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* Cheryl Sink is not open to the public
This weekend the WKPP dove upstream Cheryl for the first time in what
seems like years. The last time I dove in there was the second cave dive
I ever did with the Halcyon. The time before that was to repair the
lines in the spot where Sherwood got killed, the time before that was at
the time a record penetration at depth - 7500 feet at 220. It has been a
while - 1992 to be exact since we found the tunnel that leads to Big
Dismal, which we connected from the other end a few years ago.
Diving out to that point from the downstream side reminded of two
things: how tough this really can get, and how unlikely it is that
anyone who has not done a whole lot of this for a long , long time will
ever approximate what we do. This was one tough dive, and only half the
distance and 100 feet shallower than what we have done elsewhere in the
WKP.
I also checked the survey, and found that Gavin laid a lot more line
that what the data on Sherwood's slate revealed - about 600 feet more,
but it took some hard zig zags back and forth to get to the same spot I
had assumed in the first place. The other end of the connection had done
the same thing. The cave distance between the two sinks is around 14,000
feet. We ran out about 9,000 to that point, checked it , marked the
leads between the Second Black Abyss and the connection, set some
safeties, and came out the long way.
This was what is now known as "open circuit heroics" - a five stage dive
to be exact. The max depth is 250, the average is around 220, there is a
lot of 177-215 up and down , the shallowest point is 65, and the bottom
time was an even two hours and twenty minutes at depth ( we do not count
the fist 1000 feet of 100 foot stuff or shallow time ).
The dive is a real case study in technical diving due to the logistics,
and always has been. We use it to train our divers. Too bad nobody else
is allowed in there amymore. The shape of the cave dictates that the
deco gas is spread out over 1000 linear feet. We have divers run the
deep deco gas back to the abyss with scooters, and drop off the stages
and safeties that are going forward at the restriction there.
Jump teams then go in on the deep deco gas, switch at the restriction,
and start moving the bottles forward. Thre is another long restriction
about 1000 feet further in. This time the jump teams went the long way
around this (another 1000 feet), and Brent and I went through the
restriction, since we were on a double at that point. Billy Baxter,
Errol Kalachi, Bill Lais, Chuck Noe, Greg Jackson, Johnathan Gol et al
did the Abyss work both ways, while Ted Cole , Chris Werner, John Rose,
Bill Mee and Jess Armentrout did the jumps.
We crossed Ted and Chris on the other side of the "Shortcut"
restriction, and they told us that John, Bill and Trout had gone out the
long way. We switched and picked up the appropriate bottles, and
scootered past the logs, the Keyhole, and the Sinkhole to the second
stage drop. Up to this point, the flow is howling, since the cave is
smaller and both the Big Dismal System and the Sullivan Cave are feeding
it from much larger conduits. Dragging all of that stuff through the up
and down , black walled, tannic-stained Leon Sinks Cave is rough. The
line is the same color as the walls, and is mostly on the ceiling.
At about 4500 feet upstream it gets down to a solid 235, and gets big
just as we hit the Bitter End Tunnel leading to Big Dismal. Turning in
here , the line is crusted over with junk and untouched for years - I
scooterd on the line cleaning it off. Now the slope starts to come up,
and Brent and I have to deco up the hill, knowing that we have 700 feet
of 100 foot deep water with a 65 foot spot in front of us before we can
get back down, and we need to look around up there. When we put that
line in back in 1992, we ran a spol to get the line up out of a huge
silt cone in the 65 spot - the ceiling is at 40 feet- and not only did
my drysuit run away, but my compass got stuck in my scooter trigger and
my scooter stuck on - a real treat.
We found what we were looking for - the bad water comes in right there -
probably Fisher Creek. We then scootered down the Second Black Abyss
and dropped our third stage there - we would need more gas in that one
on the way back to deco again.
Moving on in, I rode the line and the right while Brent checked every
dark spot on the left and above . Now the vis was much improved since we
were past the Abyss and Big D was not blowing bad water at all. This is
where the cave gets good. It is much bigger here, and the shapes are
more interesting, mostly a diamond tunnel, and the walls alternate
between the black of Leon Sinks to the white of the springs. We marked
one extemely good tunnel, after momentarily checking out the White
Abyss, which is no longer white. When we first put the line in that one,
it was like Little Dismal - now it is nasty.
The ride on up to Big D was a long one, and the cave bigger and deeper,
but when we finally turned around at 80 minutes, we were riding
downhill. Th only problem then is that we have to deco at the second
abyss, but at least we can do that at about 140-120 without too much gas
being used up. After we get back to the intersection, we have the full
current, but now we have the empty bottles, and can not go out the way
we came in, so have to go the long way. We got a little scare in there
when we passed a place where somebody had retied the line without regard
for the line arrows on it, and had actually made them point the wrong
way in the process. This is why those who do not know a survey should
not leave arrows in the cave or mess with the lines. This mistake was
made a spot where the line goes two ways around an "island", and then
there is a loop tunnel which goes over the main tunnel and back in on
the other side of the tunnel - very confusing if you do not know the
survey, and this is always where somebody decides that I have made a
mistake, and they reverse my arrows. This again flipped me out when I
saw my own arrows change direction on me after 150 minutes of scootering
- not too cool, but let off the hammer, checked the flow, and I ignored
it.
Back at the Black Abyss our guys were waiting, and we passed off our
stages to them, and they waited with us until we got through the deep
part of the deco and onto our next bottle, and they moved out with the
gear and the extra scooters. Brent and I went to small lights and moved
around the Abyss looking at crayfish for while until we got through our
90 foot stop, and then we scooterd in towards the entrance. The crays
can "feel" the big lights, but are easily observed with the little
lights.
The interesting thing that nobody believes about these dives is that if
you shape the deco properly, use the right bottom gas and the right deco
gases, the deco time is significantly shorter than is generally
predicted by the standard models. For instance, I did 3 hours and
fifteen minutes of deco for a 140 minute ( just shy of two and one half
hours ) bottom time on a 220 schedule, and got out clean, and that is
with no troughs or other conveniences, and using oxygen at 20 feet, with
a brief 15, 10, 5 and surface safety stop.
It rained today, but if the water clarity holds up, we will setup the
"swimthrough" and run that. This will be a great chance for us to use
all of the gas divers and get some new ones going. We have to set up
both sides completely. Also, just the setup in Big D and Cheryl are nice
cave dives themselves, with the Big D shallow dives being 4000 feet
long, and the gas dives in Cheryl ranging from 2000 - 5000 feet. We will
need to get the full team going for this one.
We need everyone to contribute safeties again. Most of our stuff is
still in Wakulla, and will be needed there once Stone gets out. We also
need to set up Turner this year ( we have access again ), and a few
others, so we need everyone to participate in this . Please keep in mind
that dives in any of thes places are team scheduled events only - by
appointment, just like the Forest. I will take no chances of pissing off
the landowners on these.
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