Cave Diving in France.

[FW]

I made several dives in France earlier this week. I am at the Eurotek conference now, but have a few minutes between talks.

Sunday we dove Le Cunhac (AKA Ressel 2). THe visibility was fair, about 30'. I posed for Liz Rogers, famous Australian UW photographer, and carried a strobe to help with lighting. I went almost to the EOL.

Monday we did Fontaine de St Gorges. Vis was about 20'. We went a short distance past the air dome.

Tuesday we went to Gouffre de St Sauveur. Vis was about 20'. It steadily drops deeper, and I don't like a long deco, so I turned at 167'. The others stayed longer, and deeper. We had a nice walk by the river afterwards.

Wednesday we went to Poumayssen. We stirred up the head pool getting in, so the trip down to the "T" was Braille. It cleared up to around 40'. Liz was taking pictures again, so I carried a strobe. I was in the back, so it is hard to tell who I was in the pictures. The cave was very high, and the average depth was only a little over 50'. I did hit 72' once because the vis was bad for a ways, and the line was on the floor. The road in is very steep, and rough, so we paid a farmer to take our gear down in the bucket of a tractor. All went well until going back up the hill. The tractor did a "wheelie"! The biggest person in the group sat on the front of the tractor, so all was well after that.

Thursday we went to Source de Marchepied. It has a low entrance, and a 45' long t shaped restriction. easily done in sidemount, but a Polish group tried to get in backmount, but couldn't. Vis was great, probably 60'. I went until the passage got small, about 600'. I might have gone farther, but my buddy couldn't get through the restriction, and I had waited until he gave up. He was sidemount, but with a backplate. Max depth was only 50'.

I plan to dive in Wales this coming week, and in Wookey Hole (in England) later in the week. I will do another report when I get back. Time to get to the next talk

[rddvet]

Bringing back memories as well as an urge to head back. This year we finally hit all of the "touristy" spots and want to get more off the beaten path. St George's amazed us more than expected, considering the viz was so bad. Salle de Laveur is an amazing airbell.

We avoided most of the sites with sumps since we don't really have any experience traversing one. Next time we go I may ask for your advice. The thought of climbing over rocks and ripping a seal in that cold water kept us from being adventurous.

We tried to do Marchipied, but when we finally did a group of 4 large eastern european divers were going in and we definitely didn't want to meet up with them in the restriction. We've been told mixed things about the entrance restriction. Some say it's easy in sidemount, others say it's still a really tough one.

The international conference sounds like it may be interesting next year. The pros are getting to meet more international divers. The con is it's nicer having sites to yourself (other than Ressel which that will never happen in).

The biggest thing for us was the culture shock of seeing how some of the french speleos dive. We literally saw a group that used a cargo strap like you would hold tanks down in your car to strap two independent cylinders together and then rigged them to mount backmount on a scubapro open water poodle jacket.

[rddvet]

Wales and Wookey Hole look fun in pictures, but that water is way too cold.

[FW]

Some of the sumps are really hard. Trou Madame is an exception. Marchepiet has been cleared of the gravel that made it so tight. The restriction is easy with small sidemount tanks, up to say 95s. I am not sure I would try it in 104s. We used 7L (45s). 12L (85s) would be great, and get you to the end of the first UW section.

I have seen French sumpdivers doing that, even saw one old guy on this trip. He also had an old Aquazep scooter.

The UK is only a couple degrees cooler than France. I didn't notice much difference last trip.

[Steve Clark]

There is some good video of the marchipied restriction in the second half of this video.

http://www.joehesketh.com/2011/08/step-down/

The entrance has been made safer with a concrete lining I believe. (I've never dived the cave)

Steve

[speleocrone]

Glad to see you are having a good time diving there Forrest.

[FW]

I met another Taz cave diver here, and he knows you. His name is Andraes (corrected spelling).

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[bob1577]

Awesome Forrest, you should. Told me you were over this side of the pond and I would have tried to meet up with ya. Hope to see you in jan in cave country. Take care and enjoy Eurotech

[FW]

Awesome Forrest, you should. Told me you were over this side of the pond and I would have tried to meet up with ya. Hope to see you in jan in cave country. Take care and enjoy Eurotech

I would love to dive in Ireland, but one can only do so much in one trip

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[rddvet]

Some of the sumps are really hard. Trou Madame is an exception. Marchepiet has been cleared of the gravel that made it so tight. The restriction is easy with small sidemount tanks, up to say 95s. I am not sure I would try it in 104s. We used 7L (45s). 12L (85s) would be great, and get you to the end of the first UW section.

I have seen French sumpdivers doing that, even saw one old guy on this trip. He also had an old Aquazep scooter.

The UK is only a couple degrees cooler than France. I didn't notice much difference last trip.

Funny, we had a french couple pull up in a compact car with two aquazepps strapped on top to dive Ressel. The zepps were the same length as the car.

I thought it was significantly colder in England. I may have done some bad math on the conversion.

According to Harald's facebook page visibility has been some of the best of the year over the past few weeks. It appears you timed it wisely.