Saturday 28/09/2002 BACK TO TOP

After a very smooth crossing we were awoken when the garcon brought us our breakfast. A good way to start the day! The ferry docked at 08:00 and we spent a frustrating half our sitting in the bus on the car deck waiting to be let into France. I drove to start with, and only managed to get lost once. I expect that was Ryan’s fault though for poor navigation. The steering had always made odd noises and by 11:00 I was fairly convinced that something was amiss. I pulled off into a garage at the side of the road and struggled hugely to turn off as the power steering had completely bust and I had to wrestle the bus off the road. We popped the bonnet and had a good nose underneath, obviously completely ineffectively. We had a long way to go and so decided to ignore the problem and press on; we still had a few hundred miles to go after all!
Ian then drove and we had our first taste of his mad driving. He didn’t worry about things like STOP signs. Even when there was poor innocent Frenchmen waiting at them Ian didn’t worry; he’d just overtake them and run the STOP sign. Ryan and I went a bit pale. We had thought that the diving was going to be the scariest part of this week!
Ian took us to Confolens where we stopped for a bit of pizza and tried to calm our tattered nerves. Ryan then drove us the final couple of hours to Payrac where we were due to meet Phill and Kevin, our instructors for the week ahead. We got there at 16:15, fifteen minutes late. Oh dear; not a good start.
There was no sign of Phill and Kevin so I got on the mobile as we were meant to. The calls kept failing with “network busy”. Uh oh! Then I managed to get through only to go straight to Kevin’s answer machine. I tried Phill’s number a few times, then Kevin’s and Phill’s again. Finally I tried Kevin’s and it rang! Sadly I’d forgotten whether I was calling Kevin’s or Phill’s mobile so didn’t know what to say when a voice answered “hello?”.
“Err… err… is that Phill?” I finally got out.
“No. This is Kevin.”
Bugger. That wasn’t a very impressive start. Oh well, contact had been established and 15 minutes later our instructors turned up. Handshakes were exchanged and we went off to our home for the week. It was a bit out of Payrac, and up a very stony track. I was very glad we’d brought a rental bus rather than our own cars!
The house itself was lovely; on the side of the hill overlooking the wooded valley; with swimming pool and all. Excellent.
The other two students had not arrived yet so we spent time getting our kit together with Kevin and Phill looking on critically. They didn’t actually ever “tut” but the looks said it all, really.
Once the other students had arrived they put their kit together, too, and finally Kevin got to let rip on the state of our kit. He did not hold back.
“Anything you don’t actually need in a cave must come off” was his rule. After a good couple of hours criticising each person’s kit Kevin finally allowed us to go off to Gourdon where we had more pizza. Yum!

Sunday 29/09/2002 BACK TO TOP

Up at 07:30. Frosties for breakfast.
08:00 we got to re-arrange all our kit to meet Kevin’s criticisms from the previous evening. The pile of discarded kit grew and grew. Cylinder boots, extraneous HP gauges, dangly bags, weird bits of bungee, all came off. Backup torches were moved from being hidden in bags to bungeed onto shoulder straps. Why on earth did we have to move backup torches was beyond us. Surely they were only backups and would be quite happy and accessible in waist bags? Oh how naïve we were.
10:00 Kevin and Phill were finally bored with us messing with kit and it was time for line practice in the garden. We took our safety reels (only 30-50m of line) firstly Kevin laid the line from rock to tree, explaining at each belay what he was doing, and why. We dutifully followed around the garden, feeling each of the belays as we went around. Finally the line was finished off on another rock. Our first task was to follow the line back from start to end. This was fairly easy.
Next we went back to the end of the line and were told to close our eyes and again follow it back. This should have been easy, but is not quite as simple as it sounds. Firstly there was the odd bush to avoid. Secondly, as we were blind we had to have one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you. Finally, as we came round we discovered that some fool had laid other lines across and around ours which confused the matter hugely. The line that was just laid over ours was easy enough, but when one of our belays around a tree had another line firmly wrapped around it too things were trickier! I was fourth in the line of divers; and so had to wait, eyes firmly closed, while those in front of me sorted out each obstacle. It was not enough just to follow the previous diver; each of us had to make our own decision. Even just standing in the sunshine in the garden holding the line was quite nerve-wracking!
