Spartan Traverse
I wanted to do something special for my 300th (Spartan!) dive so I decided to do the Grand Traverse for the first time.
Last week we did a set-up dive from P1 through Olsen and a couple of hundred feet past the half way point between Olsen and Challenge and dropped a cookie when I hit thirds of my total gas supply. This dive is when we saw that really neat thermocline just upstream from Olsen that I posted about.
I was diving lp85's sidemount with one aluminum 80 stage. My buddy was diving a pair of double 108's in backmount. This gave us both about 300 cf of gas.
We went into Orange Grove and my buddy put in the primary. I think I might have accidentally kicked one of his placements loose on the way in. I found a rock on the line after the dive and apologize if the line was loose and in someone's way. The vis was really good between OG and Challenge. This was my first time seeing Challenge from the water. I've done the dive from P1 to Olsen several times, but the entire stretch from the distance tunnel to Olsen was all new cave for me. I picked up the cookies we left on the set-up dive well before I hit thirds. I surprised myself and made it almost to Olsen before I hit actual thirds.
I did gas management using both methods. I did the entire dive without breaking actual thirds, but I also recalculated in each sink as a mental exercise.
It got milky and hazy in some spots between challenge and Olsen. I saw a lot of the pits made when catfish take a bite of the substrate looking for worms (what is the word for those? I can't remember.) We also saw a metric buttload of copepods/isopods and crayfish. My buddy really likes crayfish and wants to stop and look at every one. LOL. We ran into a pair of divers on rebreathers just upstream from Olsen. We ran into the same pair in the parking lot at Little River the next day, and found out they are on the National Park Service Archaeology Dive Team. Now that would be an awesome job!
The thermocline is starting to dissipate but is still there. There's no longer a sharp dilineation between the river water and cave water. It's more of a gradient now.
Olsen is completely covered in a thick blanket of duckweed right now.
Once we got about halfway between Pothole and P1 I got a horrible cramp in my right calf. Ouch. I think my fin strap had rode up a little and was pressing on the back of my achilles tendon. Once I got to the cavern I took the fin off and the cramp went away. I hobbled the last few feet on one fin. I came in limping but I made it
The dive took an hour and forty minutes. I used 148 cf of gas and a sac rate of about .59. With that sac rate I could have made it on just the set of 85's, but I believe when I do the dive again I'll still take the stage just for safety's sake.
My buddy did the dive on 98 cf of gas with a sac rate of .38. He did the entire dive on his original one third of his 108's. Neither of us had any deco.
A friend of ours came with us and moved the vehicle for us and patiently hung around the park and tried to make friends with the little lab pup while we did the dive. He joined us for an open water dive in Orange Grove after we pulled out the primary on the clean-up dive.
After the dive I was exhausted. I went home and took a four hour nap, woke up long enough to eat and went right to bed sleeping hard for another 9 hours.
I didn't want to unpack the gear with all the duckweed all over it so I decided to rinse it off in the Harper Tunnel at Little River on Sunday.
I've got some video but it may take a few days before I get it edited.
I am really glad I decided to do it, but it's a little longer dive than I'm used to. I'll probably do it again at some point, but not in the next month or so ... Dang my legs are sore.
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Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop
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