Exploration Continued

It has been a long time since I have posted here but I will put up the latest good dive that I have. It is a long read so decide for yourself if it is worth it. I have put the last dive posted from over 18 months ago so you won't have to search the archives.

29-4-05

I had the best dive of my life on this last trip, oh my god it was just out of this world. I have been helping a few friends in a new found sink and putting a little line in here and there. We wanted to look in the deep section which is accessed by side mount only passage. The first day we went in and looked where we thought there would be going passage, Nick was leading and did not find anything going but I thought I had seen something along the way. When he started to reel back in I motioned for him to hand me the reel and I started to look in this slopping crack that was very silt filled. Down in the corner at around 200` I found a little hole. When we went into the hole it turned out to be going passage that turned back and forth similar to the catacombs in Ginnie springs, Devils Ear. We laid 200` feet of line, found a good tie off, and decided to turn the dive since we had used so much gas in the search. The next day we gassed up for a little deeper dive since the tunnel seemed to be going deeper as we went. We had 95`s side mounted and 32% for travel and first deco with 100% hung at 20`. This time we knew exactly where we were going and a more specific dive plan with hopes of the tunnel not closing out or turning back on its self. While on deco the day before Nick and I had found a squirrel skull that was in very good condition and had been in the water for a long time. It reminded us of how the tunnel turned back and forth like a squirrel playing and that sealed it we had the name of our new area of the cave.
John another friend of ours decided to join us on our second dive, he was diving back mount and planned to go to the merry go round room to run line around the entire room and look for new leads. This room is very large and very tall so it is very possible that there could be going passage from this room that has been missed in the past. When we first started diving this system we thought, because of the low flow and all the silt in the system that it would not be very big or go much. Logs and crap had to be pulled from the sink before diving could even begin. The main sink that we start the dive in is Hectagon with gypsy sink right next to it.
On my first trip to the system Nick had told me that no one had tried to enter through Gypsy so of course I had to check it out. I spent the next two hours pulling logs, leaves, and crap out of the sink in double 112 cubic ft. cylinders. By the time I finished I was wishing I had put on a single cylinder since I only made it to 23` and just into the cave system. I did not connect the sink to the system that day but felt that I was close. Nick and I then had a nice dive in Hectagon and spent most of our time cleaning up lines and putting in line arrows when needed. At the end of the dive we went to the down stream side, towards Gypsy sink and sure enough there was silt and debris in there so we knew I was close to making the connection. Later and much cleaning out of debris Nick made the connection which turned out to be an easy back mount second entrance from Gypsy.
Today`s dive though had promise of big possibilities and we could hardly contain our excitement as we geared up. The dive plan was for all three of us to swim the main line with John jumping off to go to the Merry Go Round room, Nick and I would go to the Little Restriction taking us to the Deep Section. John decided to see what the chances were to get through the Little Restriction back mount and continued with us. Nick was leading and the viz is zero after the first person enters, I already knew this from past dives and went to touch contact with the line as soon as we entered. It is not practical to be in touch contact through this area due to the twisting and turning that is needed to get through and in the middle you need to cross the line while not cracking your head on a big rock that sticks out. I have a good sized purple reminder on my temple that you need to be careful while negotiating this part of the system. As usual I popped out of the Little Restriction into the Big Room in the Deep Section to find Nick giving me an OK signal, I returned the signal and we were off. This time we dropped our travel gas where Hector had tied off the end of his line at the bottom of the deep section. This allowed us to pick up our travel at 180` and get off of our trimix earlier upon our return.
This was the moment of truth as we headed off on the line we had laid the day before, what would the system do? Would it turn back on its self and put us right back into the big room or would it squeeze off quickly leaving us with far too much line still on our reels? At our tie off we had two choices one to the right and one to the left. From the day before I had thought the tunnel to the right held the most promise though the side mount restriction was tight I had that feeling that it would go. This time Nick was in the lead and when he tied of his explorer reel he felt the tunnel to the left was the way to go, so off to the left it was. The first two hundred feet the tunnel meandered back and forth and seemed to be going well then it took a hard turn to the left and seemed to be going back to the back room, just as I figured we would have to be hitting the big room with only about 230` of line laid it took a hard right and kept going. At this point I had to remind myself to be calm and keep my breathing and heart rate down, this was just so exciting it would be easy to suck down my gas resulting in an early turn of the dive. We were running line off at a good clip and this tunnel just kept going with all kinds of turns and twists, 300` then 350` then 400` and we were gradually getting deeper along the way. Just as we put out 500` of line we popped out of the Squirrel tunnel into a very large room with crystal clear blue water. Nick and I both hung there in awe of how beautiful the room is; finally Nick broke the trance with a big wohoo through his regulator which I returned. A couple of high fives and we were back to work. Nick tied off the reel as I cleaned up the line a bit, then we set off to lay line around the room. This room is big with very pretty white limestone and very tall. Once we made our way around the room and had lined it we set off to look for leads, me taking the deep side and Nick taking the shallow. I found two possible tight side mount or no mount leads but they did not feel like the main section. Nick found another possible lead a little shallower but it was time to think about getting back. We took a rough estimate of the room which is about 75` by 60` across and 50` tall. The flow is almost non existent with very light fluffy silt not unlike the type that builds up in Eagles Nest. With how blue and clear the water is, I could clearly see Nick all the way across the room, and the fact that the room is not even a third filled with silt we are confident that there is more going passage. Both of us were a few hundred psi from thirds but at this depth we had racked up a decent amount of deco and would be cutting it close with the deco gas that we had for this dive. We decided to turn the dive and head back. On the way back there were a couple of other possible leads that might go from the squirrel tunnel and I took a minute to look closer at the lead I thought would have going passage now on our left as we exited. I still think it will go and could possibly be the main passage, but that will have to wait for another day. When we hit our 50` deco stop John came down to check on us and we all exchanged another round of high fives along with wohoo`s shouted through our regulators. This deco time was one of the sweetest I have ever had while I spent the time replaying the dive in my head. We had just laid 700` of new line in over 200` of water and it seems that the system is still going. Max depth in the Tear Drop room was 216`, we don`t have minimum yet since Nick did not go all the way to the top his shallowest was 184` with a lot of room above him. Total dive time for me was 72 minutes with Nick having his extra 13 minutes from his HE (he needs to get a VR3) at least he did not stay with me on my deep stops this time or it would have been a lot more time for him in the water.
When we finally got out of the water John told us that he had tried to get through the little restriction behind us and had made it in to about his waist before hitting both tanks and chest with no hope of moving forward. While backing out he got debris wedged in his exhaust valve causing him to suck a bunch of water down. This in turned caused him to loose his breakfast through his reg, he said the high side is that now he knows he can puke through his diverite reg. John then decided to return to the surface to sort himself out and never did make it to the Merry Go Round room. He still had a good dive and checked the lines in the main passage to ensure they were in good shape.
Nick and I know the Tear Drop room is a fitting name because it brings a tear to your eye when you pop out of that small squirrel tunnel into that big, blue, clear water. This is the type of diving that we all dream of and I have to say thanks to Hector and Nick for brining me into this project. With me not living in the area any longer which keeps me from putting in all the time I should with the mundane tasks of the project I feel privileged to be one of the people to lay line and see parts of the system for the very first time.
So that is what I did last week, I am still on cloud nine and keep replaying the dives over and over in my head. We also did dives at Devils eye on Tuesday, Mill pond and Twin on Wednesday. All in all a great week of diving with the best ending dive I have ever done to date.

