An apt and stern warning greets the unprepared as I pass out of the daylight zone, about 10 feet inside the cave. Having claimed the one and only cave diving death in Canada to date the sign is a good addition, despite the remoteness of the site. The sign should be amended beyond this simple warning, as even my C-Card collection in my wallet sitting in the glove box of the silver Ford Escort parked a few hundred feet away is not adequate preparation to dive here. Reflecting on the warning as I took the shot brought that one home. The only real way to prepare for this cave is to dive it, very conservatively with an open mind to new techniques and an ability to think your way out of problems. Hope I have those!
I leisurely swim up the first sump passed the concrete block demarking an almost 90 degree turn to the right I find my alterations to my sidemount 130's seem to be working. My frog kick is unrestricted and I am only a touch head heavy. Unfortunately my 'dillo is struggling to keep me neutral with the 3800 psi fill in the wetsuit. I'll have to ditch the jet fins *sob* next time and try some lighter fins. Oh well, on with the dive.
Right at the first T, I drop one of my 4 clothespins on the oversized line. I prefer cookies, but they will not fit on the line. Contemplating drilling some custom ones for the job the logistics of carrying 6 different sized cookies for a cave like seems overkill when a simple clothespin does the trick. a few minutes pass and I stop to marvel at some knobs of what I suspect is dolomite covered in freshwater sponge and geogerthite (sp?)
A few more minutes of nice cave and a red glow tells me I am nearing the first karst window. Woah, pay attention Jim, that is a T there you almost swam over. Dropping another clothespin to mark my exit I pop up in the window. Nice weed and stick choked pond of river water. Back down I go, locating my clothespin and I take the line around to the other side of the window, where it T's again. Fortunately a cookie fits on this line, so I drop that instead of yet another of my now seemingly short supply of pins.
Off I go into a bedding plane that has a very nice rock bottom. No silt! yay! This might be tight on backmount.. but it would be close. You'd definatly have to move carefully though here so you don't wreck the place. A few minutes later I run into... yet another T
Yes, its over exposed.. you try taking shots in here with just an internal flash which penetrates about 12 inches!
So, another clothespin later I am headed off to the right. The cave goes and stays big at about 4 feet high as a second bedding plane intersects this one. This is a neat feature as the form a table in the middle of the cave which you can go on, under or beside. Of course the line (put in by sidemounters) runs under the table of rock for about 30 feet which would form a massive line trap for anyone on backmounts. Sure enough right around the corner is yet another T. One end leads up into the red haze of a karst window and the other heads right toward the calling darkness. Dropping my last pin on the T I head into the darkness.
And bump right into an oversized metal line arrow pointing to the window. Neat. About 30 feet further I find a double arrow. Wow a jump. Thats a first. :) I tried to take a picture of this fascinating item but since they were more than 4 inches apart I couldn't get both into the picture and have my flash hit them with enough light to get more than a vague blur. Giving up on this I keep going. I didn't need a pin, which is good since I didn't have any left. Suddenly the floor disappears as a second tunnel comes up from the depths creating a very nice spot in which I spent a few minutes floating around. Something to check out later. Continuing on the cave gets big.
Like drive a bus down it big.
Like 60 feet wide big.
Like all I can see is a line and blackness in every direction big.
Then I hit another T. Well, time to turn it.. I need more clothespins!
Systems check at this time. 2700 in the left can, 2900 in the right can. Close enough to thirds for a nice leisurely run out with a few peeks down side passages. Run time 77 minutes, max depth 11 feet.
On the way out, I run a reel out in the drive-a-bus-down-it passage and try to find some walls to look at. Takes some time, but the whole thing is a lens shaped tunnel, pinching down on the sides and big in the middle. I also stuck a spool in at the jump to locate it. After a few minutes of searching its a silty little rat hole sidemount tunnel. I didn't even bother hooking into the line because just looking at it sideways turned the whole drive=-a-bus-down-it passage into a silty cloud. Yes, I blew out a 30 foot wide, 20 foot tall passage in under a 1/4 of a second by looking at this one. I spool up in zero vis, pull off my stuff and head out. I have a few inches of vis back when I hit the window and T.
The exit out is uneventful but fantastic.
128 minutes, 11 foot max depth.
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