Next we learnt to run jump lines between an object and the main line. Finally we got to do blind line recovery where we were disoriented, then had to belay our safety line and then go in one direction to try and recover the line. If we didn’t find it in that direction, then we had to return to our belay and go at 90° to previous and again try and find the line. When we did find the line we had to tie off our safety line, indicating which way we’d gone and track the main line until we found a marker to indicate whether we were going into or out of the cave. Obviously if we were going into the cave we had to reverse direction and go the other way. As we crossed over our safety reel we had to re-lay it to indicate the new direction that we had gone in. Once again, as we exited the line yet more other lines had been laid across ours and had to be sorted out. Much fun!
We broke for lunch and then it was TIME TO GO DIVING :o)
We drove off and got to the Emergence du Ressel for 14:00. Kevin briefed us, we kitted up and then went into the river. I had been getting quite nervous but once I was in the river this disappeared. I was in water, and I could cope with that! We did our S drills, checking lights, reels, regs., gas, thirds and bubbles. The cave itself was 50m swim upstream from where we got in. There was a piece of string tied to a tree that disappeared into the water. Kevin went first, followed by Ryan, me then Ian. We dropped down through the silty water to the entrance to the cave.
Inside the cave was incredible. It was limestone, and so looked white, and had all sorts of scallop shapes in it. You could clearly see the layers of limestone, and the bubbles in the ceiling looked like mirrors. It was absolutely magical. We followed the line in and shortly came across a collapsed section, where the route was fairly constricted. As we swam through this area there was a piece of slate embedded in the large limestone slab on our right, which looked lovely and I gave a loving stroke to as I went past. In fact I stroked it lovingly each time I went past it!
Past the restriction the cave opened up again, and was some 2 metres high by 2 to 3 metres wide. The amazing shapes of rock continued all the way and were absolutely beautiful to see. The diver in front would be silhouetted by the light from their torch, creating an amazing image. We continued up the cave, passing ok signals up and down, to a place where the cave splits into two; one passage continuing straight on and one going off to the left. We added a line marker showing the exit and then took the left hand passage. We went up there a short way before the dive was turned and it was time to exit the cave. Booo! I didn’t want to leave. It was all over far too quickly. Anyway, we went out gently, collecting our marker on the way out.
Back into the river and then we floated our way gently downstream back to where we could get out. Kevin asked us to describe our dive and I’m afraid I was like an over-excited novice. All I could go on about was the beautiful cave and the bubbles on the ceiling, which I don’t think was the type of detail he was interested in. Oops.
Kevin then gave us a more critical appraisal of our dive.
This dive had been 40 minutes long, to a maximum depth of 10 metres. Not the sort of profile that would normally appeal to me, but this had been one of the dives of my life :o)
We then drove back to the house, where Kevin gave the first lectures on Stress Management, Risk Assessment and Survival Training. Phill cooked dinner of sausages, baked beans, pasta and rice. It was gorgeous.
After dinner Kevin then went through signals required for cave diving, most of which seemed to involve string in some fashion. String is definitely important when cave diving!

Monday 30/09/2002 BACK TO TOP

Up at 07:15, had breakfast, showered and did kit-faff. We were ready to go by 08:30 and once again went off to the Emergence du Ressel.
Following the briefing we were in the cave for 10:00. Ryan was leading, followed by Ian, then me, and then Kevin. The objective for the dive was to lay a jump line that connected the line that comes from the deep water route to the line that runs along the shallow section. Having laid the line we would continue to either my turn point (a third of my original gas supply) or we reached 18 metres. We could not go deeper than this as Ian had 56% in one of his bailout cylinders, and this would be the maximum ppO2 at which he could use it. So, we entered the cave and tried to behave a little more like cave divers and less like the excited children we were the day before.
Ok signals were passed up and down and we progressed into the cave. As I was the last of the three of us I had Kevin following on my heels which was less than comfortable. I could feel his gaze assessing my every move, and I was half-expecting him to hit me for gas at any moment. However, we progressed into the cave, through the restriction (slate!) and on to the split. The line marker was laid, and we went up the left passage and this time continued around the corner which was where Kevin had turned the dive on the day before. We continued up here to where there was another passage connecting from the right. This was the connecting tunnel to the deep route. Ryan laid the jump line, and while he did so I noticed the strap to one of my fins was undone. Mmmm. Great. Here I was, 180 metres inside the cave, and my kit was falling apart. I tried to control my heart rate while I replaced the fin and did the strap back up. I tried to do this without Kevin seeing, after all I didn’t want our instructor thinking we were a right bunch or numpties, even if we were! This in itself was a mistake – I should have let the other members of my team know what I was up to, even if I was coping with it.
After Ryan laid the jump line and I’d sorted myself out we continued straight on down the passage to where it suddenly dropped down before us. The rock formations here were gorgeous; huge fluted bits sticking out. Most pretty. We descended down here, trying to control our buoyancy as we went so we didn’t bounce off the walls or floor and either stir up silt or damage our equipment.
