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Rick and I were due to dive again on the 21st so we were determined to get an early start. With this in mind we prepped all the necessary gear the previous night so there wouldn't be much to do on the morning of the dive. The main aim of this dive was to follow "O" Tunnel south deploying buoys and three beacons for surface location.
We had a fairly early start and set off into the cave. A safety depot on the 'Mountain' route had to be moved further into the cave so we took this route in, and intended to return via "K" Tunnel. Two beacons were picked up along with two safety bottles and we carried on to our previous limit. Here we took a turn which looped back around to the line we had just come down. Thus we took a left turn instead (which had an "out" arrow on it) and followed this passage for approximately 400 meters (1300 ft) in a southeast direction. Here we intersected a large passage going north and south. Again we followed the out arrow hoping to connect back to the main line but after 20 minutes of motoring we decided that we were beyond the range of our stage bottles. A beacon was deployed here with a further one deployed on the way back. These beacons subsequently were found 1) near to Cherokee and 2) 400 m (1300 ft) farther north where we had tried to follow the line back to A Tunnel.
The return from this farthest penetration took an hour back to K Tunnel including deploying buoys and beacons. All the stage bottles were stashed at the far side of "K" Tunnel and for the first time the divers traversed the K Tunnel loop where a third beacon was deployed. The viz in K Tunnel was very good and we could actually see the full dimensions of a cave passage for the first time on this dive. A rapid exit was now made to our first deco stop at 60 meters (200 ft) and an anxious surface crew after 4-1/2 hours bottom time.
The total in water time was 7-1/2 hours; this was quite comfortable. The surface crew had two back up rebreathers at the ready (for extended inwater deco) on standby in case we broke through the canisters. Also we had a K bottle of nitrox at 35 meters as a further safety precaution. None of these were used on this particular mission. The chamber deco was dry and warm but uncomfortable and we emerged at about 6 a.m. to our dedicated chamber support crew, Bill Stone and Patty Mortara. Hopefully the next dive in this area will be to take the mapper in and obtain some good data of the passage size and directions.
Click here for depth vs time, ppO2 vs time, and O2 pressure vs time graphs for Rick's (and Jason's) dive on January 21th
This photo is a screen capture from
digital video footage taken of Brian Kakuk (below) and Paul
Heinerth (above) who is driving the digital wall mapper on
January 12, 1999. The divers are in the spring basin as they
are about the enter the cave [photo ©1999
Chris Brown].
Paul Heinerth and John Zumrick were originally intending to map C
Tunnel today, but they postponed due to the tiredness of the support
crew after Jason and Rick's big dive yesterday.
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Today's Humor Picture: It's hard to tell 'em apart... two guys [Matt Matthes & Pete Mulholland], shaved heads, musaars from the Middle East, thin goatees, black clothes, congenial personalities, and in this case machetes (it's ok kids, we use them for getting through the thick brush on the surface when trying to get a fix on the location of an induction radio coil). We're sorry that it's Pete's last full day here on the project. Tomorrow he heads back to an oil field job in Eretrea. [photo ©1999 Barbara Anne am Ende]. |
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