was almost completely stagnant with large amounts of algae and sediment around us. This was not normal and I had never dove this cave in these conditions (I later found out the well had actually stopped flowing for the first time in memory) Things got a little better once we entered the tunnel opening and were out of direct sunlight, the algae diminished and the sediment did not seem as bad. Everything went ok and we saw plenty of fish and aquatic life. Silt was present but not a problem.
Checking our BT and air supply, I signaled my buddy to head to the 4th chamber. At this point the ceiling comes down to about 18" from the floor, and the bottom consists of more loose rock and gravel, and lots of silt. I went ahead of him and made my way through the opening, a very tight fit. I turned around a help my buddy through and noticed that I could barely make out his light as he squeezed through, the silt was that bad at this point. With no water flow to help clear out the sediment, and my buddy adding more silt to the water with every movement, vis. became almost zero. All I could think off was "great, I'm going to make me and my best friend, divers number 9 and 10 killed in here".
As I tried to calm down, I reached forward and swept my arm back and forth in a search pattern until I felt his hand. Using touch signals and screaming through the regulator, I communicated that we would wait and see if the silt would clear. After a few minutes I was able to make out the beam from our dive lights...barely, the visibility was just not getting any better.
Now, funny things go through your mind when you find yourself in a precarious position, thank God a majority of those things were thoughts and images from my training. I touch signaled to my buddy that we were definitely calling the dive, and that we were going to go back through the opening from which we came (how we effectively communicated this whole conversation is still beyond me).
Feeling our way along the wall, we located the opening, which was still very close. Using only touch, and placing both of our hands at the entrance, I once again squeezed through the hole, and waited on the other side until I felt him come out of the opening. Keeping one hand on each other, and our other hands out-stretched in opposite directions, we were able to reach from one side of the chamber to the other. This allowed us to guide ourselves upwards until the visibility got better. As we traveled towards to top of the chamber, and away from the low opening from which we had just come, things got a little better. We were eventually able to make it out of the 'boulder room' and into the main tunnel where visibility was close to normal.
It wasn't until this time that I was able to check gauges, only to find out that I was at about 500 psi. The extra effort (not to mention the pucker factor) had us sucking down the gas at a way faster rate than realized.
We made it to the surface, and after a few moments of fresh air and reflective silence, discussed what had experienced. I took full responsibility for what happened, my buddy never having dived there relied on me to identify elements of danger at a location that I was supposedly familiar with. The moral? Well that's pretty obvious, I should have been aware of changing environmental conditions that would affect our dive at this location. And, no matter how simple your dive might seem, a cave dive is a cave dive, always use a guide line...
We checked our dive gear, and made sure our dive lights and back ups were operational and we hit the water. The entrance is a chimney about 12 ft in diameter and 25 ft straight down. It comes to a bottom which is covered by loose rock and gravel. It then has a tunnel opening about 5 ft across and 3 ft tall that goes down to a depth of 90 ft, and leads to a room about 12 ft x 15 ft, that has a modest sized boulder in the middle of it. This is where we planned to spend most of the dive observing the fresh water eel and many large catfish that inhabit the area. The last part of the dive was to be spent in the infamous 4th chamber that requires a bit of squeezing to enter, but is well worth the effort because of it's large size and nice formations. Because this was a no-deco dive, and the chamber was at 130 ft. we were going to spend a limited amount of time there. Usually this well produces several cfm of flow and visibility is no problem, but due to low rainfall, the well was not flowing as predicted and visibility was greatly reduced. We decided that we would go ahead and make the dive, and because the area we were going to be in was almost a straight shot, with no offshoots, we would not use a line. This would turn out to be a bad decision.
Red flags should have gone off as soon as we hit the loose gravel bottom at 25 ft, the water was almost completely stagnant with large amounts of algae and sediment around us. This was not normal and I had never dove this cave in these conditions (I later found out the well had actually stopped flowing for the first time in memory) Things got a little better once we entered the tunnel opening and were out of direct sunlight, the algae diminished and the sediment did not seem as bad. Everything went ok and we saw plenty of fish and aquatic life. Silt was present but not a problem.
Checking our BT and air supply, I signaled my buddy to head to the 4th chamber. At this point the ceiling comes down to about 18" from the floor, and the bottom consists of more loose rock and gravel, and lots of silt. I went ahead of him and made my way through the opening, a very tight fit. I turned around a help my buddy through and noticed that I could barely make out his light as he squeezed through, the silt was that bad at this point. With no water flow to help clear out the sediment, and my buddy adding more silt to the water with every movement, vis. became almost zero. All I could think off was "great, I'm going to make me and my best friend, divers number 9 and 10 killed in here".
As I tried to calm down, I reached forward and swept my arm back and forth in a search pattern until I felt his hand. Using touch signals and screaming through the regulator, I communicated that we would wait and see if the silt would clear. After a few minutes I was able to make out the beam from our dive lights...barely, the visibility was just not getting any better.
Now, funny things go through your mind when you find yourself in a precarious position, thank God a majority of those things were thoughts and images from my training. I touch signaled to my buddy that we were definitely calling the dive, and that we were going to go back through the opening from which we came (how we effectively communicated this whole conversation is still beyond me).
Feeling our way along the wall, we located the opening, which was still very close. Using only touch, and placing both of our hands at the entrance, I once again squeezed through the hole, and waited on the other side until I felt him come out of the opening. Keeping one hand on each other, and our other hands out-stretched in opposite directions, we were able to reach from one side of the chamber to the other. This allowed us to guide ourselves upwards until the visibility got better. As we traveled towards to top of the chamber, and away from the low opening from which we had just come, things got a little better. We were eventually able to make it out of the 'boulder room' and into the main tunnel where visibility was close to normal.
It wasn't until this time that I was able to check gauges, only to find out that I was at about 500 psi. The extra effort (not to mention the pucker factor) had us sucking down the gas at a way faster rate than realized.
We made it to the surface, and after a few moments of fresh air and reflective silence, discussed what had experienced. I took full responsibility for what happened, my buddy never having dived there relied on me to identify elements of danger at a location that I was supposedly familiar with. The moral? Well that's pretty obvious, I should have been aware of changing environmental conditions that would affect our dive at this location. And, no matter how simple your dive might seem, a cave dive is a cave dive, always use a guide line...