At 18m Ryan turned the dive exactly as he was meant to and our dive order reversed. Suddenly I went from following the other two to being in the lead! Kevin quietly snuck around us to the back of the group again, as he was always to do from now on.
From my perspective the difference was amazing. No longer was I following other well-lit divers, now there was just the black tunnel with my trusty HID beam lighting the way, and lighting the line that was our connection back to the surface. I was a lot happier just knowing that Kevin was not hanging off my heels any longer! On the way out we caught up with the other group (Phill / Steve / Tim). This was quite handy as I had been going too fast and so this slowed me down a bit. We continued back to the surface. When we got to the constriction I decided to take the high route over it rather than follow the line exactly. The route was only 2 or 3 metres away from the line, and you could see the line nearly all the time, but I would receive a huge bollocking for this later. This dive was 50 minutes, 18 metres maximum depth.
After the de-brief we went off to get some lunch for everyone. Sadly, as it was a Monday lunch-time in France everywhere was shut and despite visiting a few places we got no lunch. We returned back to the site in failure. Oops.
Having returned we were thrown hungry back into the water. Ian went first, followed by Me, Ryan and finally Kevin. Ian went off at a hell of a pace. I signalled once to him to slow down, and then shortly after had to pass on a signal from Ryan for him to slow down, too. Due to the erratic pace we did not keep together very well and the signalling was less than perfect. This time at the split we carried on over the collapsed section towards the deep route. As we crossed the boulder pile though Ian’s primary torch failed and so he turned the dive. We moved Ian to between Ryan and myself (and earned applause from Kevin for doing so!) and progressed out. Back at the split Ian then swapped onto one of his 5 litre bailouts which he breathed back to the surface to determine how long it would last. This dive was 31 minutes, maximum depth 11 metres.
On returning to the surface we re-calculated thirds and then it was straight back into the cave for me to do some line laying. Ryan was behind me as my light man (I am the “reel man”) and Ian followed up. I made my primary belay and then progressed into the cave, making secondary belays as I went. This should have been easy – there are thousands of rocks in there after all. It’s amazing though how suddenly as you approach a particularly likely looking rock how suddenly it becomes completely inappropriate to tie a line around! It becomes too big, too small, pointing in the wrong direction or too smooth so the line just comes straight off. Anyway, I made my four belays and then turned the dive as instructed. On the return, I wound in the line while Ryan popped off the belays in front of me. I kept tension on the line into the reel to keep it nice and neat, Ryan took all the large slack out of the line and it all went quite swimmingly. This dive was 16 minutes at maximum depth 9 metres.
Next it was Ryan’s line laying. I was his light man; Ian had no primary light and so brought up the rear. The laying went fine, although Ryan experienced the same thing I found with the inappropriate rocks. On the return I tried to keep the slack out of the line however Ryan did not tension the line and so ended up with a bird’s nest of string everywhere. After I’d kept the line so neat for him! Ho hum. This dive was 15 minutes at 9 metres.
On the return Steve and Tim went for shopping while we returned and I was given the Kevin Gurr Master-Class in Posiedon reg servicing. He did one of my Cyclons and then I did the other. For the first time since their last servicing they finally stopped being twitchy and became nice to breathe off. I can see me setting them up after each time they get serviced in future.
We then had a fine spaghetti bolognese cooked by Kevin and then Phill lectured us on breathing, O2 exposure, and narcosis.

Tuesday 01/02/2002 BACK TO TOP

Up 7:15 again, did breakfast and kit-faff and then left at 08:30.
We were back to the Emergence du Ressel, this time with the goal of completing the round trip from the deep route up through the connection to the shallow route (where we had laid the line the day before) and then back home again.
I led this dive, followed by Ryan, then Ian and Kevin. In I happily went, straight past the split and entirely failed to lay the marker as I should have done. Oops. Over the collapse we went where Ian’s torch had failed the day before and down the passage to 18 metres. There we found a blue polyprop line going vertically which Kevin had warned us not to take, but suddenly seemed to be very important. We had a bit of a faff here before deciding it really wasn’t important to us and carried on down the deep route. Eventually we found the bottom of the shaft that leads to the shallow route. Here I laid a jump line from the main line through to the line up the shaft. I started up the shaft but had to wait while Ian corrected the line I had laid (I hadn’t put it between the line markers). We floated (well, bounced perhaps) up the shaft, which was very pretty indeed. At the top of the shaft we came across the line that Ryan had laid the day before, and finding this was our cue that we could continue round the circuit rather than having to return the way we had come. Cool. The total distance for this circular route was about 400 metres.
