Lot & Dordogne February 2007

Team: Roland & Robin

We could not resist to visit the St.Sauveur again on this tour and made a short check TG armed with a stage. We entered the Sauveur to 40 m depth and found about 8-10 m visibility, however, the flow was borderline, we met the troop around Jerome Meynie again, because here was just a smaller project.

Jerome was of the opinion that the flow would surely decrease the next day. So the next day we prepared for a trimix dive. It was planned that Robin OC dives with 4 x 80 cf Trimix 15/55+ 3 deco gases and D18 and Roland with Rb 80 and a Trimixstage together with 3 deco gases.

Since the planned penetration was limited to max 550m, we planned with 3 gavinscooters (including 1 backup). Of course the flow did not decrease but increased and Jerome and his team had a lot of problems to get the decompression gases out of the cave at 36m. It went forward only with pull and glide. Since half the day had passed, we rounded off this unpleasant day with a good meal in our house and planned to go to the Ressel the next day.
The next day we planned to go to the Ressel, because we were told about 15m visibility without noticeable flow.

We aimed at the 1500m mark at the TG in the Ressel, as there was a high leading shaft back there and the deepest part of the cave that you have to pass to cross Sump 1. 

We planned as follows: Robin with D 18 with 250 bar Trimix 15/55 as well as 5 x 80 cf Trimix 15/55 and 3 deco gases ( 8 stages) as well as 1 Magnum Gavin, 1 Standard Gavin as backup.

Roland with RB 80 and D20 Bailout as well as 1 x 80 cf Trimix 17/55 and 3 deco gases (4 stages) and 2 Standard Gavin (1 as backup). We did a small setup tg and put some of the deco gases and trimxstages down the shaft and were out of the cave after 25 min. Roland took over two trimixstages from Robin, so in the deep part, after dropping the deco gases Roland was with 3 and Robin with 3 trimixstages.

We scooted quickly into the cave, Robin put to each empty breathed stage a full one for the way back, to progress quickly and effectively. We passed the fourth T junction and followed here the course of the line or wire to
half-left further into the cave and scooted past various "sights". Someone really left a lead belt on the line at about 1300m. So if anyone needs some lead...... On the way Robin got stuck several times the inlet button of the inflator of the drysuit and let plenty of argon into the drysuit after a few hits on the inflator button the problem was fixed. We were then on the trigger for about 2-3 more minutes and Robin again pushed the inflator inlet button to release argon into the drysuit. We had reached a depth of about 67 m at this point and the depth profile was dropping slowly and steadily and Robin was out of argon... Blowing the trimix into my drysuit was out of the question. Roland gave me a little argon and we scooted about 100 meters further and then decided to turn back, because the suit was already squeezing me well. We reached a maximum depth of 73 meters and were just before the deepest point of the Ressel at about 1450 meters from the entrance. The fifth Bottommixstage was not touched and we went on the 4 Stage back towards the shaft. It was a wonderful relief as we dove shallower and shallower on the deco and the gas expanded in the drysuit. The deco went smoothly as usual. After 295 min the TG was finished.

In this sense,

Your Cavebase