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Well… four years since our cave course and we were off to France again; our second trip since the course… The drive down was uneventful. Ian slept for most of the way and I’m convinced that he believes that the caves are only one hour’s drive from Portsmouth. We arrived at Labastide-Murat at 6 in the evening and did the food and wine thing before crashing. We were up at nine the next day and following extensive faffage made our way to Ressel for the first dive. The river Célé was higher than usual and a most unpleasant dark brown colour. Yuk. While we were kitting up two Dutch cave divers arrived too. We got in the river and swam up to the cave entrance. There was no point in doing bubble checks in the river as you wouldn’t have seen anything in that brown goo. I led into the cave; I had my left hand around the string as the viz was so bad you couldn’t see the cave entrance like usual. I followed the string and went into the cave, while doing so thinking that however bad the viz was for me it was going to be a whole lot worse for the others following. After only 5 metres into the cave the viz cleared and I let go of the line. I went in a bit further to the large limestone slab and waited for the others. Ryan soon appeared, but there was a fairly long delay before Ian turned up. Later on he admitted he had been tidying up the cave on the way in; refitting loose snoopy-loops. We went in to the cave; viz was around 15m or so. It was an uneventful dive; we took the deep route and went as far as the top of the pit at -32m depth. We were all fairly comfortable but this was quite far enough for a first dive so we turned the dive and Ian led out of the cave. The exit from the cave was quite hard; the viz was completely zero and there was nothing for it but to follw the string blindly for 10 metres or so. It was only when we were well out of the cave that there was any glow whatsoever in the water.
At the surface the two Dutch people were preparing to enter the cave. We warned them the viz was appalling but once inside the cave the viz was fine. They didn’t look entirely at ease but disappeared off anyway. We floated gently down the river in the gentle current until we could get out. As we left the river we could see the Dutch couple had binned the dive completely. Shame. We later found out that this was their first ever cave dive since completing their course six months previously in Florida. Poor buggers; they didn't find out about the pretty cave lying just beyond all the shite. We went home for more food and wine. The next day I awoke feeling cack. I could barely breathe and it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t going to be diving that day. Poo. Ian and Ryan went off to push a bit further in Ressel… they took trimix with them as they would need it as the cave went deeper at that point. I stayed at the gite feeling bad. I was somewhat cheered up though when some 15 minutes after they’d gone I spied Ian’s weasle lying on a chair in the gite. Phoning the others didn’t help; neither of them had signal evidently. There was nothing to do but wait. About an hour later I got a call from Ryan; they would be returning for the undersuit and Ian was just carrying the stage cylinders back from the river to the van. They collected the suit and returned to the cave. Eventually they returned from a successful dive; they got to -48m depth. Apparently the cave gets quite big after the chamber; I tried my best to be pleased for them. The viz was bad long after the entrance, right up to the first split in fact. I guess that after the rain the Célé had back-filled into the cave. They got good viz past that though.