We followed the line back to the split and then went toward the exit of the cave. On the exit we did lost line drills. Firstly Ian had a go; Ryan and I were taken off the line and Kevin parked us the other side of the cave with our lights out. Ian was then disoriented and then had to find the line again with no torch. From where Ryan and I were we could see Ian and Kevin in the light of Kevin’s very dimmed torch. After 15 minutes Ian had found the line and it was my turn to do it.
Having been disoriented I dropped down to the floor and scrabbled around to find a suitable rock to tie off my safety line to. Having found one I then pulled out some line and locked off the reel. I then tried to tie a slip-knot around the rock. I failed. I tried again. I failed. I had another go and thought I had managed it. Tying even a simple slip knot was suddenly very very hard in the complete darkness, with cold hands. I took a few more turns around the rock and hoped it would hold. I set off toward where I was fairly certain was the line. I was going very slowly, feeling my way over the rocks, and checking all the while that I wasn’t about to bash my regs or head on the ceiling. Just as I neared the main line Kevin let a little too much light out from his black-out torch and I had a clear view for a brief instant of the line ahead. Reassuring, but it spoilt the exercise somewhat. I then recovered the line shortly after, and tied my reel off to it, indicating the way that I thought was the exit. I started off toward the exit and shortly came across a tape marker and could easily feel that I was going the correct way. Having done this, Kevin stopped the exercise.
It was then Ryan’s turn. He did much the same, only he found my line rather than the main line. He tied off on my line, then went off down it and found my nicely tied belay around my rock. So, he turned around, went back down my line, corrected the direction indication on his tie-off and then obviously followed it to the main line. He got told off for this; while he was correct to use my line, he should have kept hold of his own safety reel and then just followed my line.
Lost line drills complete we exited the cave, shivering. Dive time of 85 minutes at maximum depth 18 metres. The lost line drills had taken 45 minutes, 15 minutes for each of us.
We had lunch 12:00 to 13:00.
Then it was back into the cave; Ian leading, then Ryan, then me, and finally Kevin. After only 10 minutes Ian’s torch failed again (nice but dim) so we turned the dive. We came back toward the entrance, when Kevin signalled for us to go back in. We turn again, and as we do so Kevin gave me the signal to start air sharing exercise. I have a moment of surprise, then breathe out and chase after Ian who is my closest source of air. I catch him, grab a fin and start crawling up him. He of course realises what’s going on and so gets ready to give me gas. He grabs his bailout reg which is around his neck and pulls it forwards, toward me. Sadly the bungee had a better grip than he did and it per-twanged back into his neck. This would have been comical if I had had any breath to laugh with. I still had empty lungs from when I had breathed out. Ian got the reg at the second go and I stuck it in my mouth, purging it, and started to breathe. We of course immediately turn the dive and start toward the exit. We do gas sharing out through the constriction, which is all quite easy really with the 2 metre hoses we had. I even got to stroke the slate on the way past! After the constriction Kevin aborts the exercise and we go back in again. Immediately after the constriction Kevin tells Ian to air share. Sadly Ryan had gone a fair way up the cave and Ian had a bit of chasing to get to gas. Having reached Ryan they start sharing successfully and again we exit the cave. I make the mistake of going first – Ian as out of gas diver should have led. Again they go successfully through the constriction. Kevin stops the exercise after the constriction and signals for us to exit the cave. I guess we were meant to relax and think the exercise was over but I just knew that it wasn’t.
As we progressed up the cave I suddenly felt someone grab my fins and crawl up my legs. I grabbed both my primary and secondary reg and turned to the victim, offering my primary reg as I did so (that one has my long hose on it). I was slightly surprised to see it was Kevin after gas, but gave him my reg anyway ;-) I had a bit of a flap pulling out the long hose but that went ok and we shared back out into the light. This was 40 minutes, maximum depth 10 metres.
On the way back home we went shopping and I then made dinner with much help from Ryan and Ian. Kevin lectured us on gas management and DCI.

Wednesday 02/10/2002 BACK TO TOP

Up at 07:15 for breakfast and minimal kit faff.
Drove off through Rocamadour (which is very very pretty) to Gouffre de Cabouy. A new site!
