Ginnie, Cow, P1, and Madison Blue, wknd of 6/25 Past time to get REEL!

[diveconjeff]

I have posted a few trip reports, and so far they have generally had the theme of:

1. Put together a well thought out plan
2. Dive according to that plan
3. Recap after the dive and successfully compare the plan to the dive.

Well that little dance ended this weekend. There were no tragedies, nobody was in any more danger than usual for cave diving, but there was pause for thought during the post-dive discussions.

As has become a habit, when I meet with the crew in cave country, we usually undertake a simple tune-up dive as the first dive of our stay. For reasons such as time away from diving, reconfigured equipment, or a host of others, this has just become part of the routine.

Interestingly enough, neither of my cohorts were particularly keen of having their names added to this narrative. I even assured T & D that I would in no way harpoon them. But since I am typing this, I can put in whatever I want! But the arrows appear to be landing pretty close to home.

T and I (me) met at Ginnie this past Friday and decided to do a Mainline, Mud Tunnel, Left back to the Mainline, and pull the jump reel on the way out. Simple and fun. So off we went. I was leading and T was number 2. As we approached the jump to the Mud Tunnel, I knew it was around the next corner. I reached behind me, grabbed a spool, and stowed the double ender just as I reached the jump. No change in pace, flawless! I then circled the dbl arrows with my light to make certain T saw them and headed off to the Mud Tunnel … with my spool still in my hand (DOH!) I had pretty much reached the beginning of the Mud Tunnel when I realized my gaff. Turning around, I saw T still back at the jump giving me his best “You Dumba$$!” look.

Maybe bad habits can develop from too many visual jumps? Maybe familiarity can breed complacency? Room for lots of comments here I suppose. Feel free to bring ‘em.

Anyway, I sheepishly tied into the mainline and continued as planned. The last time I was in the mud tunnel, the line began high on the left. But not this time. Not to worry, the line must have been moved so I pressed in a bit further, then my spool ran out. Still no sign of the line. OK, no problem, conditions are still great, so I spliced in another spool and continued in … for about three feet. Then I saw the line just kind of floating there not tied off. Now I have in a span of about three feet, two spools and a loose line. T, seeing my predicament was gracious enough to hold one of the spools while I retied the line, then tied in my jump reel and onward we went.

As I am still eagerly learning about cave diving, I was left to wonder what kind of diver swims away from a loose line? I hate to use the term training tunnel, but based on the floor and my own experience, the mud tunnel certainly seems to fit that bill. Was there a problem? Is there still an issue up ahead? Stay sharp! Love this stuff !

The rest of the dive went of quite smoothly and upon retrieving the reel, I checked that the mud tunnel line was still in place, although it does not seem as secure to me as the previous location. A little easier to tie into, but perhaps a bit easier to dislodge as well. Vis was typical for Ginnie, and saw no other teams during the dive.

Took the rest of the day off and went to Cow with T and D the following morning.

This time we planned to enter the upstream system on back gas, switch to an O2 rich stage bottle once through the initial restrictions for travel to the Not my Fault crack. There we would drop the travel gas descend in on back gas proceeding to the EOL. Exit would be the same plan reversed. Nice plan I suppose. Someday I am going to try it again.

As we entered, I was in the lead, D was number 2 and T was in the rear. After finding the proper alignment I made it through the first restriction and proceeded to the sign with perhaps my smoothest entry into the system to date. There was a bit of a delay, but I was soon able to see the next light coming into view. I am not certain who looked more surprised, myself looking at the #3 diver, or the #3 diver looking at me? Where did D, the #2 diver, go? How could he have vanished?

The two part answer is pretty simple. After going through the first restriction, there is a smaller passage that D went into. He was in there, out of sight, as T entered. You might ask, “Why didn’t he just follow your line?” I know I did. The simple truth being that a bad habit had developed of not running a line in “some familiar systems”. Seems to be a theme had been developing this weekend with bad/non-existent line habits. I want to say right now, I am looking forward to all the line practice I can get. How much fun would Cow be to come out of blind with no line? The ass kicking line has already started behind me, if anyone else wants to get in it, feel free. It’s a growth opportunity and reinforcement is probably good fertilizer.

When the three of us were finally situated, we continued with the dive. As I approached the pull line, I stopped turned towards #2, shined my light on the rope and circled it with an OK. I received the requisite response and continued up the tow line. When I realized there was no light activity behind me, I turned and saw nothing but black. I was already a little on edge after our entry into the system and retraced the pull rope back to the split with the mainline to see if there was a problem. When I got to the split, still nobobdy in sight. I was uncertain if they had simply entered following the mainline instead of the pull rope or had needed to exit.

Lost buddy drill ring a bell here?

I rationalized, if they had continued into the system, they were OK. They would soon encounter pull rope and realize they had deviated from the plan. On the other hand, if they had gone to the exit, there maybe a significant issue and perhaps I could assist. I choose to exit the system. Finding their O2 bottles in the basin and no sign of them, I concluded they had continued their dive up the mainline, as opposed to the pull rope ,going in as a two man team. I also decided my dive was done and exited the water.

Might be interesting to hear what others would have done upon turning around and finding nobody there. Keeping in mind there is a very limited number of options they could have taken.

T and D surfaced a short while later. They had obviously cut the dive short as well when I was nowhere to be found. Turns out they followed the mainline as opposed to using the pull rope as I had. Upon exiting, T indicated he had never been so glad to see my O2 bottle out of the water, rightfully believing that meant I had exited successfully.