13-07-06

Today`s dive was a mixed bag. Nick my favorite dive team mate has a bad cold and could not make the dive. I have been waiting a long time to check the right passage and we both decided I would go in solo for the dive. Nick, though living in the area has not had more than two dives in the system in the last 18 months due to poor conditions and land owner issues. When we showed up today the conditions were crystal clear and better than we have ever had, the land owner issues are tentative but handled for the dive. Nick though sick as a dog volunteered to lend surface support, this is big since Nick is the one that brought me into this project and I know it killed him to let me go and possibly lay a bunch of virgin line.

For this push seven cylinders were required, with the heat of the day it was major work just getting the cylinders down to the water. Getting into the thermals and drysuit was murder and I was ready for an ice bath by the time I got loaded up. Nick helped with some of the gear issues and it went smooth.

Dropping into the system was smooth and relaxing, I decided to take some time making sure I was good mentally with the lines and direction. Going into the system I found that for some reason I had reversed all the directions I had in my mind. Nick and I had talked at breakfast and we had found the same issues when we talked about the system. I don`t know why I remembered it all in reverse but turning it around in my head took some concentration. Getting into the system the visability was the best we ever had and I found a new respect for how vast this system is as well as easy to get turned around. When I got to the line going to the Merry Go Round leading to the Big Room and the push it did not look right. I opted to go down one more jump and check it out. Time on this dive is very important but things were not fitting well. Getting to the fifth jump it looked more like it should but Nick and I had talked earlier deciding on the fourth jump. I tied in at the fifth and went about 150 feet in which looked right but again the lines were running to the right which from my memory they should have run to the left. It was now time to turn back and see what the fourth jump had to offer against my memory. Getting back to the fourth jump the general direction did not seem to run right but the direction was correct in my memmory. After coming to a under hang run the line dropped into the silt dead. I was burning gas and deco time, I had to decide which run I was going to make. Having been out of the system for so long I opted to do the line repair and make sure I was straight on what lines I wanted to use.