First dive was Ryan, me, Ian then Kevin. This site has a fairly steep slope of gravel and boulders and mud down to 30 metres where there is an elbow and the tunnel slopes back up again. At the 30 metre section I felt distinctly narced, which was odd. The tunnel then sloped back up gently, it opened up again and the poor viz from the entrance cleared. Again this is a limestone tunnel, with very pretty formations all the way along. The line in here was hard to see sometimes, this was perhaps also due to the fact that I was hanging up in the ceiling in order to reduce my gas consumption and also reduce the deco penalty. I found Ryan went quite fast and I would have rather taken a little more time to look at what was obviously a very pretty cave. I slowed him down more than once. Nevertheless we soon caught up with the other group and Ryan soon overtook them. As he did so I caught sight of a totally blacked out diver hovering in the ceiling above the other group. My first thought was “oh dear it’s a dead diver. Bugger. We’re going to have to tow him out of here”.
I also had in mind that it might just be Phill keeping an eye on the others so I kept my torch on him while I identified the diver as indeed being Phill. Sorry for blinding you, Phill!
Meanwhile, Ryan had gone a fair way past the other group and I had a bit of catching up to do. My frog-kick finning style went to pot and I went into full-on scissor kick past Tim and Steve, which I don’t suppose they appreciated at all. Sorry guys!
I caught up with Ryan and we continued into the cave. We carried on for what seemed an age until I finally turned the dive when I was 10 bar above my turn pressure. It seemed to me we had gone for miles into the cave and I wanted that additional 10 bar as a bit of “comfort air” :o)
As we turned Ian had a bit of a floaty moment and spent a few seconds pinned to the ceiling before he led us out.
Completely contrary to the entry, the pace on the exit struck me as incredibly slow. Ian seemed to be stopping and looking at every nook and cranny on the way out. I kept thinking that I had been rushed deep into this cave on a Formula 1 car, and now was put on a tourist bus to get out again. I was floating up toward the ceiling to save gas and deco and one set of OK signals completely missed me out, going straight from Ian to Ryan. I had a quiet sulk to myself over this.
Despite the pace seeming slow to me we reached the 30 metre section seemingly very quickly. Strange the way your mind plays these evil tricks on you!
At the bottom of the 30 metre section we checked our computers, and I promptly mis-read my Nitek3, thinking it was not giving me any stops. In fact I had 10 minutes at 3 metres to do, and I managed to confuse Kevin by telling him no stops, followed a few minutes later by telling him my real deco requirement.
At the bottom of the slope we did the blackout drill. It was fairly silty already in there so we were already close to the line. We took hold of the line and turned off our torches. At that point, Ian in the lead just waited for me and Ryan to catch up. Meanwhile I was also waiting, until I could feel Ryan behind me. I did not have to wait long, then the pair of us caught up with Ian and we gently worked our way up the line until Kevin stopped the exercise at 18 metres.
We then slowly ascended the gravel bank, completed all our stops and got out.
We promptly got told off for failing to leave any line markers in the cave. Oops. On the good side, Kevin was fairly impressed with the distance we had gone inside the cave; about 420 metres. A long swim! This dive took 75 minutes to a maximum depth of 30 metres. Most of the tunnels though were at 15 metres. I surfaced with exactly a third of my original gas left, just as I should have done (although strictly I could have decompressed on this third as by deco stops we were back in the light zone).
We had lunch. French bread, camembert, and the now legendary lips and arseholes pate. Marvellous.
The second dive in Cabouy I went in with 70 bar. This meant my thirds was 47 bar, so I had to turn the dive when I had that pressure left.
In we went, I was leading, Ian next, then Ryan and Kevin. Our mission for this dive was to lay many line markers to make up for our lack of them this morning! We cleared the 30 metre section and got into the clear viz. I was very conscious of my low gas, and so started laying markers thick and fast. We also did many Ok signals to try and keep Kevin happy. As I turned the dive Ian’s torch also went. We recovered all the marks on exit and returned to the 30 metre section. Here I had one of those strange thoughts. Here I was, 30 bar in my 12s, 30 metres deep, in a cave. Now some people might have thought this was unsafe, but curiously I was fully inside the rules! We exited the cave with no stops to do.
On the way back through Rocamadour we had a bit of a tourist photo-stop.
We then returned to the house to do our theory exam.
We had a gorgeous dinner of Steak and mash and veges, followed by Phill doing a lecture on types of cave / geology. I found this absolutely fascinating, unlike Ian who fell asleep during it.

Thursday 03/10/2002 BACK TO TOP

Up 07:15 again, breakfast and almost no kit-faff.
This time we went off to Saint Georges. This was a small pool at the foot of a steep wooded slope. You could clearly see where the pool overflowed in the winter, but the water was a good few metres below this.
