France (Jura) / Switzerland
Team: Manuel Fiore
Guests: Chris Sandrini (DIR-Schweiz) und Danny Beiert
After our survey at the 'Pont du Diable' (Link) Chris and I decided to return to the Gouron and finish our clean-up project. For support we invited our friend Danny Beiert. Fri. 16.03.2012 After Danny had fought his way through all the traffic jams of this world to me, we start after a short reloading around 8 pm in the direction of Switzerland. Chris took advantage of our delay and had already knotted Caveline in 3 meter intervals and equipped his Explorer reel with it. After arriving at Casa Sandrini, we quickly loaded all the equipment into Chris' bus and discussed the next day's dive in detail.
Saturday
We started around 7:30 am and reached our destination in the Jura after a 3.5 hour drive. A description of the entry and some pictures can be found in the first report :) On the way we made a pit stop and enjoyed the beautiful nature. The water of the Loue was nice and clear again, but had a much higher water level and flow. True to the motto "nothing ventured, nothing gained", we did not think long and started with the setup.
Chris dived again with D20 and 2 x BTM 18/45, but had to take 2 x 50/20 as well as 2 x O2 for the two ascent phases. Danny and I were with RB in the D12 frame and 1 x BTM 18/45, 1 x 50/25 and 1 x O2. All equipped with a heater as before. After all the back gear was assembled and the stages in the water, we had a quick snack and put on our drys.
The descent in the Loue was much faster this time due to the stronger current. Arriving at the cave entrance, Chris fixed the primary tie-off and we dove into the depths.
First on the team was Chris, he had the task of mending / repositioning the line. We knew from a report on www.caveconditions.com, from February, that; the line had broken. During the descent, Danny and I did not put down any stages, as we still needed them for the ascent phase in the back of the cave. Our OC-ler who had both deco gases doubled was able to relieve himself of the first two stages.
On the way into the cave, I had the luxury of watching the two of them work. The two had nevertheless clearly more to patch and lay as expected. In the rear area, especially in the "shaft" the visibility deteriorated to partly half a meter and the grip on the line came automatically. After about 2 h we stretched our heads out of the water in the dry area of the Gouron. During the O2 deco Danny and I had already started to clean up some line chaos.
Since we knew what to expect on the way back, we kept the surface break very short and dove down again after about 5 min. We had already decided, based on the experience of the last clean-up, to only lay the new line on the way in and to remove the existing line chaos on the way out. During the clean-up it is very easy to get a siltout.
Danny, armed with side cutters, started to clean up and I supported him by carrying the collection bag. Chris helped me stow the coiled boulders, shining a light whenever possible and keeping an eye on everything. This dive showed once again that a team of three is the ideal cast for such dives.
We managed to remove almost all of the old and crisscrossed lines and wires. Only a distance of about 50 m we could not manage, because the collection bag was about to burst and we could not put anything in it.
After a total dive time of 296 minutes we surfaced in the Loue.
Exhausted, we still dragged our tanks out of the water and then enjoyed the sight of our booty : ). When we were done with changing and stowing the equipment, it was already dark and our beloved headlamps were used again. As a reward, we had a burger at Cindy's diner on the way home to Zurich, a dream!
Sunday
For today we had planned only a relaxed dive at the Walensee. After about 80 min. the pleasure was already over. What a sight when surfacing : ). After a joint lunch Danny and I started our journey home again.
Many thanks to Chris and Danny! It was an honor!
In this sense,
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