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Jason Mallinson hangs out in the decompression chamber, taking a break from reading his book, breathing pure oxygen off a bib mask at the final 3 meter (10 ft) stop. He and Rick Stanton (whose torso is visible in the right portion of the picture wearing a yellow shirt and red pants) exited the chamber a few minutes after this picture was taken around 8:30 a.m. The photo is fuzzy because the porthole window into the chamber is not very clear [photo ©1999 Barbara Anne am Ende]. |
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All the equipment beyond K-Tunnel needed to come out so we decided to go for an ambitious plan to map all of the far O-Tunnel passageway to near Cherokee sink and on the way back pick up this gear. There were 4 stage tanks, 3 radio beacons, 2 battery packs, and a scooter. This would involve mapping over 2.5 km of tunnel.
We worked like crazy the day before to prep all the gear ready for an early start but as per usual the gremlins got into the system and the mapper needed recharging in the morning which delayed us by 5 hours. This would mean a late bell entry in the dark.
Eventually we got underway and after a short posing session for the NGS film team we were cruising out towards the far tunnels. After traversing K-Tunnel we started logging map data along a loop tunnel which eventually connects back to O-Tunnel near Cherokee. The visibility was atrocious and after 200 m (660 ft) of mapping we got to a junction and decided to curtail this part of the map, the main reason being I couldn't see the front of the mapper from the back! A return was made to the start of O-Tunnel, where a new mapping file was started and we headed south towards our previous limit and the furthest radio coil. The viz was not good and often I had to follow the line slowly because I couldn't see Rick scout my way, this slowed us down considerably.
A detour was made at the T-junction where the loop passage comes in, to retrieve a radio coil. This was about 250 m (800 ft) up this passage. Once this task was done we turned around and headed back to the T where we headed south again and soon reached our furthest beacon location. After carrying out our tasks we had a brief discussion about moving farther south, we decided against this due to time constraints and the hard work to come on the way out. A return was made to the start of O-Tunnel picking up two stage tanks and another beacon and also logging map data on the way. Back at the K-Junction a further two stage tanks were picked up along with a stage scooter, these loads were a strain on the scooters and we made a slow traverse back towards the entrance, deciding to drag all the gear back out. By the time we reached the entrance the mapper batteries had just about given up and two tired divers began 3 hours of deco up to the bell.
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Rick and Jason had barely gotten out of the chamber when Brian Kakuk and Paul Heinerth prepared for today's dive. Here Brian Kakuk (left), Brian Pease (second from left), Bill Stone (third from left) and Paul Heinerth (right) consulted, along with Barbara am Ende, as to which waypoints would be optimal for setting radio beacons on today's mission [photo ©1999 Barbara Anne am Ende]. |
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The divers enter the water in
preparation for the dive. Jeff Johnson is standing on the
left. Harold Geick is just barely shown on the right. These
two are support crew for Paul Heinerth (blue helmet), and
Brian Kakuk (not shown). The other divers are part of the
National Geographic film crew (John Mosely, white helmet and
Wes Skiles, yellow helmet [photo ©1999 Barbara Anne
am Ende].
Today my dad woke me up and asked if I wanted to join him in habitat duty (at 2:45 a.m.) but I was too tired. We had a mission briefing for the day. Jason and Rick talked about their dive to Cherokee Sink. Today Paul Heinerth and Brian Kakuk went on a mission to B-Tunnel. This evening I ate dinner at the lodge with Dr. Henry Kendall, the 1990 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. We talked about supernovas. He taught me an interesting way to know how fast light travels: in one billionth of a second light moves one foot. Next I did all my big projects due at school. Then I went down to the habitat barge. We saw Brian and Paul's lights on the lower video camera in the cave at around 9 p.m. (a 4-1/2 hour dive). We could not stay as long as I wanted (to see them come out) because I have to leave tomorrow morning.
David C. Stone
Copyright ©1999, U.S. Deep Caving Team, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of these pages may be used for any reason without prior written authorization.