We were in the water for 10:00, Ian was leading, then me, Ryan, Kevin. This pool had a steep gravel/boulder slope with a low roof. I was constantly cracking my cylinders on the rock above. At 20 metres Ryan was not happy and so we aborted the dive and surfaced.
We sorted ourselves, recalculated thirds for me, and tried again. This descent was better for all of us; going down with body horizontal, sideways in the crack, worked best. We all got down to the elbow at 30 metres. It was very silty to start with (thanks Tim) so we followed the line until we got out into the clearer viz. This cave was very different to the other caves as it was black. The effect was incredible; the walls and ceiling and floor just absorbed your torch beam making the cave very dark even with all our torches on. The formations were again absolutely gorgeous, very intricate and pretty. I followed Ian in, and was determined to lay line markers everywhere to impress Kevin. However the line in here was fresh and had regular tape markers on it so even though I had my marker in hand I eventually put it away as it was unnecessary. Ian laid a marker anyway.
The goal for this dive was to reach the lake, some 350 metres from the entrance. However due to the faff on descent there was no way we would make that. Instead, when we reached the air bell 170 metres in Kevin signalled us to ascend the line and we went up into the air bell. Of course this was the one important time for us to lay a marker and all three of us forgot. Oops. We had a photo moment in the air bell and a little chat before we turned the dive and exited the cave. As this was the first time I’d been allowed to take my camera in a cave I burned away merrily; hopefully one or two should come out. Ian also shot some video; hopefully we’ll get some footage off that, too.
On getting back to the 30 metre elbow the viz went down to pants so we all gravitated toward the line so as not to get lost. As we did so Ian’s torch failed, but we were well used to that. Up the slope through the slot we went until we exited from the narrow section into the head pool at 6 metres. Once there we discovered we had lost Kevin, so Ian stayed out (he had no primary torch) and Ryan and I went back in for him. Sure enough, Kevin was half way down the slope, skulking off to the left of the line, all lights out. Having found him, we exchanged Oks and went off back out of the cave. Oops. We should have made Kevin (as the distressed diver) go first. I would point out that he didn’t look very distressed to us, indeed it rather looked like he was enjoying himself!
This dive was 77 minutes at a maximum depth of 30 metres.
We had lunch while Phill, Tim and Steve dived again, listening to Kevin telling us tales of diving the Brittanic and similar derring-do.
After lunch came Ian’s line-laying exercise. Ryan acted as light man. Ian tied off to a tree trunk and then disappeared down the slope making belays around handy rocks as he went. Ryan and I followed in rapidly decreasing viz. I had another strange moment following them slowly down – there I was, lying sideways in this narrow crack with one hand on a rock in the floor and one hand on the ceiling with my legs floating sideways and upwards, watching Ian and Ryan below me tying string around rocks. And to think I could have been stuck at work instead.
At the bottom the viz was bad with all the cack we’d stirred up on the way down. We then started our lights out drill back up Ian’s line. I was leading now, with Ryan behind and Ian bringing up the rear. It was black, and we had our eyes shut too just to make sure! Following the line up was straightforward until I came across another line laying across ours. Odd; that line hadn’t been there when we went in! It was easy to tell which our line was though so we progressed up. Then I came to one of Ian’s belays, only to find some other fool had also tied another belay around the same rock. How careless of them. It took a short while to track our line around to determine which the correct one was (don’t forget it is absolutely black) before I could progress up. I felt Ryan give two “go on” signals while I was doing this. I went past the belay, up what I hoped was the correct line. Then of course Ryan hit the same problem, and had to sort it out for himself. I then had to wait while he did so. The “go on” signals did not come to me anymore, although I expect Ian was still giving them to Ryan. Finally Ryan found what he thought was the correct line; I was somewhat relieved it was the same one I chose. At least there’d be two of us wandering off lost. We waited while Ian sorted out the knitting. He didn’t take very long at all to sort it. Afterward he said “it was easy. The lines were different thickness”. Cocky git. We’d all chosen the same line and so progressed up until Kevin stopped the exercise.
This dive took 37 minutes at 21 metres.
We were back to Payrac by 15:30, where we received our debrief for the day and for the entire week. We also were told our exam marks.
Happily everyone passed the course! Well done to all!
We then went over to the owner of the house that we were staying in for a barbeque that evening. Soup and very fresh lamb was on the menu, and was gorgeous. Phill showed us some stunning slides from various cave trips he’s been on.

Friday 04/10/2002 BACK TO TOP

Today was our special treat day! Today we got to dive for fun!
We were up at 07:15 and had a mass packing session. We had to be at the ferry that evening so intended to go straight off from the dive site. That meant all our dive kit had to be packed and accessible, and all our dry stuff had to be packed too.
