Hole in the Wall - 7/4/08

[PacketSniffer]

Destination: Champagne bottle at the end of the Century Tunnel.

Had the whole cave to ourselves. Scootered upstream to 1,250p and parked scooters. Took the right at the T for the Century Tunnel. This is one of my favorite cave passages. It starts looking like JB towards the middle and is around 100ffw. Swam to London Bridge and Big Ben (3,650p). Awesome scenes. Everything was going smoothly so we continued for the Champagne Bottle (another ~2,000 feet). Got to the shallow section (~30ffw). Be careful not to rip your suit here. Made it to the Champagne bottle in 80 minutes. Showed 9 minutes of NDL when I touched the bottle (due to burning deco in this shallow section). It appears that there used to be a sink hole where the line ends here. Shook hands and signaled for our turn around. The water is also signficantly warmer in this entire section. I noticed the colder temps when making my way back through the Century Tunnel. Reached the scooters and zipped back to the cavern where we had 10~20 minutes of deco.

I had been wanting to do this dive for several months now. This is a really cool dive. Hole in the Wall starts out silty in the big passage (most know this). Then, down the Century Tunnel, it starts getting sandy with clay mixed in. There are some really neat clay mounds back there. Once past Big Ben & London Bridge, the cave starts looking like Mexico (sharp thin limestone with ancient rivers of old) as my buddy put it.

Total distance covered: 5,650 feet.
Total run time: 3 hours.
Total O2 used: 14c.f.
Total Diluent used: 20c.f.
Vis: First several hundred feet were hazy (30'). After that, beautiful; especially once in the Century Tunnel.

Thanks Joerg. You're the best.


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