January 25, 1999

Today's mission to B Tunnel by Jill Heinerth and Brian Kakuk had a bottom time of well over 4 and 1/2 hours. When the support divers retrieved their gear at 49 meters (160 ft), this empty reel came up. The 1,050' label was placed on the handle marking the length of line on the reel. This picture shows the empty reel next to a note that was found in B Tunnel on a dive made earlier in the expedition (last December). In addition to laying approximately 300 meters (1,000 ft) of line, Jill and Brian were busy setting radio coils. Because 3 coils are currently deployed several kilometers down A Tunnel, Jill and Brian Kakuk set off one coil, worked on their mission, turned off the coil, then redeployed it. They repeated the exercise one more time. Brian Pease successfully located all three of the beacons. Jill and Brian Kakuk deployed one final additional coil with a 20 hour delay timer at the end of the existing line and laid an additional 300+ meters (1000+ ft) of line beyond that point. The tunnel continues. [photo ©1999 Barbara Anne am Ende].

Click here for depth vs time, ppO₂ vs time, and O₂ pressure vs time graphs for Brian's (and Jill's) dive today

---

C Tunnel mapping by John Zumrick

Yesterday, Paul and I made a dive to begin the survey of C-tunnel. The map of C-tunnel contains at least two offshoot tunnels and several depth changes between 250 and 300 fsw. Normally, the mapping process involves installing reference buoys and placing radio beacons to locate these buoys on the surface. This offers a good reference system to calibrate the digital mapper which needs to be done fairly often when tunnels make tight turns as does C-tunnel.

On this particular dive we were attempting to place reference buoys as well as begin the digital mapping of the tunnel. Upon reaching the entrance of C-tunnel we had to lay some 50 meters of line to reach the permanent line. This was surprising since almost all lines are connected in this system. Having accomplished that, I deployed six beacons located at tunnel junctions or at sharp turns in the passage. Unfortunately, we ran out of buoys before reaching the end of the passage. Paul mapped the tunnel up to this point with the digital wall mapper while recording waypoints (reflective buoys) for future reference. Our final bit of survey was completed without the benefit of reference buoys. This will need to be completed on a future dive.

We spent the last portion of our dive conducting a survey of the side passages with the mapper. Interpretation of this data may prove difficult since the passage was smaller and more tortuous than in the main tunnel. It certainly was interesting, however, to explore the multiple offshooting and interconnecting tunnels to the side of the main passage. In this respect C-tunnel is a unique portion of the system.

Click here for depth vs time, ppO₂ vs time, and O₂ pressure vs time graphs for John's (and Paul's) dive on January 24th

---

Noel Sloan, M.D. (left) returned to the expedition after having left to fulfill time requirements at his job. Here he works with Paul Heinerth on the new frames for the dual MK5 rebreather rigs designed by Bill Stone [photo ©1999 Barbara Anne am Ende].

back to January index	previous page	next page
home