It took about an hour to fix up the lines and get my bearings until I found the tight restriction that I was looking for. At this point I still had enough gas to do a quick check out and not go over the time limit Nick and I had set for calling in the reserves to get me out of the system. It took around 6 minutes to rearange the stage cylinders to make a quick push through. Getting down into the restriction a new problem showed up, having so much Helium for the push required adding lead on the cylinders. The added weight required more lift on my sidemount set up, which I had with my new design. Getting into the restriction the added lift made my profile taller which caused me to get very stuck upon entry. This restriction has clay on the cieling as well as the floor so getting off target will rain rocks down on your head as well as hang you up. I got so wedged going in that I was in zero viz and off the line before I knew what was happening. Knowing I was very stuck I shoved my thumb in the cieling to keep some orientation on direction and worked on getting turned around 180. I now had to work a few inches at a time and try to guage my depth. After three feet I started to worry because I was not getting shallower. I moved another two feet and still not shallower now I am thinking my direction is off and I am in real trouble. I stopped and just sat for almost a minute and thought about what was going on, I felt I had the direction right and did not want to turn away. I decided to move another couple of feet and see what happened, driving against the cieling since it was less soft than the floor I move another two feet and could feel the pressure change in my ears. Now I was sure my direction was right only needing to know how far I was off the line, having moved a little shallower the going got easier and with in another four feelt I had the line to my left with in twelve inches, that was sure nice to see and calmed me down a good bit. After picking up two of the stages I had dropped I decided I had enough gas to take one more look at the fifth jump. Going another 200 feet in I found a rock that I knew from other dives and realized that was the line I wanted. Finding some more line in need of repair I spent what time I could fixing it up and getting my head straight on the system. Funny how most of it is reversed from what I had in my head requiring me to get it all turned aroung to what it actually is. The gas is loaded and tomorrow I will hope to make a push through and get some line laid. The new rig has some issues with getting the equipment through with the weight needed for the end of the dive. Hopefully the changes made today will make it all work. More to come later.