The next day (Monday) Ryan was full of snot too and binned the diving. With both he and I broken there would be no diving that day; so we went off to find wine instead. We’d never seen any vineyards while driving around the area previously; it all seemed to be Fois Gras in this part of France. We found some lovely wine a little to the South West of Cahors, towards Montcuq. We also had a bit of an adventure down some scarey back lanes of France. The following day I was getting better but decided it was best not to push things. Ryan was still broken. No diving again. We went to look at Truffe. It, in complete contrast to Ressel, looked crystal clear and actually appealing. We all got keen over again and it we planned to give it a go on Friday. We had lunch in Rocamadour and then went on to look at Cabouy. It too looked very clear from the surface, and much higher than we'd ever seen it previously. Back to the gite to let Ian do some work for the afternoon. Thursday we got up and went diving! We trimixed ourselves up and went off to Ressel. There was no-one else there when we arrived; however as we were finishing kitting up a German car turned up with a couple of cave divers in. We swam up the river weighted down by the additional baleout cylinders and then went into the cave. Ryan led, then Ian and finally me. My entrance was awful; the silt was obviously stirred up and viz was absolutely zero. Proper unable to read your gauges type zero. I followed the string and with only bumping my head once got inside the cave. Fortunately there the viz wasn’t too bad; evidently the cave had flushed out the bad viz of a couple of days previous. There was still much silt on the ground though. Ian left the baleout 80% on the line inside the cave and we progressed in. It didn’t take long to cover the ground that we’d done many times before and reach the large chamber that went from -30m down to -45. We followed the string down and went into the deep section of the cave. The tunnel turned a sharp left and started to get larger. It was still definitely a passageway rather than a chamber; but it got a lot bigger. Maybe 3m high and 5 or 6m wide. This was my first trip into this section and I was well happy. The rock formations here were different. The rock was a rusty colour rather than the white limestone further out; and while the rock was still scalloped the scalloping was much smaller and more intricate. The tunnel was very very pretty. We took no cameras in so sorry you’ll never see this unless you go look for yourself :o) We were at a depth of -46m or so and we crossed an area where there was a big bowl beneath us. Even here I could not resist and dropped down off the line until the magic 50.0 appeared on the VR3. We continued in on the deep section for 8 minutes (36 minutes dive time) before Ryan turned the dive. We were 700m from the entrance. Coooooooooooooooooooool :o) I now led everyone out. I deliberately took it at a very gentle pace; after all we were well into stops at this point and there would be no bolting for the surface! The tunnel was no only lit for me by my torch and it was very very impressive in the relative dark. The first stops were at 30m; we were nearly but not quite at the top of the large chamber. It was now that it was really good to be on the rebreather; after all we were still 400 metres from the entrance and could not, for the moment, go any further. Gas pressure was the last thing we wanted to be worrying about! This stop complete we continued back out, taking it very gently indeed. There was no rush whatsoever; it was better to complete the stops swimming than rush on and then have to wait for the stops. The viz steadily worsened as we got closer and closer to the entrance. Eventually we got to the place where Ian had left the baleout 80% and while Ian was faffing with it taking it off the line I thought I could see the glow from the entrance. However it soon became obvious that it was the German couple entering the cave. We still had 10 minutes of stops to do so hung off the line to allow them past. They thought we were exiting though so they to hung off the line to allow us past until they realised that we weren’t moving and they then came in past us. Our stops cleared and we made our way out. As we exited I could see the glow of daylight and so came off the line in order to not stir things up unnecessarily for the other two. It has to be said that the Germans hadn’t stirred up the entrance much at all when they came in. Back in the river we gently floated back downstream before getting out feeling very pleased with ourselves. A very very cool dive.
None of us could be arsed to cook that evening so we went into Labastide-Murat and had pizza. That evening Ian was in a reflective mood: “The three of us will never dive in Ressel again, you realise”. Ryan (naturally) took the piss (and I suspect I probably did, too)... but you have to wonder. We’ve only managed cave diving once every other year so far and none of us are getting any younger. If we go to Mexico in two year’s time then it’d be four years before we returned to France. Maybe Ian’s right. Having said that; please don’t get rid of your 10s yet Dez, there’s always the chance that I’ll be borrowing them again for baleout one day :o) One thing we can probably say: we’ll never go further into Ressel than we did today. Even going to twin 15s as baleout would only extend the dive by a few minutes; at that depth the stops are ticking up way too quickly. Anyway; back to the diving. It was Friday and our last day’s diving. We were off to