Now we had wrinkles with two dives in a row. We were all thinking, “Time to simplify and get this ship righted!” With that, we grabbed some gas and headed off to P1 for a back gas dive. The plan was to dive the mainline to the Crossover Ttunnel, exiting via the Peanut tunnel. There were a fair number of divers in the system, and I would guess the vis was initially 40 to 45 (YVMV). It appeared to clear up quite a bit as we entered the crossover tunnel, but that may have been simply do to our smaller confines. Exiting the Peanut line was wonderful. The vis was perhaps 60+ and it went off without a hitch. I have to say this is one of my favorite stretches of cave in the system and I am really looking forward to getting a camera in there. Upon surfacing we were all smiles as we reviewed the just completed dive and how it went off as cave dives ought to… without a hitch.

Where to next?

We had heard that Madison Blue was in rare form with the flow down and the vis up. Bingo! We had our dive pegged for the next day. The plan was to enter at Martz swim to the EOL, turn and exit the rabbit hole.

I had only dove Madison Blue twice before, both times entering from the Rabbit Hole. Once up to the Godzilla room and the other time, just past Half Hitch.

This dive was to be outstanding. The entry at Martz Sink was unique in my experience so far, but once into the system, it lived up to all the hype we had heard about great vis and a reduced flow. The formations and the cave structure constantly amazed me. Once again, I was left to wonder how to get a big camera gig in there. So far the only answer for me is, “Not for me to know. Yet…”

As far as I know, there were no other divers in the system during our dive. Vis was 60 to 70 Easy. D, who has been there a number of times remarked, “My vis was absolutely pristine! How was yours?” Truly spoken like the lead diver (ha ha ha).

So the diving ended on a high note, with some important lessons for me. I am eager to get back and put to use the lessons of this past weekend.

Thanks again to Tom and Darin, I enjoyed diving with you both and look forward to doing it again.

[FW]

You should copy part or all of this to the IRAP forum

[diveconjeff]

I think I will place the bit about Cow on there. It causes me to become inceasingly unsettled the more I think about it. If we could not all even find our way in, then how could we ever reasonably expect to find our way out in bad condiditions with no line...

[KarsticGator]

The upstream entrance to cow is definitely unique. I know I've done that dive without running a line, and with. The only problem with running a line through there, is the high risk of entanglement. Perhaps I didn't spend enough time placing the line on the entry, but it was a pain for the following divers as they went through the first restriction.

[diveconjeff]

Yeh, that has been pretty much my experience there as well. Now I am forced to revisit why I had stopped diving there without placing a line. Since one diver went the wrong way, the argument of "You can only go one way" falls apart. You bring up the entanglement issue if there is a line there. For me, I need to look at the risk of entanglement as opposed to enhancing my line skills and taking the time to properly place a line.

If I can't properly place a line there, AND I determine I need a line, THEN why would I consider diving there without one? Of course practice helps, and it's not like cow is blowing you out of there, so there should be time to do it properly.

Recently I have had the opprotunity to dive with some folks that make placing line so effortless it is a pleasure to watch. It became easy to convince myself that I could do that since it looked so easy. Of course the difference between watching and actually doing can be pretty significant. I think I have found my next area of focused development.

[sskasser]

Yeh, that has been pretty much my experience there as well. Now I am forced to revisit why I had stopped diving there without placing a line. Since one diver went the wrong way, the argument of "You can only go one way" falls apart. You bring up the entanglement issue if there is a line there. For me, I need to look at the risk of entanglement as opposed to enhancing my line skills and taking the time to properly place a line.

If I can't properly place a line there, AND I determine I need a line, THEN why would I consider diving there without one? Of course practice helps, and it's not like cow is blowing you out of there, so there should be time to do it properly.

Recently I have had the opprotunity to dive with some folks that make placing line so effortless it is a pleasure to watch. It became easy to convince myself that I could do that since it looked so easy. Of course the difference between watching and actually doing can be pretty significant. I think I have found my next area of focused development.

Mega Kudos! That line is only as important as getting out.

[KarsticGator]

Since one diver went the wrong way, the argument of "You can only go one way" falls apart.

That's enough said right there.

I checked the access policy on the NSS-CDS website, and it doesn't explicitly limit the number of teams in the system (upstream) at one time. Does anyone know if the site managers limit access to only one team at a time?

Reason for asking would be to reduce the likelihood of several lines running through that first set of restrictions.

[FW]

That's enough said right there.

I checked the access policy on the NSS-CDS website, and it doesn't explicitly limit the number of teams in the system (upstream) at one time. Does anyone know if the site managers limit access to only one team at a time?

Reason for asking would be to reduce the likelihood of several lines running through that first set of restrictions.

It hasn't been a big problem in the past. There is a limited number of keys, which helps. Sometimes there is a class downstream,, and a team upstream. It is a good question, and I will put it on the agenda for the next NSS-CDS meeting.

[sskasser]

It hasn't been a big problem in the past. There is a limited number of keys, which helps. Sometimes there is a class downstream,, and a team upstream. It is a good question, and I will put it on the agenda for the next NSS-CDS meeting.

Oh no, sounds like it's asking for a headache. Has the problem actually occurred for anyone?

If we implement a new rule, then we deal with scenarios like: I pick up the key for a dive. Then I go off and get lunch, chat, get distracted, etc etc, and it's several hours before I actually get around to doing the dive and returning the key. Meanwhile, some other team is sitting around at Cathy's waiting for their "turn" because only one team is allowed at a time. Oh please no

[FW]

Oh no, sounds like it's asking for a headache. Has the problem actually occurred for anyone?

If we implement a new rule, then we deal with scenarios like: I pick up the key for a dive. Then I go off and get lunch, chat, get distracted, etc etc, and it's several hours before I actually get around to doing the dive and returning the key. Meanwhile, some other team is sitting around at Cathy's waiting for their "turn" because only one team is allowed at a time. Oh please no

We wouldn't have to limit the number of keys, just the number of teams in the water. Besides, just being on the agenda doesn't mean anything will change, just get discussed.