Apologies in advance for the beer snobbery in the second paragraph. Also this was written sleep deprived on night shift while waiting for OS Patches to finish and then not proof read.
Feb 08
Gear safely loaded in the truck the day before, I head to the airport with a backpack, lunch, directions to "Knightly Spirits" in Orlando and my MP3 Player. After texting with Mike and Finn a few times for giggles I settle in for a day of waiting in airports while my gear drives down without me. After zoning out to some mindless TV the wheels hit the tarmac and I secure my wheels for the week. The look on the agents face when I ask for the "oldest beater in the lot" was priceless.
So off I go, getting lost only once on the way to the most fantastic beer store I have ever graced with my shadow. Or rather gave my shadow the privilege to fall in. Those of you only familiar with the meagre offerings provided by Ontario's government choked atrocity called the LCBO or the megabrew controlled, licensed place called The Beer Store will likely be unable to grasp the notion that beer exists outside of the yellow fizz foisted off on us. Some, perhaps, know beer comes in colours other than pee. Well, when I walked into this haven of malted barley concoctions I was greeted with one 40 foot wall of beer. Not like the wall we have, where your selection is 150 assorted lagers that are for most intents identical. This wall started with a plethora of exotic beer. Lambic, sour, flemmish heaven. The kind of beer that you pull the cork out of, take a wif of the 10 year old brettanomyces and your entire gastro-intestinal tract squeezes together in a sour pinch. Moving down the line, as I am not looking for a vomit inducing Flemmish Brown Ale I hit the wall of Trappists. My jaw dropped to the ground and I after many agonizing minutes I was finally on my way to cave diving with a trunk full of some of the best beers in the world.
Enough about beer. Lets talk caves. Luraville is like a second home to me now and that’s where I am. Right smack dab in the middle of one of my favourite places on earth. I crash early, get up, get the gear together and head out. It's dive time and Finn and I head out for an easy cruise in P1. Finn has to screw with his gear a bunch, but that's cool. Sidemount is like that for a while. We splash in, do a couple of jumps up into the wish bone and head home. Nice and relaxing, Finn likes is slow. I of course too the opportunity to stick my head in a bunch of places I haven't been, looking for lines and leads and basically criss-crossing the cave like a gerbil on meth.
For our second performance we head out to Cow and I show Mr Finn what sidemount is about. Well, I show him the start of some real nice stuff and we pass though a couple of nasties in what is a good entry level sidemount tunnel. This is the hellbender bypass and it isn't on 'the map'. Its a nice cave and it starts of deceptively easy. You cruise though some stuff that would be backmountable and it start pinching down. The cave topografy is hard and jagged limestone solution tube with sharp and point things sticking out. Well it gets smaller until you are moderately tight. Moving forward is difficult as the cave grabs as you in fits and starts. Vis deteriorates significantly as I pass though a bell crawl and Finn's first true major restriction and hit the first T. Ascending into clear water with a smirk on my face I wait for him to figure out that mess with vis measured in inches. Of course as soon as he gets though, we turn it. Continuing passed the T and you hit a vertical restriction that makes Hell Bender look like the 417. But that dumps you into some absolutely untouched clay beds. Stunning cave this.
Back at the trailer Mike thinks his cold is breaking. He mentions diving tomorrow. Ok, cool. Next thing you know we are splashing in for a nice circuit. P1 though Olsen to the P-Nut and out. Lovely dive. I see lots more holes I want to hit. So next dive is hits vill. We head back toward Luravile at Cathies using the 2 wheel swamp mobile rental I got. We get within about 1000 meters of Manhole before I stop driving for fear of never getting out. After a bit of swamp walking, Manhole is a mess. By mess, I mean a tannic filled sess pool. We check Escape Hatch and Luraville Spring for kicks, and they both look about as promising as diving in the pools at the Ottawa Sewage Plant. So back to P1 it is.
Start off the same, as in drop down the crack at P1 to the main line. About 30 feet up the main line, we jump onto shortcut. Not many people know its there. Probably shaves 50 feet off the swim to Pothole and it's just as big. Nice to be swimming over places without hand prints again. Back onto the main line for a couple hundred feet, then into another unmarked shortcut that spits you our near the Cistein jump. Shortly after that at another unmarked jump it's time to do some darkwater fun. The jump is setup low, then almost straight up a silt bank and then back on your self into a tube. Then it goes over a cavern, around a rock post, straight down and zig-zags back on itself again into the cavern. Then it gets low and silty. Arched domes connected with duck unders. Domes are filled with a nice silt cone and the buoyancy work is demanding. That spits you out on crossover which we head right on toward Olsen. We pop out and chat then head back. We jump off onto the short survey line right at the start of Olsen and that dumps out passed the Crossover jump heading back. A little detour down the pothole-breakdown line latter and a nice easy swim out and a bit of playing down some little holes and we get back to the sign at the bottom of the entrance shaft.
But wait, dive isn't over its only been 90 minutes! Recalculating thirds we head off into the Well. A great way to add some deco to a long dive, since it drops you quite deep (for P1). Lots of side tunnels in there demanding return trips and the Well it self is quite spectacular in its own, foreboding, silty way.
On the way back to the trailer that night I swing by Cow. What was a beautiful clear blue sink hole yesterday is now a tannic filled mess. Water has almost bridged to the river, and you can see the flow reversing into Cow drawing river water with it. Good stuff.
Next day we have a repeat dive with Mike and Finn in Darkwater/Olsen/Well. Good stuff, but this time I was #3 and got to see.. well.. silt. Dive after that Mike and I head over to P3. This has got to be the best conditions I have dove P3 in. The water was crystal clear and there was no noticeable siphon. We head out and after a few misses we complete the 'easy circuit' with a brief peek at the castle and a look-see at the hole and the outflow tunnel passed the T.
Next day we are gearing up for a repeat dive with Mike and Finn at P3. In the course of ~12 hours the pool at P3 has turned a murky brown. But I think we should be good to go, it'll clear up. Everyone else is in agreement - its not that bad. We go get into drysuits and come back to strap on tanks. In the space of 20 minutes the river crested over the slough and started trickling into the P3 basin. Still undaunted, we grope around for a few minutes in 3 foot tannic vis getting a reel into the gold line and swim into blue water at ~300 foot mark. Complete a fantastic dive. Of course, the tannic was 600-700 feet in on the way out. It was like watching a wall of brown mush crash over. Quite impressive to see. Getting up near the roof in that tannic was one of the most spectacular sights I have ever enjoyed in a cave. Much like a halocline the tannic and the spring water layered it self. The spring water layer was about 2 feet deep on top of the dense tannic. The sculpted roof dipped down into the tannic like so many cobwebs in a multifaceted arched glory. By the time we got out, there was a small waterfall poring into P3 basin. By the time the day was over P3 was a swirling vortex and sucking small logs into the system.
For our next feet we decided to head out to Waterhole - the hard way. That almost worked, except we weren’t prepared for a certain T and turned around in there. We finished the dive with a swim up P-Nut taking all the little side tunnels along the way and a little trip toward the spiral hole.
The last dive I'll mention was in Orange Grove. Tannic into about 600 feet, it still turned out fantastic, as Mike and I swam out to the end of the distance tunnel with a number of side trips. Getting to the first T is nice. But after that T it's just crazy nice. And Crazy too. I can't even describe how messed up the lines are back there other than to say at one point there are two lines running parallel down the passage 1 foot apart, but they both go completely different places. Low and fun. I'll be back.
Great trip, great diving. Luraville has some part of my soul that I'll never get back. Even if all my caves are flooded and I am 'stuck' diving P1.
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