Go around the bend and hang a right

[icestac]

A few years back, SL and I were doing a few dives in Peacock III. Before one such dive we had been told the "old gold line" was a cool dive if we hadn't done it yet. Well we hadn't and thought, sure why not? We were backmount at the time. Our plan was simple, 1) drop our O2 in the cavern, 2) jump to the right just after the cave bends to the left, 3) reconnect with the "main" line and continue our "normal" dive.

I was leading the dive and recall going around a bend and making the jump to a line that goes behind a big boulder. I looked in the tunnel and it looked smaller than I expected, but we didn't see any other lines. I looked around and it just did not seem right. I took out my slate and wrote "I don't think this is the right tunnel". SL replied, "1/3?" indicated we would just go until turn. Looking back at it, I don't really know if I thought he thought it was the right line at the time or if that gave me any comfort. I agreed and we continued the dive. Even though I wasn't sure it was the right line, I recall thinking "the main line should be just around the next bend"... at about ever bend after about 25 minutes. We were going much slower than usual given that it was a much smaller passage than usual and we were both in backmount. I finally got to a larger section and Sam signalled me. I Was getting close to turning around myself as I was tired of all of the "mini kicks" it took to get this far back. As I turned around, he gave me the turnaround signal and I saw just how dusty it was behind us (may 3-4 ft vis). By the time we turned around and I was now the last man, I couldn't see anything. We were both on the line in touch contact and the only thing we could see was the glow of our lights. This was the first time I had been in a real siltout. It felt like forever, but was probably about 10 to 15 minutes before we got past one minor restriction and it opened up again to where we could see a bit and continue existing in a heavily dusted manner.

Both of us simply focused on our training and exited safely. Upon discussing it with others, we were told that it was a "sidemount passage". Either way, it was obviously not well travelled and we probably would not have taken that route at that point in our diving history had we known better. I certainly had not started the dive expecting to be exiting in zero visability.

The lessons I learned from this experience were:
1. Always dive through a silty passage as though you are going to have to exit back through it and check it often. I have learned this on many occasions when I have gone through low silty stuff expecting to pop out the other end and instead having to back track through it.
2. Look at the entire map and not just where you think you are going. Looking back at the map, I made the mental note that I would jump just after a bend to the left. I jumped at the FIRST bend, not the second bend and that was the incorrect navigational decision.

Cheers,
Jeff

[Dominic]

Thanks for posting. I enjoy reading incidents like this and learn a lot from them.