14-7-06

Nick is still sick and could not make the dive again today, he also had to go into work so I did not get to use him for surface support either. Forutunately I got to the site earlier than yesterday so setting up was not as bad with the heat. After finaly getting all the stages hooked on I dropped down into the system and was quickly on my way after dropping my O2. Spending the time on the lines the day before was now paying off because I got the directions in my head back on track with how the system actually is. Getting to the major restriction I opted to drop one of my travel stages to reduce the work getting through, I am very glad that I did because it was still a lot of scraping and pulling to get through with what I did take with me. Moving through the other tight areas I finaly hit the deep section and switched from 32% to 16/45 at 130 feet. While dropping down to the tie off at 170 feet that we use to hang our travel stage I switched my computers over to mix. One of them was not set up to go into the correct screen which took my attention away from the line for a few more seconds than I should have let it. The next thing I know I missed the tie off and was close to the floor which I should not have been. After arresting my descent I looked around and sure enough can`t see the line in any direction. This is not a good place to loose the line since all that is around is deep fluffy silt. After taking a calming breath and some time to think about my best course of action I decided to raise back up to 160 feet and see if I hit the line. When I hit 160 the line was on my left shoulder instead of my right taking an extra second to find. Sure glad I did not have to look for a wall to start a lost line because this part of the system is very big and I could have been looking a lot longer than I wanted.
A few seconds to drop the stage and I was off to head down the squirrel tunnel and a few minutes after that I arrived at the tie in for the right hand passage that I have waited 18 months to see if it goes. With the explorer reel tied in I dipped into the passage and started down to see what I could see. After about 100 feet I ran into a silt mound that I could not get over clean so I slowly approached to see if it was pinching off. Looking over the mound it looked like it was still going well with a gentle turn to the left. With no flow in this system and the light, black, fluffy silt I knew as soon as I touched that mound that it was going to be lights out for a bit. I backed up to get a head of steam so I could charge through the mound with the intent of blasting through the silt fast enough to break into clear water. Hitting the mound I immediately found that the fluffy silt is only a couple of inches deep and below that is soft sticky clay. I had managed to firmly wedge myself into an area that is fairly narrow making turning around a yoga trick when not stuck in clay and a very soft cieling above me. After working for a few minutes in the most complete zero viz I have ever been in and getting very little head way towards turning around or freeing myself, I took a minute to keep my breathing calm and to check that I was not pulling on my line. The explorer reel is attached to the line we laid 18 months ago and my life depends on not breaking the line or the placements with how tight it is getting into the squirrel tunnel. I went back to slowly working my way free and stopped one more time just to see if my light would penetrate my mask. Though it is only a glow it can be reassuring just to know your light is still working when in zero viz. There was so much silt I could not see the glow from my light and had to wonder if it was still working until I got closer to clear water. At 200 feet the gas does not last long and it was taking a good amount of time to get extracated from this situation, finaly though the clay let loose of my inflator valve and on my way out, getting the explorer reel off the line was fun with no viz. It took about 50 feet moving down the line before I could see the glow from my light, another two hundred and I could now make out the shape of the system again.
Getting back to the tie off for the stages I checked all my gases and found enough to check out another section that might go, so again I tied in the explorer reel and was off in a new direction. Rounding the bend where we thought it pinched off I was rewarded with a massive system that I could not see the wall on the other side or the cieling. With line spinning off the explorer reel I found some parts so big that I could not see the floor, cieling, or the other wall and the rock is so soft I wondered if it was pure clay. On one of my tie offs the rock sticking out was about 18 inches around and a foot and a half from the place I was tieing off. When I locked the line to pull the slack it sliced right through the rock and headed towards floor with my line still attached. I was now frantically spinning off line to try and unloop my tie off hopping the rock did not snap the other end of my line on the way down. The line finaly came free and I continued on using much more caution when picking a tie off. About every hundred feet I would start to think the system was pincing off only to come around a corner to find it get big again. At 400 feet I had hit my thirds and cut the line to tie it off. Again the system looked a bit like it was pinching off but could see that it was also swinging around to the right again. I can`t wait to get back and see what it does around the next turn. This little system that we thought would be done in a few days has turned into years and thousands of feet in cave line. Fortunately the system has gotten shallow again and a good part of this new section is only 160 feet deep. The amount of cylinders and gas we now need to bring in to put in more line is starting to reach our limits with out many days of set up dives or getting the custom rebreathers done, one of the two will be needed if we keep finding more going passage.
The return trip seemed to be going smooth which was welcome after some of the earlier events. My feet were starting to have a bit of a chill from the leak that popped up in my dry suit shortly into the dive but my brother Murphy had more fun in strore for me before I would get back to free air. Getting back to the major restriction I was not looking forward to going back through with the viz so wiped out from my entrance. There is another way in but it is a little harder than the major restriction, the second issue is that it puts me a ways across the system from the entrance to the major restriction requiring a long return swim to get the stage I left at the entrance. Leaving the stage on this dive is not an option since I had to have that gas to complete the deco requiremnt that continued to rack up more time every minute I was at this depth. I opted to take the second restriction anyway, I don`t know why but mentally it is always tougher going back through the major restriction though a lot of the time when I enter it is wiped out because only the lead diver has some viz and it goes out quickly for that person also. Getting into the other restriction I found the line there to be in as bad of shape as what I had found the day before, unfortunately I did not have the luxury of doing timely repairs. I did what I had to, on the fly, to be sure the line would not part and worked my way back towards larger passage. The long swim back to my stage was uneventfull and the anxiety dropped one more peg when I picked it up and clipped off. This is when my other brother Murphy decided to come around and play some more. Feeling the need to relieve myself and having installed the new pee valve in the DUI suit I let it rip only to have the hose kincked and the cath promptly blow off. Not a big deal but yuck, I hate when that happens. Getting up through my deco stops I picked up my O2 bottle at 30 feet and clipped it off, now at least I knew all my cylinders were coming out with me today. I reached my 20 foot stop and got the O2 going. For this trip I had to rebuild almost all of my regs. The O2 reg I did not get fully rebuilt not having the correct size seat but I had worked on it and it was breathing well. After about 4 minutes the reg let loose with a massive free flow that I could not stop. One more time Murphy had to pay a visit so I switched back to 32% while I pulled a reg off one of the other stages to swap out the O2 reg. A miute later and I was back on O2 for a good amount of hang time. Air sure does taste sweet after a couple of hours under water and today it tasted just a little more sweet than usual. I feel bad for Nick since he could not make this dive but I know we will soon be back in to find out if the system is pinching off or just keeps going around the next right hand bend.

We have hopes of getting back in the system in Sept. or Oct. pending schedules and some land owner issues that need some work. Plans tend to change though with the amount of energy it takes to get a dive together now for this system, lets hope it is sooner than later. Planning for the next dive is undecided between O.C. or C.C. and will be settled in time. It is doubtfull that this system will ever be open to most cave divers but in the years to come, if we can have access for accurate mapping, it may lend some importance. I know this was long read but I hope you enjoyed it and will post more as it happens.

Bobby