We managed it by packing my dive stuff and me into Phill and Kevin’s truck.
Then we were off to Fontaine du Truffe!
When we got there I couldn’t help but laugh. It is the smallest little pool at the bottom of a gravely slope. It was a nice blue colour at first but it was obvious that that wouldn’t last.
Phill and Kevin went in first with shovels to dig out the entrance for us. They seemed to think this was ok and reasonable.
They returned and then Phill went in with Tim following and then Steve went in. Each had to wait for firstly the bubbles in the pool to cease, and then a bit longer to give the previous person time to clear the second squeeze.
A good few minutes after they’d all been in abruptly there were more bubbles and Tim reappeared, obviously in some distress. He had not been happy in the cave and despite being out in the clear water past the squeezes had just wanted to get out. Within moments of him appearing Phill appeared, too. This must have been an awful exit for Tim. Despite being in distress he had kept his head enough to get through both squeezes in the entrance successfully. I take my hat off to him – it must have been an amazing effort in adversity.
We comforted Tim while Phill went back in for Steve, and the pair of them then continued their dive successfully.
Seeing the amount of time the previous group had taken to get in Ryan decided it was best he didn’t even try to get in.
That left Ian and I with Kevin. Kevin went first, then Ian followed. Ian swapped onto open circuit to enable him to collapse the counter lung on his unit and so I could track the bubbles. They shortly disappeared. I waited. After a couple of minutes they reappeared and then Ian surfaced swearing and unhappy. “Couldn’t get past the bloody second squeeze”, he said. It was left to me to try.
The header pool was now completely silted out; no visibility whatsoever. I followed the line down until it disappeared into a crack at the bottom. They had said that the crack was 0.75 metres high and 1.5 metres wide. It seemed 0.5 metres high and 1 metre wide, so far as I could tell by feel.
I got my head down and bashed my cylinders on the rock. Oh dear. I felt around, trying to find the highest section, but there didn’t seem to be one. I buried my face and chest in the gravel and scraped my 12s beneath the rock. The squeeze did not last long, barely 0.3 metres, and then I was in a slightly larger chamber with a big rock in the middle. I still had the line in my left hand (no way was I letting go of that) and followed it down. Very soon I came to the second squeeze. This one was even tinier. I felt around, hoping to find the real entrance, since it obviously couldn’t be this tiny slit. There was nothing else. There was no panic or alarm, but it was definitely one of those “what the hell am I doing here?” moments. I stuck my head and chest down in the gravel and slid into the crack. My 12’s jammed solid. I didn’t want to stick here permanently so I pulled back, moved to the side and tried again. The same happened. I felt around the slit and decided the middle was the tallest. I gave it one more go and still jammed. “That’s it”, I decided; "there’s no way I’m going in here". I pulled back and breathed slowly in the brown goo.
Having made up my mind to give up, I promptly changed it again. It had to be worth a second try. So I tried again. Sadly, exactly the same thing happened. I had a couple of goes and once again decided there was no hope and I should give up.
Again I pulled back into the little space and waited in the dark brown.
I changed my mind once more and went to the slit. With my free hand (don’t forget my left hand is still around the line) I pushed the gravel underneath the centre bit to the sides, forwards and backwards. I got my head down, chest right in the gravel. I remembered what Phill had said about looking down and not up (like it made any difference to what you could see) and pushed into the gap. I slid in. My 12s were scraping against the rock but didn’t stick; I continued squirming forward, 12s scraping, my entire front burrowing through the gravel. It took a huge mental effort to keep going; to trust the instructors saying that there was a way in. After only a short distance (a foot or two) the squeeze opened and I was no longer scraping both front and back. I started finning with tiny flutter kicks. The water became less and less brown and silty. Abruptly the water cleared completely and it was amazing. I let go of the line. This was the clearest water we’d had all week – you could see as far as the cave would let you see. Kevin was waiting there, doubtless beginning to wonder whether any of his group were going to make it in at all. Between Ian and I we must have wasted a good 10 minutes struggling with that entrance.
Kevin signalled whether Ian was coming in, a signal I completely failed to understand so he got out his little pad and wrote “NO IAN?”. I shook my head and made an out gesture. Kevin nodded and indicated me to lead into the cave.
Go here to see what the entrance is like in good viz. I never saw this.
This cave was not only much clearer than the other caves (because no-one can get in perhaps?) but also a lot tighter, the passage was generally slightly bigger than one metre by one metre. It was limestone, and so a nice bright white colour. The walls were the same intricate scalloped shapes that we were already used to. After a short distance I laid a line marker (I had been particularly bad at laying these before and was trying to impress!) and we continued.
