Another BCRF Dive Log Update From Ralph's Cave

[Brian Kakuk]

Link to today's exploration dive in Ralph's Cave.

http://www.bahamascaves.com/explorat...alphscave.html

Enjoy and safe diving,

Brian

[LCF]

Another fun writeup to read, Brian!

Just curious . . . how do you calculate the deco for a dive like that, with such a wildly sawtoothed profile?

[Brian Kakuk]

Another fun writeup to read, Brian!

Just curious . . . how do you calculate the deco for a dive like that, with such a wildly sawtoothed profile?

It's pretty much impossible to outright plan the deco while conducting exploration here because of the depths and distances involved (it's never the same profile).You have to go loaded for bear, redundant O2 deco bottles at 20 feet, and breath the hot EAN for as long as possible on the way back to the O2. I just use redundant dive computers for deco (Shearwater Pursuit on 30/85). Finished the dive with only 72% CNS.

I know that the caves around here usually only go to 150 to 160 in short "drain traps", so I run a 27 to 28 EAN, with one EAN 32 for travel through the first, shallower part of the cave, then drop it.

Safe diving,
Brian

[NEON]

Great read Brian, keep it coming!

[reato]

Hey Brian,
I was living and working on Eleuthera, 10 years ago, and I dove an inland well.
I was completly ignorant about cave diving but I remember a funnel full of trash...
I didn't see nothing about exploration on that island in your website...
Do you know that hole??

[Brian Kakuk]

Hey Brian,
I was living and working on Eleuthera, 10 years ago, and I dove an inland well.
I was completly ignorant about cave diving but I remember a funnel full of trash...
I didn't see nothing about exploration on that island in your website...
Do you know that hole??

I believe the blue hole you are talking about is in Rock Sound in the middle of the community. The government asked us to go down there and evaluate the site (fish were dying or dissapearing from this tourist site). When we got down there, we basically found a dump site. Literally. There was a big cleanup by Stewart Cove's Dive facility out of Nassau, but I have not seen the site since then. It would be impossible for a few divers to clean up the amount of refuse that I saw in my evaluation. The site was reported as "bottomless" which is usually the story with most blue holes, but we bottomed it out at only 130 feet.

There has been a lot of exploration done on Eleuthera and I have been remis in representing it on the website. We will be back there this summer on an expedition to both the inland and off shore caves. There is no lack of exploration potential there. I'll try and do a better job of getting more information up on other islands.

Safe diving
Brian

[reato]

............The site was reported as "bottomless" which is usually the story with most blue holes, but we bottomed it out at only 130 feet.
........................

Yes, is the same story they told me, and when I surface reporting 130 feet they just told me I was a liar...
I remember a thick hidrogen sulfate (?) cloud from 10 to 20 feet and fishes only above it.

[LCF]

You have to go loaded for bear, redundant O2 deco bottles at 20 feet, and breath the hot EAN for as long as possible on the way back to the O2. I just use redundant dive computers for deco (Shearwater Pursuit on 30/85). Finished the dive with only 72% CNS.

Yeah, it seems like wacky profiles like these are really one of the few indications for just running your computer on a staged decompression dive!

[FW]

Yeah, it seems like wacky profiles like these are really one of the few indications for just running your computer on a staged decompression dive!

Yea, using tables only works if the cave is always the same depth.

[Sludge]

Computers work surprisingly well for multi-level dives. I believe we learned that in the 1980s.