Truffe! In order to get into Truffe there was some kit re-arrangement necessary. We were ditching the rebreathers; there was no way they were going to get through the squeezes. We had brought wings with us and were going to go open-circuit with sidemounted cylinders. There was a bit of faff involved with sorting this; in fact it took Ryan and Ian all morning to faff and I ended up reading my book for most of the time. Finally we left the gite at midday and headed off to Truffe. This in itself was a bit of an ordeal; Kate (Ryan’s GPS) had a bit of a flid and took us the scenic route. Eventually we arrived at Truffe and got kitted up in our sidemounts. This was quite funny; none of us had dived sidemount before and it was weird to not have anything on your back. The plan was for Ian to go in first; then Ryan and finally me. There was a problem though; Ian’s torch wouldn’t spark up. It was the classic Custom Divers umbilical torch failure; there was a break in the umbilical and contact was only intermittent. There was nothing else to do; Ian had to bin the dive. We quickly changed the plan; I would go in first and Ryan would follow. I swam over to the entrance and sank down to the hole. The buoyancy with the sidemounts was odd; but nothing that couldn’t be managed. I was just pleased I could sink! I took hold of the string, pushed the sidemounts to either side and slid in through the first squeeze. As the first in I could clearly see the chamber between the two squeezes. It looked much bigger than I remembered it from my previous entry. Maybe a metre square; with a vertical drop down to the second squeeze at the far side. I only got a brief glimpse though; soon my silt overtook me and the viz went down to zero. I followed the string down to the second squeeze; adjusted the sidemounts and pushed into the slot. However I got in through here with back-mounted 12s (as I had done four years previous) I do not know; even with just the sidemounts I scraped front and back as I squirmed into the cave. I swam clear of the bad viz and turned to wait for Ryan; illuminating the silt behind me as I did so in the hope that it would help him. As agreed I waited for five minutes. No sign of Ryan. I had to assume he couldn’t make it in. I couldn’t get this far without a quick look at the cave so I turned in and swam into the cave. It was not the cave I remembered from my previous dive. Then it had been brightly lit and a pretty place. Now there was just me and this fairly silty cave. Any mis-fin would stir up the mung from the bottom. The cave was dark and cold and dead. I wasn’t happy there at all. I turned round and headed out. Almost straight away I was on the string; the viz was not good enough to rely on seeing it. I was acutely aware that every single breath was using up my gas supply; hooray for rebreathers! I swam into the first squeeze and forced my way in and through; again scraping front and back. No wonder poor Ryan hadn’t made it in here. In the void I followed the string up the rock and to the last squeeze. The string was leading me to a crack that there was no way I could get through; I felt around and felt the larger slit to the right of the string. I put my head down and forced myself into the slot. I was scraping against rock top and bottom; as when I dived this four years previous it suddenly seemed this crack was much much smaller going out than going in. I forced my way through; a fin on the roof of the cave to help me out. The was no lightening of the silt to tell me I was out. The first I knew was when I hit my head on the log in the header pool. I let go of the string and surfaced. Ryan and Ian were there waiting; Ryan had got through the first squeeze but had been utterly unable to get through the second. Having done this; Ian borrowed Ryan’s torch to have a go at getting on. He was on a bit of a mission having been defeated by the entrance four years previous when he’d tried to get in with his rebreather. We agreed that he’d get in and then come out again. We thought that’d mean a five minute dive. We sat in the header pool and waited. His bubbles disappeared and we waited. Five minutes came and went. So did ten minutes. This didn’t bother us too much; he was bound to have a little look at the cave after all. After fifteen minutes we started to get a bit worried. I started to think out the telephone call in French “Nous avons un speleo-plonger qui est perdu en Truffe, a vingt minutes”. Then there would be a stream of French of which I would only understand about two words. I was not looking forward to the call. I also started to wonder if I should go in after him. I had stayed kitted up deliberately… but what would I be able to do? Would I be able to get an unconscious Ian back out of the cave? Quite definitely not. We waited until twenty minutes and were discussing just what action to take when some bubbles appeared at the far side of the pool. Phew. Ian had of course decided to go exploring after finally managing to get in the cave after all these years. Not surprising really; but it would have been nice to know this before hand. Oh well. That was it. No more cave diving in France this year. We went out to a very nice restaurant in Labastide-Murat that evening to celebrate the week which was lovely. On getting back to the gite there was a lot of kit to
pack into the van. We'd bought a few cases of wine so the job was
even harder than it had been for the trip down. Ryan and I were best
kept out of the way, so we hid while Ian muttered and mumbled and
gradually fitted everything into the van. |
