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Yesterday the WKPP finally executed the swimthrough from Big
Dismal to Cheryl Sink. With heavy TV coverage and the drawing card of
this being a new World's Record traverse dive, hopefully the importance
of this hydrological phenomenon will call attention to itself for the
right reasons, and the flawless dive execution and professionalism of
the WKPP will go a ways towards offsetting the fiasco for cave diving
created by Bill Stone and the his "usdct" band of know it alls this
winter.
JJ and I set the dive up Friday night with the much appreciated
help of Billy Baxter and Jody Everett, who came all the way from North
Carolina and Tennessee and Bob Sherwood whno came from New York to be
there and were joined by Anthony Rue , Nancy Levake and others from JJ's
organization ( GUE ) who made this dive possible. We ran stages out to
the Bitter End, a dive that took more than an hour at depth and required
deco past midnight. The flow was a real problem, and carrying enough gas
to get the gas out there is a trick while carrying enough scooters and
all with the spread out decompression gasses.
We went in the "shortcut" which has really gotten small with
accumulated sand. Of course we got stuck at the same spot Sherwood died
a few years ago, reminding us of the seriousness of what we were doing
and making JJ and I both glad that we do not bend to the bullshit but
stick to the rules. The whole dive was a lot of work, but we had to get
back to the Fisher Creek inflow area to be sure the dive was doable, and
to place the stages and check the safeties already in there. A long
ride. We then had to go out the long way and check that whole line,
which we had to pull up from the sand in several spots. I had returned
the arrows to their correct positions after some officious stroke
changed them at the "Loop" tunnel, something that when I find out who
would change line arrows on a survey they do not know , I will be sure
they never get the chance where I am diving again.
We met at the Geological Area in the Appalachicola national Forest the
next morning at 8:00 joined by Dawn and a few more of our regulars, with
Keith Suderman showing up to run the Big D side. Dawn will have the
details on everything else, with the names. JJ, Ted Cole and I put in
there and ran downstream on the usual two stages/safeties set for the
shallower depths, carrying two more stages for the ride through the
deeper water. Terry Koritz and Greg Jackson stood by behind us to go
collect the first stage bottle and pull our emergency deco gas once Dawn
phoned back from Cheryl to say we had made it to deco. They had a great
dive; Big D is as clear as it has ever been, one of the most beautiful
white-walled giant caves in the WKP, a fantastic ride.
We went down the slide after 3500 feet and prepared for the rest of
the 14,000 foot traverse, going to deep gas at the "Window", a split
where the Leon Sinks tunnel heads South. That set of bottles will be
retrieved when we go back to work Big d in a couple of weeks. The cave
drops to 250 right there, but the rest is mostly 220ish with some rises
into the 160's in an amazing tunnel that proved to have several incoming
leads that we had previously not seen, and some we had seen a long time
ago but had not been able to relocate due to the bad conditons. We
mommentarily stopped to look down into the White Abyss, a split found on
one of the first dives up there years ago. Conditions for this dive were
perfect.
At about 8500 feet out we had to decompress into the Fisher Creek
Room, or "Second" Black Abyss, through a restriction that looks much
like the one in the first Black Abyss, only bigger. Here we have to go
up to 70 feet and then scooter across an 800 foot section at 100 feet -
not for the bendable diver, and then back down to our next stage and
safety bottle depot. We snagged the stage and took it with us, holding
it for the section closer to the end, since it was the 18X40 deep
decompression mix that we would use to come up on, and we had just gone
to our second 11X55 bottle anyway, and had full hundreds, with nine more
safties between us and the door. We considered switching scooters here,
but stayed on the ones we were riding for the full distance.
We had videoed the whole way from the Window to Fisher Creek, with
plans to do the Bid D side and the run from "Far Point Station" , the
connection point between Cheryl and Sullivan which is next to the Bitter
End T , on separate dives.
We got through to our waiting greet team in 100 minutes , they took
our extra stuff and went back to tell the topside crew to send Koritz
downstream. We decoed out and the other side packed up , with all of us
meeting at Lucy's at 6:30.
Brent Scarabin had a death in the family and could not dive, so Ted
Cole stepped in and performed flawlessly, keeping the coordidation
between me navigating and JJ videoing without a hitch, a testimony to
his skill and his adherence to the tenets of our system without a hint
of personal preference or other know-better thinking that plagues so
many of those with whom we can not effectively execute a dive. A real
player and one that JJ and I can count on to carry this project forward,
also now holder of the World's Record "Trust Me" dive. He did ask me for
the route in case I died of old age during the dive, but once we got to
where he knew the cave, and he realized he was going to live through it,
he started pushing me with his scooter. I really blew it by not whipping
out the wetnotes and telling him I was not sure which way to go at one
of the T's, a favorite trick of Parker Turner's, which I always fell
for.
A great dive, and a perfect execution by the WKPP Team. It is
incredible what these guys can do in no time at all. Dawn will have the
rest of the story. 14,000 feet with no openings - a new World's Record
underwater traverse , the old one also being held by the WKPP.
We have CPR and other training next week, then Wakulla, then Big D
and other Leon sites, then maybe Wakulla again , then Leon , and so
forth while these perfect conditions hold up.
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