Shortly I could see a clear surface ahead and above me and we had come to the end of the first sump. I took off my fins and climbed up the scalloped rock carefully. I really did not want to fall in here – lordy knows how I would be able to be rescued out through that squeeze.
Climbing over the rock there was a little sandy beach the other side, then a small pool and a small dry tunnel leading off the other side of this pool. I could see the line going down this tunnel so it was obvious where we were off next.
First though we waited for Phill and Steve, who appeared within a few minutes at the tunnel. We exchanged pleasantries and then Kevin led off down the tunnel. At first the tunnel was high enough to be able to walk bent over. I took care not to bash my twins in the roof – all the while I had the exit through those squeezes in mind! After 10 metres though the tunnel got lower still and we had to crawl for a further 10 metres. This is painful work on the scalloped limestone. Two days later my knees are still slightly tender and bruised. The tunnel opened up again and sump 2 appeared before us. Back on went the fins and Kevin then led me through a narrow and very beautiful cave. It was at most one metre by one metre, and often less. It wound its way into the hill and then we came to a place where it doubled back on itself, going up and back. Kevin pressed himself into the elbow and signalled me to come and look. The cave continued up, and I could see our bubbles disappearing up in the completely clear water. Very pretty.
Kevin gave the signal to turn the dive and so I led out. We were soon back at the end of sump 2, taking off our fins and then crawling back to sump one. We rested a while before donning our fins again and sliding most ungracefully down the rock into sump 1. We then went back down the passage until we came across the marker I had laid on the way in. I illuminated it and waited for Kevin to retrieve it. It was his job to do so as the last member of the team. However Kevin indicated that I should take it, so I did. Afterwards he said “sorry I didn’t retrieve the marker but I was having a bit of a video moment at the time”!
Before long we were back at the zero viz area and thus the squeeze. I circled the line and finned in until I could feel the roof lowering and I was once again scraping front and back in an attempt to get out. I kept my head down and slid through into the small opening between the two squeezes. I could feel the rock that lay in the space – it seemed a lot bigger going out than it had done going in. I went up it and found myself jammed in the second squeeze. This wasn’t right – this had been the bigger gap during the entry!
I backed up and felt round the gap again, trying to find the highest point by feel. I moved to the left of where I had first tried, and tried again.
My cylinders scraped the rock. My drysuit was scraping through the gravel. However I had one huge incentive – I wanted to get out! I pushed forward and with much scraping slid through the hole. The brown silt around me had a reassuring lighter look to it. Never had zero viz in silt looked so good! I let go of the line, so Kevin could feel that I was through, and surfaced. I was very very happy.
Within a minute or so Kevin was out too and that was it – our cave course was over :o(
This dive, in its three sections was 12 minutes at 10 metres maximum, then 21 minutes in the air space, 10 minutes at 11 metres maximum with then another 17 minutes in air, followed by 11 minutes at 9.5 metres maximum.
Practicality soon took over after the euphoria of diving Truffe. We had to completely re-pack the bus ready for the journey home. Ryan and I left Ian to it and soon the impossibly large pile of stuff had disappeared into the bus, leaving just three little people-shaped gaps inside it. Kevin and Phill and Tim and Steve went off back to the house and so fond farewells were said and we were off home again.
Ryan drove first, I hid in the back seat and got on with typing up this report. I left Ian to the navigating and I guess they did an ok job as soon (well 6 hours later) we were stopping at le Mans for a fairly horrid road-side snack. Ian then drove us to the ferry port while I continued typing. This report was taking on a life of its own and had reached a size that I had not expected.
We got on the ferry with just the normal wait at Ouistraham, checked into the cabin and went off to the bar for a quiet drink. There was only one thing that was appropriate – a bottle of champagne to celebrate surviving the cave diving course.
We all felt rather pleased with ourselves.

• It was hard work. From waking up in the morning to going to bed at night we were doing something; either sorting kit, planning dives, doing dives, doing lectures.
• It was great fun. Kevin and Phill are excellent instructors and made learning the vast amount of material interesting and entertaining. They didn’t hold back their comments; when you did something wrong (we did often) we were told in no uncertain terms what we’d done. This would always be followed up with an explanation of why it is better this way.
• Even if I never go into a cave again I have learnt things that are useful for open water diving. The changes to my kit configuration have improved it no end, and I will keep the kit mostly the same when back in open water. I will, however, put the cylinder boots back on – they are too handy when on dive boats. But when I was sliding through the entrance to Truffe I was very pleased they had been removed!